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apharhttp://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=the-body-politic-candidates-compete-2009-02-26
Swiss adults unfamiliar with French politics were shown 57 pairs of photos of opponents from an old French parliamentary election and asked to pick which ones looked most competent. In a separate experiment, Swiss kids ages 5 to 13 played a computer game that enacted Odysseus' trip from Troy to Ithaca. Then, using the same pairs of photos, researchers asked the kids which candidate they'd choose to captain their ship. In both experiments, the adults and children tended to pick the winners of the election.
"Adults and children infer competence in precisely the same way, whether that [person] is six or seven — or 67. That is the shocking finding here," study co-author John Antonakis, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Lausanne, tells ScientificAmerican.com. "This stereotype is already formed in young childhood, which leads us to suggest this mechanism is innate or develops very, very rapidly at a young age."
Kids' publisher Scholastic, which has held student presidential votes since 1940, says that their results have been the same as the general election outcome all but twice, in 1948 and 1960. In 2000, the kids voted the same as the Electoral College – and so, for George W. Bush — but not the popular vote, which went to Al Gore.
None of this is to say that the truism "don't judge a book by its cover" is obsolete. While our judgments about competence tend to translate into election results, they're not so great at predicting true leadership. What does correlate with a president's performance is his estimated IQ — not his face.
Swiss adults unfamiliar with French politics were shown 57 pairs of photos of opponents from an old French parliamentary election and asked to pick which ones looked most competent. In a separate experiment, Swiss kids ages 5 to 13 played a computer game that enacted Odysseus' trip from Troy to Ithaca. Then, using the same pairs of photos, researchers asked the kids which candidate they'd choose to captain their ship. In both experiments, the adults and children tended to pick the winners of the election.
"Adults and children infer competence in precisely the same way, whether that [person] is six or seven — or 67. That is the shocking finding here," study co-author John Antonakis, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Lausanne, tells ScientificAmerican.com. "This stereotype is already formed in young childhood, which leads us to suggest this mechanism is innate or develops very, very rapidly at a young age."
Kids' publisher Scholastic, which has held student presidential votes since 1940, says that their results have been the same as the general election outcome all but twice, in 1948 and 1960. In 2000, the kids voted the same as the Electoral College – and so, for George W. Bush — but not the popular vote, which went to Al Gore.
None of this is to say that the truism "don't judge a book by its cover" is obsolete. While our judgments about competence tend to translate into election results, they're not so great at predicting true leadership. What does correlate with a president's performance is his estimated IQ — not his face.
