POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND CONSUMPTION

The Face of Political Beliefs: Why Gender Matters

for Electability
AHREUM MAENG AND PANKAJ AGGARWAL

AB STR ACT The facial width-to-height ratio (f WHR) of a person is associated with dominance and leadership. Our
research examines the extent to which a perceiver’s political orientation biases their judgment of a political candidate’s
electability based on the candidate’s facial characteristics, and stereotypes associated with the gender of the candidate.
Four studies suggest that although f WHR is positively correlated with dominance evaluations of male faces, the same
attribution is less likely to be made for female faces. Furthermore, political conservatives show stronger bias than lib-
erals against female faces and are also less likely to elect female candidates associated with lower dominance. Finally,
although liberals show greater intentions to vote for females than for males, high f WHR has little effect on voters’
perceptions of females’ electability regardless of their political orientation.

F
acial images have an enormous impact on electoral
decisions. With simple photographs, voters can pre-
dict election winners and losers (Antonakis and Dalgas
2009) and tell political party affiliations (Rule and Ambady
2010). Recent studies further show that male and female
politicians’ facial cues—the degree of facial masculinity and
femininity— influence voters’ decisions differently for Re-
publicans and Democrats (Carpinella and Johnson 2013a,
2013b; Carpinella et al. 2016). For example, visual informa-
tion affects candidate evaluations more if it is incongruent
with gender stereotypes (i.e., masculine female faces, femi-
nine male faces) than if it is congruent (Bauer and Carpinella
2018). However, less is known about whether political ori-
entation of the observers also affects electability judgments
of male and female candidates based on other facial cues
that signal dominance. The purpose of the current research
is to fill this gap in the literature.
People routinely draw information about a person’s race,
gender, age, and personality from their facial features (Oos-
terhof and Todorov 2008). An ecologically meaningful facial
metric—the face width-to-height ratio (fWHR: bizygomatic
width divided by upperface height)—is a reliable cue that
signals two fundamental dimensions of human personality:
valence and dominance (Carré, McCormick, and Mondloch
2009). Faces with high fWHR are seen as dominant and ag-
gressive but are also less likable (Stirrat and Perrett 2010).
Moreover, individuals with high f WHR are also perceived to
be more suitable for leadership positions and indeed tend to
achieve higher social rank. For instance, compared to the av-
erage American, US Presidents have higher fWHR (Lewis,
Lefevre, and Bates 2012). Similarly, CEOs (Alrajih and Ward
2014) and even Catholic Popes have higher f WHR (Hahn
et al. 2017) than the average person. Thus, high fWHR is as-
sociated with higher rank in social hierarchy across organi-
zations, countries, and value systems (Hahn et al. 2017). Fur-
thermore, CEOs with high fWHR deliver high ROI for their
firms (Wong, Ormiston, and Haselhuhn 2011), and sports-
men with high f WHR perform better (Tsujimura and Ba-
nissy 2013). Thus, high fWHR not only is associated with
perceptions of higher rank and status (Maeng and Aggarwal
2018) but also is linked to greater achievement in social sys-
tems. Unfortunately, these studies are mostly correlational,
typically studying existing leaders (majority of whom are
males), and treating female leaders as noise. Furthermore,

Ahreum Maeng (corresponding author: amaeng@ku.edu) is associate professor of marketing, School of Business, University of Kansas, 1654 Naismith Drive,
Lawrence, KS 66045, USA. Pankaj Aggarwal (pankaj.aggarwal@utoronto.ca) is professor of marketing, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Scarbor-
ough, Ontario M1C1A4, Canada. Financial support given to the second author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is grate-
fully acknowledged.

Issue Editors: Rashmi Adaval and Robert S. Wyer Jr.

Published online May 2, 2022.

Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, volume 7, number 3, July 2022. © 2022 Association for Consumer Research. All rights reserved. Published
by The University of Chicago Press for the Association for Consumer Research. https://doi.org/10.1086/719579

no research to our knowledge has examined judgments
about the relationship of fWHR to the electability of polit-
ical candidates, male or female.
The findings are mixed with respect to the effect of
fWHR on the dominance associated with male versus female
faces. Some researchers have found that fWHR of both men
and women is positively correlated with perceptions of dom-
inance (e.g., Geniole et al. 2015). Others have concluded
that female fWHR is not linked to dominance (e.g., Mileva
et al. 2014). As noted earlier, although individuals who have
attained high social rank, such as Presidents and CEOs typ-
ically have high f WHR (Lewis et al. 2012; Alrajih and Ward
2014), those studied have been mostly males. Thus, the re-
lationship between female fWHR and the attainment of so-
cial rank is still unclear.
