Halo Effects and the Attractiveness Premium in Perceptions of Political Expertise

• Author: Rolfe D. Peterson,Carl L. Palmer
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X15600517
• Published date: 01 March 2016
• Date: 01 March 2016
• Subject Matter: Articles

600517APRXXX10.1177/1532673X15600517American Politics ResearchPalmer and Peterson
research-article2015
Article
American Politics Research
2016, Vol. 44(2) 353 –382
Halo Effects and the
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X15600517
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in Perceptions of Political
Expertise
Carl L. Palmer1 and Rolfe D. Peterson2
Abstract
Physical appearance, both our own and that of others, is a common influence
on social interactions. In this article, we consider whether appearance
also plays a role in how we come to understand politics. As a test, we
use American National Election Study survey data, which includes the
interviewer’s subjective ratings of respondents’ appearance and perceived
political knowledge. We bolster the ANES results with a pair of survey
experiments where subjects evaluated randomly assigned potential political
discussion partners. Our results show that more attractive individuals are
viewed as more knowledgeable and more persuasive, and are more likely
to be sought out by others for political information. In addition, more
attractive individuals (even the relatively uninformed) are more likely to
report attempting to persuade others. These findings have implications for
our understanding of how citizens identify political experts, the potential
for the spread of misinformation, and the political judgments citizens make.
Keywords
halo effect, attractiveness stereotypes, political expertise
1Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA
2Mercyhurst University, Erie, PA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Carl L. Palmer, Department of Politics and Government, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
61790, USA.
Email: clpalme@ilstu.edu

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American Politics Research 44(2)
For many citizens, politics appears just as Lippmann (1922) described it
decades ago—as a “great blooming buzzing confusion” (p. 63). Information
abounds, yet few take the time to learn more than a cursory amount about
the day-to-day events of politics. As a consequence, the politically engaged
play an important role in politics, as citizens are thought to be capable of
correctly recognizing political experts in their social networks and relying
on these informed citizens as credible sources of political information
to make informed decisions (Ahn, Huckfeldt, & Ryan, 2010; Huckfeldt,
2001).
If citizens are capable of identifying political experts, and turn to said
experts for political information, then concerns about citizen capacity
should be mitigated. However, citizens’ perceptions of the competence of
others may not always be unbiased. Scholarship in electoral politics has
shown that better-looking candidates tend to be judged as more competent
(Olivola & Todorov, 2010; Verhulst, Lodge, & Lavine, 2010). Such per-
ceived competence based on facial features also has been shown to predict
election outcomes at rates much greater than chance (Ballew & Todorov,
2007; Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005), particularly among
those disengaged from politics (King & Leigh, 2009; Lenz & Lawson,
2011). If citizens make such misattributions about political candidates,
could they make the same mistakes when seeking out political discussion
partners?
In this article, we consider whether attractive individuals are perceived as
being more politically knowledgeable. If citizens place a premium on physi-
cal appearance as an indicator of political expertise, the reliance on others as
sources of political information may lead to uninformed citizens being led
astray. A substantial body of research in psychology and political science
gives us good reason to expect that attractiveness effects should be present in
mass politics and evaluations of expertise.
Our survey results suggest that interviewers’ subjective assessments of
respondent knowledge are upwardly biased by the respondents’ physical
appearance, even after controlling for actual knowledge. In addition, more
attractive respondents (even more poorly informed ones) are more likely
to report attempting to persuade others. Our experimental results corrobo-
rate these findings, showing that more attractive individuals are seen as
more knowledgeable and persuasive, and subjects were more willing to
turn to more attractive individuals as potential sources for political infor-
mation. Together, our results have implications for the quality of decisions
made by uninformed and informed voters alike, as well as how we con-
sider interviewer–respondent interactions and the quality of interview
data.

