Conservatives Are Ugly, Too

Back in January I reported here on social science research that concluded that conservative politicians are better looking than liberal politicians, but do you really need social science to prove this? Here’s one data set:

However, while conservative politicians may be better looking, there’s new social science that concludes liberal thinkers and writers are better looking than conservative thinkers and writers. Here’s a news summary:

Lönnqvist’s team of researchers looked at the 100 most recent authors of articles found in two right-leaning scholarly American magazines (Claremont Review of Books and First Things), and in two left-leaning magazines (New York Review of Books and The Humanist Magazine). The team obtained professional portraits of each of the 400 authors, and research assistants were then asked to rate the individuals based on “physical attractiveness, placement on the continuum Right–Left and placement on the continuum Conservative–Liberal.”

Hey wait a minute—I’m a Claremont Review of Books author! So I’m in this sample. I’ve just been called ugly by a social scientist. (A Finnish social scientist at that.)

There is this additional bit though:

The results showed that the more attractive scholars came from the liberal publications, though the authors on the right were viewed as better groomed.

So in other words, we bathe more often than liberals. I could have also told you that without a regression analysis.

The study appeared in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (though I’m confused: I thought, according to liberals, we’re all equal and there are no “individual differences”). The whole article is behind a paywall, but I was able to hack my way through. Here’s my favorite part:

“Science” in action. This “lookist” aggression and marginalization will not stand!

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