In this research, we examine the effect of f WHR on judg-
ments of leadership appropriateness based on perceived
dominance of male and female faces. We find that although
high f WHR is associated with greater dominance and lead-
ership, stereotypes associated with the female social cate-
gory can inhibit these perceptions. We identify the mode-
rating role of voters’ political orientation on this effect.
We surmise that political conservatives pursue hierarchy-
enhancing goals and hold stronger gender stereotypes,
thereby exhibiting a stronger muting effect of leadership as-
sociations for female faces. On the other hand, individuals
with liberal political orientation pursue hierarchy-attenuating
goals and show less of this tendency.
F A C E R A T I O, D O M I N A N C E ,
AND ST ER EOTYPES
Humans evolved during the Pleistocene era as hunters and
gatherers. This evolutionary history also seems to influence
our current attribution of leadership to individuals who
possess masculine and dominant characteristics (Van Vugt
2006). Leadership in ancestral humans was often a physical
activity such as hunting and warfare (Ahuja and Vugt 2010),
and so selection was based on cues of health, strength, and
an imposing physique. Consequently, there may have been
an evolutionary bias to defer “leadership” to individuals with
such characteristics.
Notably, this leader prototype does not seem to apply to
females. When behaving in line with the traits of prototypic
leaders, women often receive negative reactions (Koenig
et al. 2011). Furthermore, female leaders are often seen as
less likely to be successful due to the perceived incongruence
between prototypic leader traits related to aggression and
stereotypically female traits related to nurturance (Eagly
Volume 7 Number 3 2022 361
and Karau 2002). These findings suggest that the links be-
tween fWHR, dominance, and leadership might be applied
differently to females than to their male counterparts.
Influence of Stereotypes on Face Perception
Decades of research has documented the various down-
stream consequences of social categorization. Historically,
it has been assumed that perceptual cues activate a categor-
ical representation of gender stereotypes and that the goals
associated with this representation influence evaluative
judgments (Ito and Urland 2003; Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick
2007). However, more recent evidence suggests that social
perceptions are not only sensitive to bottom-up facial cues
but are also dynamically shaped by context and higher-order
social cognition in a top-down manner. Thus, a perceiver’s
pre-existing knowledge and stereotypes can influence and
systematically bias social perceptions based on facial fea-
tures (Freeman and Johnson 2016).
Of the many top-down factors that influence face percep-
tion, the impact of stereotypes has received the strongest
support. Stereotypes are semantic associations activated
by social categories that automatically trigger implicit ex-
pectations during face perception and consequently can bias
perceptions of visual facial information. This bias can occur
at an early stage of visual representation in the brain. Thus,
working-class attire causes a racially ambiguous face to be
categorized as Black, whereas upper-class attire leads the
face to be categorized as White (Johnson, Freeman, and
Pauker 2012). Because men are stereotyped as aggressive
and women are stereotyped as docile, male faces are per-
ceived as angry and female faces are perceived as happy
(Hess, Adams, and Kleck 2004).
Gender Stereotypes and Effect of fWHR:
An Evolutionary Perspective
From an evolutionary perspective, gender stereotypes re-
flect the different functions ascribed to men and women
(Geary 1998). It has long been thought that differences in
parental reactions to male and female children can influence
the different traits associated with the two genders. Wom-
en’s role as a parent often requires nurturance, leading them
to be seen as having “communal traits” (warmth and caring).
In contrast, men are more involved in food gathering, and
providing security for their offspring and are seen to pos-
sess more “agentic” traits (e.g., authority and control). Be-
cause these gender characteristics are evolutionarily selected,
the male-agentic, female-communal links are rigid, and are
by and large universally accepted gender characteristics.
362 Face of Political Beliefs Maeng and Aggarwal
We assume that these gender stereotype-based expecta-
tions can bias face perceptions. In particular, the processing
of male faces is guided by the stereotype of males as dom-
inant. Perceptions of the two categories (male and high
fWHR) consequently become inextricably linked and facili-
tate one another. Thus, high-ratio male faces are perceived
as dominant, and this perception, in turn, leads them to be
evaluated as more suitable for leadership positions. On the
other hand, the processing of female faces is guided by the
stereotype of women as communal. Because the two cate-
gories (female and high fWHR) do not share characteristics,
they are likely to inhibit processing of each other. Thus,
fWHR will have less or no influence on the perceived dom-
inance and the consequent leadership evaluations for fe-
male faces. Formally stated,
H1: Facial width-to-height ratio (f WHR) will be more
strongly associated with dominance for male faces
than for female faces.
