Research confirms: Voters are influenced by superficial qualities

In other words, in an ideal world voters would ignore superficial attributes that have nothing to do with leadership quality. Sadly, we don't live in that world.

Alexander Todorov, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has published several studies as well as a fascinating book demonstrating just how much appearance matters in the world of politics.

In one classic experiment , Todorov and his coauthors showed study participants pictures of the faces of obscure and unfamiliar US political candidates. The researchers then asked the participants who they thought looked more competent. Amazingly, people's judgments of how competent a candidate looked predicted actual electoral success roughly 70 percent of the time. Such results have been replicated in other countries, including Australia , France , Italy , Japan , and New Zealand , using photos of local politicians.

Nevertheless, other studies indicate that preferences for a particular type of face are not set in stone. Situational context matters. For instance, when asked to imagine that their country has suddenly plunged into a wartime scenario, voters subsequently supported candidates with wider faces, which they judged to be more dominant than thin faces. The logic here is that people seem to believe that a strong-looking leader will be more likely to bring about victory.

A similar pattern is found for voices — people generally tend to prefer political candidates with deep voices, which they deem to be more dominant. When asked whom they would vote for during a wartime scenario, though, people are especially likely to favor leaders with deep voices.

The desire for dominant characteristics varies depending on whether people feel their circumstances are secure or unstable. Why do people favor such characteristics? The answer is that people seem to conflate physical strength with leadership quality, though there is no evidence the two attributes are related. How a person looks and sounds has nothing to do with effective leadership. But how people look and sound does offer some reliable information about their physical capacities.

Research indicates that people, particularly men, with wider faces are physically stronger, on average. For example, men with narrower faces are less likely to survive a violent altercation than men with wider faces. Another study found that professional Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters with wider faces were more likely to win their bouts.

Likewise, people with deeper voices tend to be robust. For example, studies indicate that people can accurately assess how physically strong a person is based solely on their judgment of the person's vocal pitch. Relatedly, across ages and for both women and men , low voice pitch correlates with greater perceptions of dominance and strength. Similar to the aforementioned study on professional fighters' faces, fighters with deeper voices are more likely to prevail in their contests.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, vocal features play an important role in life outcomes beyond physical contests. For example, CEOs with deeper voices tend to have higher earnings and enjoy longer tenures.

It seems silly that this would play an unconscious role in whom we vote for. Regrettably, people often mentally substitute easy questions for hard ones. The psychologists Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor have characterized people as "cognitive misers," stating that "people are limited in their capacity to process information, so they take shortcuts whenever they can."

When it comes to voting, rather than asking themselves a difficult question ("Is this person a capable leader?"), people often instead ask an easy one ("Is this person physically formidable?").

On the bright side, in the realm of political elections, being judged as competent is more important than any other trait, including attractiveness. It's true that people tend to deem attractive people to be more competent, but when asked to choose between an attractive leader and a competent-looking one, people favor the latter. People would rather have a capable-looking leader than a hot one. Again, this is all based on gut feeling and looks — people are still relying on superficial cues of appearance to determine competence. But at least people are attempting to choose the right quality for leadership.

None of this, of course, means that having the "look of a leader" means someone will be a good one. Nor is there any evidence that voice pitch correlates with leadership skills. Todorov has found that competent-looking CEOs are not better at their jobs, even though they're likely to receive higher compensation packages. At West Point, even after controlling for athleticism and academic ability, dominant-looking cadets are more likely to achieve higher military ranks.

Thus, how a political candidate looks and sounds can influence their likelihood of winning an election.

My favorite study in this vein was conducted in Switzerland. The researchers had 681 children, with an average age of 10, play a computer game reenacting Odysseus's trip from Troy to Ithaca. The kids were then instructed to imagine that they themselves were about to set sail from Troy to Ithaca and to choose between photographs of two people to be the captain of the ship.

Unbeknown to the children, the two people in the photographs were, in fact, French political candidates running in parliamentary elections. The result: Kids' preferred captain was the winner in 70 percent of the political contests. Interestingly, this study was conducted in May 2008, and the children also correctly predicted the outcome of the Obama-McCain election.

All of this research helps to illuminate both Biden's lackluster performance in the polls, despite the continuing strength of the economy, and Trump's slight lead , despite his dubious character and legal battles. As we observed in the debate last week, Biden appears increasingly frail, whereas Trump, though not immune to the effects of aging, still exudes vigor.

Moreover, the changing geopolitical situation may be influencing voter perceptions. The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and the potential one in Taiwan may cause undecided voters to favor a leader who looks and sounds more dominant. Indeed, this may have been an element in Trump's unexpected 2016 victory, when ISIS was a prominent concern.

To gauge what's going to happen in November, we can watch the polls in the impending months.

On the other hand, maybe we'd be better off asking a fifth-grader.