A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on October 31st, 2008 in Campaign News

File this under “why did they study this?”:

But for “female candidates for a hypothetical election for the United States presidency, both male and female voters were more likely to vote for candidates that were both competent and attractive,” Chiao said in a telephone interview.

“Neither trait (alone) was sufficient to predict whether a person was going to vote for that candidate,” she added. Chiao’s findings are being published online by the journal PLoS ONE.

Boring methodology part:

They collected photos of congressional candidates from 2006 and asked a panel of 73 college students to rate the candidates for competence, dominance, attractiveness and approachability.

None of the students recognized any of the candidates and most had never voted in a real election.

Overall, men tended to be rated more competent than women. Female students rated male candidates as appearing more dominant, while male students saw no difference in dominance.

All the students rated female candidates more attractive than men, and female candidates were rated as more approachable.

Once they had the sets of ratings for the candidates, the researchers divided them into pairs and asked the students to select which one they would be more likely to choose as president.

Their conclusions about the qualities needed to win votes were based on the winners of those hypothetical contests.

73? You know what the margin of error is for that sample? HUGE! There may be some times when you would limit observations like that, but for a group as large as “college students”? Come on.

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