Political Ideology as Motivated Social Cognition
People often adopt a specific political ideology in an effort to
satisfy various social–cognitive motives. In particular, con-
servative ideologies satisfy motivations to preserve the hier-
archical status quo and reject social change, whereas liberal
ideologies satisfy a need for social change and egalitarian
goals (Jost et al. 2003). Prior research also shows that con-
servatives tend to be attracted to political leaders who signal
a diverse range of dominance cues (Hayes 2005). When pro-
vided with personality descriptions of political candidates,
for example, conservatives show preference for political can-
didates who are described as bullies (Laustsen and Petersen
2017), have more masculine facial features (Laustsen and
Petersen 2016), and have deeper voices (Laustsen, Petersen,
and Klofstad 2015).
Despite very different preferences for hierarchical rela-
tionship, both conservative and liberals will link high
fWHR male faces to dominance because the male-agentic
stereotype is a widely accepted evolution-based concept.
In general, although both conservative and liberal individ-
uals will suppress dominance cues from the female face ra-
tio because of the female-communal link, the two groups
are likely to show different perceptual patterns. Conserva-
tives hold stronger female stereotypes than liberals do
(Tausch and Hewstone 2010), and political conservatism
is positively associated with hostile sexism—hostility to-
ward women who challenge male power (Austin and Jack-
son 2019). Thus, when exposed to a high-ratio female face
that signals dominance but is inconsistent with the female
stereotype of communality, conservatives are more likely to
suppress such a cue than liberals. This, ironically, can re-
sult in the perception of high-ratio female faces as low on
dominance, and this effect might be especially true of
conservatives.
H2a: Both conservatives and liberals associate high
fWHR male faces with high dominance.
H2b: Relative to liberals, conservatives associate high
fWHR female faces with low dominance.
Although both conservatives and liberals see high-ratio
male faces as high in dominance, this perception may have
different effects on leadership judgments. Conservatives,
who prefer to see the world in a hierarchical structure are
likely to perceive dominant-looking (high-ratio) male faces
as more suitable for political office. In keeping with their
desire to maintain the status-quo, however, they are likely
to ascribe lower electability to females regardless of their
fWHR. In contrast, liberals will resist conferring judgments
of greater leadership upon the more dominant-looking male
faces because doing so would undermine their hierarchy-
attenuating ideological goals. Since ascribing leadership sta-
tus to females is consistent with their motivational goal of
changing the status quo, liberals will attribute electability
to both high- and low-fWHR female faces. Hence, we predict
the following:
H3a: Conservatives are more likely than liberals to
vote for males with high-f WHR faces.
H3b: Liberals are more likely than conservatives to
vote for females than for males regardless of their
f WHR.
Current Research
We tested these hypotheses in four studies. Study 1A uti-
lized an archival database to test the basic relationship be-
tween fWHR and perceived dominance. Study 1B replicated
the findings of study 1A in a laboratory setting and exam-
ined the underlying mechanism for the effect. Study 2 de-
termined the downstream effect of fWHR on the electabil-
ity of political candidates and examined how the perceivers’
political orientation affected these judgments. Study 3 eval-
uated the ecological validity of the effect using real human
face images. Across these studies, we found support for our

premise that the effect of fWHR on perceived dominance
and voting intention is different for male versus female
faces, and that this effect is moderated by evaluators’ polit-
ical orientation.
ST UDY 1 A: T HE E FFECT OF f W HR
ON PERCEIVED DOMINANCE
Method
Study 1A utilized an archival database developed at the Uni-
versity of Chicago for use in scientific research (Ma, Correll,
and Wittenbrink 2015). For this study, we included 183
standardized photographs of White male (n 5 93) and fe-
male faces (n 5 90) from the Chicago face database. We
used only White faces to minimize race- and ethnicity-driven
effects. The data set includes extensive information about
each face, including actual measurement of each face’s
width-to-height ratio as well as independent judges’ domi-
nance ratings of each face. About 72 raters rated each face.
Our primary interest was to examine if there was a relation-
ship between fWHR and dominance, and if the relationship
between these two variables was moderated by the gender of
the face.
