

 Inferences of Competence from Snap Judgments of Faces Predict Election Outcomes  - DaniFong
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S19/28/30C37/index.xml?section=science

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13ren
_"Voters are not that rational, after all"_

What if people make _accurate_ snap judgments of competence?

Not necessarily perfect, but better than 50% (e.g. 68.6% and 72.4% in TA).

To test this with politicians, we'd need to test the judgment against an
objective measure of competence. This could be made after they completed their
term of government, and taking into account only their actions and responses,
and not circumstances beyond their control.

But I wonder if is there an objective measure of a statesman's competence...

~~~
DaniFong
_What if people do make accurate snap judgments of competence?_

This would be pretty interesting if it were true at any major level of
significance. I doubt it could be as high as 68% though.

More significantly, what someone looks like should probably be outclassed by
other factors. There's no real measure of competence except competence. Looks
are just noise. But that's not how voters tend, apparently.

Recall the Warren Harding effect.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Harding>

He wasn't much of a politician, or an orator. William MacAdoo describe his
campaign speeches as "an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape
in search of an idea." But he sure looked like a distinguished statesman.

Yet he was a bum. One of the worst presidents ever, though immensely popular
in office.

~~~
jsdalton
I agree, it's an interesting question. Keep in mind that "looks" doesn't
necessarily mean "good looking," it just means an assessment of competence
based upon physical appearance.

I think our knee-jerk reaction these days is to assume that looks don't matter
categorically, and that any time we observe humans judging others based on
looks some primitive bias is at work.

Two things come to mind that might challenge that assumption:

1\. If outward appearance were such a poor determiner of attributes like
competence, humankind's use of appearance to formulate snap judgments about
others would be an exceptionally poor survival strategy from an evolutionary
perspective.

2\. The fact that we are duped from time to time by the Warran Harding's of
the world could in fact be the exception that proves the rule. That is,
because the rule proves true so frequently in our experience, it leaves an
opening for the occasional impostor who looks the part to take advantage of
our otherwise frequently accurate intuitive judgements.

Like the commenter above you said, I'd be interested in seeing someone test
these theories more thoroughly, perhaps against a profession where competence
can be more objectively measured.

~~~
13ren
I saw your reply just after posting mine (though you posted ahead of me). Very
similar.

One factor that is counter to your point 1: it could be that in our
evolutionary past, there was greater variation in physical appearance than
today that did affect competence, such as disease, malnutrition and accident,
and so judgments based on appearance had greater predictive power then than
they do today - but we still retain it as a basis of judgment.

A scary thought is that judgments of "competence" might really be judgments of
"power" - i.e. it's judging whether you'd better go along with them; not their
competence. In fairy tales, the princes and princesses are good looking,
because they are well-nourished, looked after and trained - which is because
they are supported by a power structure (the king/queen). Regardless of their
"competence", you'd better defer to them. Keen awareness of the local power
structure is strong in gregarious animals like us.

I'm suggesting that health and confidence are indicators of power to our
evolutionarily-trained instincts.

~~~
DaniFong
There's an example that's fairly easy to measure. tallness.

Here's what Malcom Gladwell had to say:

 _I polled about half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list--the largest
corporations in the United States--asking each company questions about its
CEO. The heads of big companies are, as I'm sure comes as no surprise to
anyone, overwhelmingly white men, which undoubtedly reflects some kind of
implicit bias. But they are also virtually all tall: In my sample, I found
that on average CEOs were just a shade under six feet. Given that the average
American male is 5'9" that means that CEOs, as a group, have about three
inches on the rest of their sex. But this statistic actually understates
matters. In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or
over. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even
more strikingly, in the general American population, 3.9 percent of adult men
are 6'2" or taller. Among my CEO sample, 30 percent were 6'2" or taller._

Whatever the reasoning, Americans seem to want to be lead by taller people.

Maybe there is some actual correlation between competence and looks. That
wouldn't be terribly startling (though maybe it's due large to the fact that
competent looking people are given more opportunities).

But what _would_ be startling is for it to have such an overwhelming effect.
That, I'm almost sure, is a fluke.

~~~
13ren
I think you're suggesting "tallness" as an alternative to "looking competent",
but I'm already happy with the article's definition and method of measuring
"looking competent" as objective.

I was asking for an arena with an objective measure of _"actual competence"_
(not opinion, and not affected by circumstance). One example is how straight a
line someone can draw. The performance of politicians and CEOs is notoriously
affected by circumstance.

A possible experiment design: rank people by to how "competent they look"
(using the article's method); then rank their "actual competence", by the
objective measurement of how straight a line they can draw. What is the
correlation between "competent looking" and "actual competence"?

Another area in where competence can be objectively measured grammatic
correctness (written or spoken). Or, standard tests: IQ tests, university
tests/entrance exams. Very convenient for a psych dept, so I bet it's been
done to death.

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vlad
I believe the human tendency to evaluate a person based on one's physical
fitness, posture, and looks is relevant to society, assuming other credentials
of a certain job or role have been or will be satisfied as familiarity with
the person grows. At the very least, it shows the person can balance their
life and have time to care of themselves. While having lots of personal time
doesn't necessarily demonstrate that the person would be appropriate for a
particular function, an individual who is confident, fit, happy, and clearly
takes care of their appearance is often both good at balancing their life, as
well as has the resources to do so (such as a gym membership, knowledge of how
to take care of themselves, toiletries, flexible work hours, respect from
others, money or money management skills--like eating ramen, etc.)

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MaysonL
I wonder what a similar test would reveal about chances of being hired by
Google?

