Political

How do (American) voters view bald or balding candidates?

Welcome to the latest in my occasional series highlighting interesting findings from academic research. Today – how the amount of hair on top has an impact on how voters view the politician underneath:

Governors and members of Congress … are much more likely to have a full head of hair than would be expected of men of their age… [However] no voter bias against bald or balding candidates is apparent, a finding that suggests that the causal mechanism underlying underrepresentation of bald and balding men is not voter bias.

Source: Hair loss and electability: The bald truth, Lee Sigelman, Edwin Dawson, Michael Nitz and Marcia Lynn Whicker, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior (Winter 1990, Volume 14 Issue 4).

Hat-tip: Tim Bale

You can read the other posts in the What do the academics say? series here.

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