Results
We first regressed f WHR of both male and female faces on
their dominance ratings. Overall, the face ratio positively
predicted dominance ratings (B 5 :86, p < :05). When
dummy-coded gender variable was entered into the model,
the face ratio still positively predicted dominance ratings
( B 5 :9, p < :01), but there was a significant interaction be-
tween gender and fWHR (B 5 1:33, p < :05). Simple slope
analysis revealed male fWHR to be the only significant
predictor for dominance rating (B 5 1:56, p < :001). The
slope of female fWHR was not significant (B 5 :23, p 5
:59; see fig. S1; figs. S1–S4 are available online).
Discussion
The difference in influence of f WHR for male versus female
faces could occur in two ways. First, the face ratio that is
used to infer males’ dominance might be considered irrele-
vant when inferring females’ dominance. Alternatively, al-
though the face ratio is used to infer dominance in both
males and females, its effects might be offset by the influ-
ence of the gender stereotypes (whereby women are associ-
ated with communality), which then muted the effect of
fWHR on dominance judgments for females. One way to
disentangle these two potential processes might be to assess
the time required by the assessors to make these judgments.
Volume 7 Number 3 2022 363
If the face-ratio differences are seen as irrelevant in judging
the dominance judgments of females, the time to make
these judgments should be the same or less than the time
to judge male faces. However, if face ratio is in fact used
to judge the dominance of females but is then “corrected”
due to the stereotypes associated with women, the time
to judge the dominance of female high-ratio faces should
be greater than the time to judge the dominance of male
high-ratio faces due to the additional processing required.
Study 1B examined this possibility.
ST U DY 1 B: T HE R OL E O F G E N D ER
ST E REOT Y P E I N RE SP ON S E T IM E
The purpose of study 1B was twofold. First, we wanted to
replicate the differential effect of fWHR on dominance
judgments of male versus female faces in a laboratory set-
ting to establish causality. Second, we wanted to examine the
process whereby gender stereotypes affected the differential
effect of fWHR for male and female faces. We expected that
the communal stereotype associated with female faces would
be assimilated to the dominance cue for high-ratio female
faces, resulting in greater time taken to make dominance
judgments of high f WHR female faces than of high f WHR
male faces.
Method
Five hundred forty-one respondents from an online panel
participated for monetary compensation (284 male, 432 White;
mean age 42.3). They were randomly assigned to one of
four conditions in a 2 (ratio: high vs. low)  2 (gender:
male vs. female) between-subjects design with political ori-
entation as a continuous factor. Eight male and eight fe-
male faces were pooled from the Chicago face database
(Ma et al. 2015) as experimental stimuli. Four male and
four female faces that were 1 SD below the mean f WHR
(male 5 1:85, female 5 1:84) were selected as low-ratio
faces, whereas four male and four female faces that were
1 SD above the mean f WHR of each group were selected
as high-ratio faces. All participants rated the perceived
dominance and aggressiveness of the stimuli along scales
from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely), and the time to make
these responses was assessed. Participants’ ratings of the
four faces were averaged. They then completed a five-item
measure of their own political orientation (Evans, Heath,
and Lalljee 1996) along scales from 1 (strongly agree) to
9 (strongly disagree) where higher scores indicated greater
conservatism. They then provided their personal demo-
graphic information.
364 Face of Political Beliefs Maeng and Aggarwal
Results
Dominance Judgments. A 2 (face ratio)  2 (face gender)
covariance analysis of dominance ratings was conducted us-
ing participants’ gender and its interaction with face gender
as covariates. The face gender by ratio interaction was sig-
nificant (F(1; 535) 5 37:1, p < :001, h2 5 :06). Specifically,
high-ratio male faces were perceived as significantly more
dominant (M 5 4:1, SD 5 :86) than low-ratio faces (M 5
3:36, SD 5 :94, p < :001, h2 5 :08). However, judgments
of high-ratio female faces (M 5 3:87, SD 5 0:91) did not
differ from those of low-ratio female faces (M 5 4:04,
SD 5 :76; p 5 :09).
