The frog pond beauty contest: Physical attractiveness and electoral success of the constituency candidates at the North Rhine-Westphalia state election of 2005

Abstract

Voters usually do not know much about the biography and political agenda of the local candidates for parliament in their constituency. Since posters with photographs of these candidates are omnipresent on the streets during the election campaign, many voters are at least familiar with their facial appearance. As a consequence, the attractiveness of the constituency candidates substantially influences voter behaviour. This is shown by the example of the North Rhine-Westphalia state election of 2005. Judgments about the attractiveness of the constituency candidates were collected by means of a web survey among members of an online access panel. Respondents were confronted with portrait photographs of local candidates and asked to rate their attractiveness. According to the truth-of-consensus method, the attractiveness score of a candidate is computed by averaging across the different ratings he or she has received. Voter behaviour is captured by the real-life election results in the constituencies. © 2007 The Author(s).