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Palmer and Peterson
355
Stereotyping the Beautiful
The physical appearance of others is one of the first characteristics we regis-
ter when encountering someone, whether familiar or not. These assessments
occur automatically, often unconsciously (Olson & Marshuetz, 2005). Such
tendencies, and, more importantly, the conceptualization of what is attractive,
appears to be consistent within cultural groups (Cunningham, Roberts,
Barbee, Druen, & Wu, 1995) and are thought by some to be both universal
(Berscheid & Walster, 1974; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986) and stable over time
(Zebrowitz, Olson, & Hoffman, 1993).
In the seminal work on the effect of appearance on social interactions,
Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972) theorize that individuals, when asked to
evaluate an attractive other, would more readily assert that more attractive
individuals were happier and more successful in their lives than less attrac-
tive individuals, applying an “attractiveness stereotype” to their judgments.
Subsequent research suggests that such biases lead individuals to perceive
attractive individuals as more sociable, socially skilled, and popular, as well
as more competent (Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991; Feingold,
1992) and intelligent (Lemay, Clark, & Greenberg, 2010; Lorenzo, Biesanz,
& Human, 2010; Paunano, 2006; Sheppard, Goffin, Lewis, & Olson, 2011).1
These effects are even relatively consistent across gender of target and per-
ceiver (Eagly et al., 1991; Feingold, 1992).
The attractiveness stereotype is a specific instance of a more general psy-
chological principle known as the halo effect, in which individuals ascribe
characteristics to others based on the presence of another observable charac-
teristic (Thorndike, 1920). Such errors are stunningly prevalent in data
derived from ratings of others (Kozlowski, Kirsch, & Chao, 1986), to such an
extent that one scholar described the problem thusly: “halo error, like death
and taxes, seems inevitable” (Feldman, 1986, p. 173). Halo errors are thought
to be a reflection of a rater’s inability to differentiate between characteristics
being evaluated, although in many circumstances, these errors occur auto-
matically, below the level of conscious information processing (van Leeuwen
& Macrae, 2004).
The impact of halo errors on evaluations of others may be magnified over
the course of repeated interactions. Student achievement has been shown to
be affected by initial snap judgments made by instructors, which lead instruc-
tors to encourage or discourage student performance, with students respond-
ing accordingly (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1992). In the context of in-depth,
face-to-face interviews, even well-trained interviewers may alter their style
of questioning and probing in light of their initial snap judgments of respon-
dents (for a review of literature on how these processes occur in the context

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American Politics Research 44(2)
of job interviews, see Macan, 2009). Simple changes in eye contact, body
language, or a number of other nonverbal cues on the part of the interviewer
due to how attractive they perceive the respondent to be could potentially
change respondents’ response patterns, in turn affecting how the interviewer
perceives them. Despite our best efforts to remain objective in social situa-
tions, we do judge and treat others differently based on their perceived attrac-
tiveness (Langlois et al., 2000).
Although politics is in many ways a social endeavor, studies of the
political implications of physical attractiveness have largely focused on
the electoral consequences of candidate’s appearance. Work in this vein
shows a powerful role for physical appearance in the minds of voters,
with more attractive candidates seen as more competent, whether based
on snap judgments of candidates perceived for only milliseconds (Ballew
& Todorov, 2007; Lawson, Lenz, Baker, & Meyers, 2010; Mattes &
Milazzo, 2014; Olivola & Todorov, 2010), or when presented images
more conventionally, as they might be in a political campaign (Atkinson,
Enos, & Hill, 2009; Carpinella & Johnson, 2013; Heflick & Goldenberg,
2011).
Beyond competence, there is also a clear preference for more attractive
candidates, with those rated as more attractive enjoying greater electoral
success, both in the United States (Hart, Ottati, & Krumdick, 2011; Hayes,
Lawless, & Baitinger, 2014; Lenz & Lawson, 2011; Little, Burriss, Jones,
& Roberts, 2007; Little, Roberts, Jones, & DeBruine, 2012; Praino,
Stockemer, & Ratis, 2014; Surawski & Ossof, 2006; Waismel-Manor &
Tsfati, 2011), as well as in the comparative context (Banducci, Karp,
Thrasher, & Rallings, 2008; Berggren, Jordahl, & Poutvaara, 2010;
Horiuchi, Komatsu, & Nakaya, 2012; Johns & Shephard, 2011; King &
Leigh, 2009; Laustsen, 2014; Rosar, Klein, & Beckers, 2012; Rule et al.,
2010). Under conditions of limited information, citizens appear to vote
with their...