Next, to investigate the role of political ideology, partici-
pants’ political orientation score was entered into a regression
model along with their own gender and its interaction terms
with face ratio, face gender, and political orientation score
as covariates. Results revealed a significant interaction of face
ratio and gender (B 5 :69, SE 5 :32, p 5 :02, h2 5 :01). In
particular, for male faces, both conservatives (1 SD above
the mean) and liberals (1 SD below the mean) rated high-ratio
male faces as more dominant than low-ratio faces (B 5 :68,
SE 5 :15, p < :001, h2 5 :04 and B 5 :81 SE 5 :15,
p < :001, h2 5 :05, respectively). In contrast, face-ratio neg-
atively influenced conservatives’ dominance ratings of female
faces (B 5 2:35, SE 5 :15, p < :05, h2 5 :01). However, the
effect of face-ratio on liberals’ dominance ratings was not sig-
nificant (B 5 :02, SE 5 :15, p 5 :90).
Response Time. A similar covariance analysis of response
times (in seconds), showed a significant interaction of face
gender and face ratio (F(1; 535) 5 4:66, p < :05, h2 5 :009).
Specifically, participants took longer to judge high-ratio fe-
male faces (M 5 4:49, SD 5 4:46) than to judge high-ratio
male faces (M 5 3:48, SD 5 1:82, p < :05, h2 5 :01). How-
ever, the time to judge low-ratio female faces (M 5 3:82,
SD 5 2:58) and low-ratio male faces did not differ (M 5
4:18, SD 5 4:20; p 5 :46). Consistent with our expectations,
however, political orientation did not significantly moderate
these judgment times (B 5 2:04, SE 5 :28, p 5 :87).
Discussion
Study 1B clarified the reason why fWHR is associated with
dominance judgments of male but not female faces. Al-
though high fWHR signals dominance for both male and fe-
male faces, the stereotype associated with females appar-
ently led final judgments for high-ratio female faces to be
corrected, resulting in higher response time due to this ad-
ditional processing. However, because the stereotypes asso-
ciated with women is not relevant for low fWHR faces, the
time to respond to low-ratio male and low-ratio female faces
did not differ.
ST U DY 2 : T H E E F F EC T O F f W HR
ON DOMINANCE RATINGS
A N D V OT I N G I N T E N T I O N S
Study 2 examined how f WHR-based dominance ratings
would translate into political leadership evaluations. Rather
than mechanically applying their perceptions of dominance
to voting intentions, people are likely to consider whether a
candidate can help or hinder their own motivational goals.
We therefore proposed that political ideology would moder-
ate the link between dominance perceptions and voting
intentions.
Method
Four gender-neutral human faces were generated using
Facegen modeler 3.5 in keeping with prior research (Maeng
and Aggarwal 2018). Each face was then manipulated on
width-to-height ratio by changing the upper lip to midbrow
metric to generate faces with two different ratios, yielding
four high-ratio faces and four low-ratio faces (e.g., high ra-
tio: 2.14 vs. low ratio: 1.58; see fig. 1).
Three hundred ninety-seven individuals from an online
panel (202 male; 291 White; mean age 34.3) participated
for payment. (A sensitivity analysis using G-Power suggests
small to medium effect size (f 5 0:23).) They were ran-
domly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (gender:
male vs. female)  2 (ratio: high vs. low) between-subjects
design, with political orientation used as a continuous fac-
tor. The same set of four faces (all high-ratio or all low-
ratio) was presented as either male or female with the four
faces being treated as a within-subject factor. The faces
were ostensibly potential candidates for a mayoral election
in participants’ city. Participants were asked to assess each
candidate in this potential role.
All participants provided their voting intentions for each
candidate using two items (can be a good leader, likely to
vote) along a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). Next,
participants responded to the two items assessing their
dominance ratings and the five-item political orientation
scale, as in study 1B. Responses to each set of items were av-
eraged (in each case, a 5 :87).
Pretest
To examine the gender neutrality of the computer-generated
faces, we conducted a separate pretest in which 256 participants
 Volume 7 Number 3 2022 365

Figure 1. Study 2. Measuring points used for morphometric calculations and examples of high- and low-ratio faces. (A) Measure of f WHR:
a–b represents the maximum distance between the left and right facial boundaries (bizygomatic width); c–d represents the upper lip and
highest point of the eyelids (upper face height). The fWHR was calculated as width divided by height (a–b/c–d). (B) Example of high-ratio
gender-neutral face ( f WHR 5 2:07). (C) Example of low-ratio gender-neutral face (fWHR 5 1:55). The face images were created using
FaceGen Modeller 3.5 (Singular Inversions, www.facegen.com). Reproduced with permission.

were asked to indicate the gender of a number of faces along
a scale from 1 (definitely male) to 7 (definitely female). We
presented actual male and female faces (used in study 1B)
along with our target stimuli (gender neutral faces). The
gender-neutral faces (M 5 4:30) were rated as less male
than the male faces (M 5 1:21, p < :001, d 5 24:28) and
less female than the female faces (M 5 6:79, p < :001,
d 5 3:64), confirming our assumption that these faces, con-
sidered out of context, were neutral.
Results
Manipulation Check. All participants were asked to indi-
cate their perception of the gender of the presented (neu-
tral) faces. As expected, 170 of 193 (88%) participants as-
signed to the female condition indicated the gender of the
presented gender-neutral faces as female. Similarly, of the
204 participants assigned to the male condition, 185 (91%)
indicated the identical gender-neutral faces to be male,
x2(1) 5 246:7, p < :001. Hence the gender manipulation was
successful.
than low-ratio faces (M 5 3:41, SD 5 1:35, p < :001, h2 5
:06). However, when the same faces were presented as fe-
male, there was no significant difference in the dominance
ratings of high-ratio (M 5 4:08, SD 5 1:52) and low-ratio
faces (M 5 4:40, SD 5 1:33; p 5 :11).
Next, participants’ political orientation score was entered
into a regression model using participants’ gender and its in-
teraction with face ratio, face gender, and political orienta-
tion as covariates. When the faces were presented as male,
high-ratio male faces were rated as more dominant than
low-ratio faces by both conservatives (1 SD above the mean:
B 5 1:14, SE 5 :29, p < :001, h2 5 :04) and liberals (1 SD
below the mean: B 5 :76, SE 5 :28, p < :01, h2 5 :02); see
figure 2. When the same faces were presented as females,
however, fWHR had no effect on judgments by either con-
servatives (B 5 20:35, SE 5 :28, p 5 :21) or liberals (B 5
2:25, SE 5 :30, p 5 :39). These results suggest that gender
stereotypes exert an influence at the perceptual level, inhib-
iting the effects of fWHR dominance cues in the case of fe-
males and facilitating them in the case of males.

Dominance Judgments. A 2 (face ratio)  2 (face gender)
covariance analysis was performed on dominance judg-
ments using participants’ gender and its interaction with
face gender as covariates. As expected, the interaction of
face gender and face ratio was significant (F(1; 391) 5
20:73, p < :001, h2 5 :05). Specifically, when gender-
neutral faces were presented as male, high-ratio faces were
rated as significantly more dominant (M 5 4:37, SD 5 1:33)
Candidate’s Electability. An analogous covariance analysis
was performed on the index of voting intentions. The in-
teraction of face ratio and face gender was significant
(F(1; 391) 5 20:73, p < :001, h2 5 :05). The f WHR did
not influence voting intentions regardless of whether the
faces were presented as male (Mhigh 5 3:32, SD 5 1:36 vs.
M low 5 3:39, SD 5 1:36, p 5 :72) or female (M high 5 3:66,
SD 5 1:40 vs. M low 5 3:72, SD 5 1:16, p 5 :68). However,
366 Face of Political Beliefs Maeng and Aggarwal
Figure 2. Study 2. (A) High fWHR male faces are judged as greater on dominance by both conservatives (political orientation measure
11 SD) and liberals (political orientation measure 21 SD). (B) High f WHR male faces were judged as more electable by conservatives
but not by liberals.
when political orientation was entered into the regression
model along with participants’ gender, the interaction of
interaction of ratio, gender, and political orientation was
significant. (B 5 :36, SE 5 :14, p < :05, h2 5 :02). Figure 2
shows that when faces were presented as male, f WHR
was related positively to conservatives’ voting intentions
(B 5 :63, SE 5 :27, p < :05, h2 5 :01) but was related neg-
atively to liberals’ voting intentions (B 5 2:68, SE 5 :26,
p < :01, h2 5 :02). When the exact same faces were pre-
sented as female, however, f WHR did not influence the
voting intentions of either conservatives (B 5 2:09, SE 5
:26, p 5 :72) or liberals (B 5 2:08, SE 5 :27, p 5 :78; see
fig. 2). However, regardless of the face ratio, as expected, lib-
erals’ intentions to vote for female faces was greater than
their intentions to vote for male faces (B 5 2:54, p < :001),
whereas this difference was not significant for conservatives
(B 5 2:15, p 5 :43).
Conditional Indirect Effect. For insight into the process
that underlies the effect of dominance on voting intentions,
we executed a moderated mediation model with face gender
and participants’ political orientation as moderators (Hayes
2012; PROCESS model 12; see fig. S2). There was a sig-
nificant index of moderated mediation (B 5 :3, SE 5 :08,
p < :001), indicating that the effect of face ratio on voting
intention is mediated by dominance ratings but the effect
of fWHR on dominance judgments is an interactive function
of the target’s gender and political ideology. In particular,
the effect of fWHR on voting intention is significantly me-
diated by dominance judgments only for those with conser-
vative political ideology. Table S1 ( in the appendix, available
online) shows the detailed estimates.
Discussion
The results of study 2 provide compelling evidence for top-
down influence of gender stereotypes. When a set of faces
was presented as male, high-ratio faces were assigned
greater dominance than were low-ratio faces. When these
same faces were presented as female, however, perceptions
of the dominance of high-ratio faces and low-ratio faces did
not differ. This finding supports our hypothesis that the
stereotypes associated with “female” suppress dominance
cues from the high-ratio faces.
Our results also show that although conservatives judge
male candidates with high-ratio faces to be more electable,
liberals judge high-ratio male faces to be less electable. Even
though liberals judge high-ratio male faces as highly domi-
nant, they do not link these judgments to electability. Be-
cause liberals are motivated to change the status quo to
promote gender equality, they do not evaluate dominant-
looking male faces as more electable as doing so would up-
hold the status quo and further strengthen the current so-
cial system. In contrast, conservatives, who are motivated
to maintain the social hierarchies, do associate dominant-
looking (high-ratio) male faces with greater electability,
thereby helping to keep current social system intact.
Our results also show that low-ratio males were judged as
less dominant than female faces. Why should this be true?

Prior research has suggested that people use different stan-
dards when evaluating different social groups, especially
when rating stereotyped versus non-stereotyped targets
(Biernat, Manis, and Nelson 1991). When evaluating a per-
son, the standard of judgment is usually the “average per-
son.” However, a different standard is evoked when a target
person exhibits an attribute that has its own standard asso-
ciated with it. Thus, the standard of comparison that is evoked
when judging dominance might differ depending on the tar-
get’s gender because men are expected to be more dominant
than females. These stereotypes could give rise to the use of
very different judgment standards for assessing men and
women, leading raters to “shift” the end anchors of their rat-
ing scale according to the type of exemplar being evaluated.
Thus, what is considered “average” dominance for a man
might be seen as “very” dominant for a woman. The evidence
that the average dominance rating of females was rated
higher than that of males could be a result of this process.
Although conservatives perceived high-ratio female faces
to be low in dominance, this difference was not significant.
One possible reason for this might be that we employed gen-
der neutral faces in the study, presenting them as both male
and female. Consequently, those faces did not have actual
sexually dimorphic facial characteristics (e.g., larger eyes,
rounded facial shape, etc.) and hence may have attenuated
the expected effect. To examine this possibility, real male
versus real female human faces were used in study 3.
ST UDY 3 : T H E EF FECT OF f W HR
ON CANDIDA TE ELECTABILITY
WITH REAL HUMAN FACES
Study 3 evaluated the ecological validity of the effects
found in study 2 by using real human face images instead
of computer-generated faces.
Method
Seven hundred twenty-nine respondents from an online
panel participated in this study for monetary compensation
(388 male, 518 White; mean age 42.2; sensitivity analysis
using G-Power suggested small to medium effect size
(f 5 0:17)) and were randomly assigned to one of four con-
ditions in a 2 (ratio: high vs. low)  2 (gender: male vs. fe-
male) between-subjects design with political orientation
as an additional continuous measure. The face stimuli used
in study 1B were used as experimental stimuli. The same
cover story about the faces belonging to different candi-
dates in an election as used in study 2 was presented to
the participants. They were then presented with either four
Volume 7 Number 3 2022 367
male or four female faces with all four faces having either
high or low ratio (randomly chosen). Participants indicated
their likelihood of voting for each of the candidates, donat-
ing to the political campaign and volunteering for the polit-
ical campaign along scales from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely);
a 5 :96. Each candidate’s dominance rating and political ori-
entation was assessed using measures employed in Study 2.
Results
Manipulation Check. As indicated by the pretest con-
ducted for study 2, male faces were perceived significantly
more male (M 5 1:21) than female faces (M 5 6:79,
p < :001, d 5 210:5).
Dominance Judgments. A 2 (face ratio)  2 (face gender)
covariance analysis was performed on dominance judg-
ments using participants’ gender and its interaction with
face gender as covariates. As expected, the gender by ratio
interaction was significant (F(1; 723) 5 31:82, p < :001,
h2 5 :04). Specifically, high-ratio male faces were rated as
significantly more dominant (M 5 4:37, SD 5 1:08) than
low-ratio male faces (M 5 3:72, SD 5 1:31, p < :001,
h2 5 :04). However, high-ratio female faces were rated as
less dominant (M 5 4:01, SD 5 1:03) than low-ratio fe-
male faces (M 5 4:29, SD 5 1:03, p < :01, h2 5 :008).
Participants’ political orientation score was then entered
into a regression model with face ratio, face gender, partici-
pants’ gender and its interaction terms as covariates. A sig-
nificant three-way interaction effect of gender  ratio  po-
litical orientation (B 5 :16, SE 5 :08, p < :05, h2 5 :006)
on dominance (a 5 :86) was found. As figure 3 shows,
high-ratio male faces were judged as more dominant than
low-ratio male faces by both conservatives (B 5 :94,
SE 5 :17, p < :001, h2 5 :04) and liberals (B 5 :38, SE 5
:16, p < :05, h2 5 :0082), although conservatives demon-
strate such tendency more extremely than liberals do
(Bcons vs: lib 5 :55, SE 5 :23, p < :05). In contrast, face ratio
negatively influenced conservatives’ perception of the dom-
inance of female faces (B 5 2:34, SE 5 :16, p < :05, h2 5
:006), whereas its effect on liberals’ perception was negative
but not significant (B 5 2:18, SE 5 :17, p 5 :29). These re-
sults suggest that, when the actual faces with sexually dimor-
phic facial characteristics rather than gender neutral faces
are presented as female, the predicted effect of political ori-
entation becomes more pronounced.
Candidate’s Electability. An analogous covariance analysis
was performed on the three-item voting intention index. The
368 Face of Political Beliefs Maeng and Aggarwal
Figure 3. Study 3. (A) High f WHR male faces are judged as greater on dominance by both conservatives (political orientation measure
11 SD) and liberals (political orientation measure 21 SD). (B) Males with high f WHR faces are more likely to be elected by conservatives
but not by liberals.
interaction of ratio and gender was significant (F(1; 723) 5
32:82, p < :001, h2 5 :04). High-ratio male faces were judged
as more electable (M 5 3:37, SD 5 1:53) than low-ratio male
faces (M 5 3:04, SD 5 1:65, p < :05, h2 5 :006). However,
intentions to vote for high-ratio female faces (M 5 3:41,
SD 5 1:43) did not differ from that of low-ratio female faces
(M 5 3:67, SD 5 1:46, p 5 :08).
A regression analysis was then performed on voting in-
tention with face ratio, face gender, participants’ political
orientation as predictors and participants’ gender and its in-
teraction terms as covariates. This analysis revealed a signif-
icant three-way interaction of gender, ratio and political ori-
entation (B 5 :21, SE 5 :10, p < :05, h2 5 :005). As shown
in figure 3, conservatives reported greater intention to vote
for high-ratio male faces than for low-ratio male faces
(B 5 :69, SE 5 :23, p < :001, h2 5 :01), but liberals did
not (B 5 2:03, SE 5 :22, p 5 :9). In contrast, female faces’
fWHR did not influence voting intentions by either con-
servatives (B 5 2:34, SE 5 :22, p 5 :12) or liberals (B 5
2:17, SE 5 :23, p 5 :47). Regardless of the face ratio, how-
ever, liberals’ intentions to vote for female faces was greater
than their intentions to vote for male faces (B 5 2:44,
p < :01), whereas this was not true of conservatives (B 5
2:20, p 5 :20; see fig. 3).
Conditional Indirect Effects. A moderated mediation
model (Hayes 2012; PROCESS model 12) revealed a signif-
icant index of moderated mediation effect (B 5 :84, SE 5
:08, p < :001; see fig. S3), indicating that the effect of face
ratio on voting intention is mediated by perceived domi-
nance with dependence on face gender and perceivers’ po-
litical orientation. See table S1 in the appendix for the
detailed estimates.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
Across four studies, our research demonstrates that the as-
sociation of face ratio (fWHR) with perceptions of dominance
differs for male versus female faces. A key contribution of our
research is the evidence for the top-down influence of gender
stereotypes on dominance ratings. Because women are ste-
reotyped to be communal, it mutes the effect of high fWHR
female faces on their dominance ratings. The stereotype of
men as aggressive, however, is consistent with the assess-
ment that high fWHR male faces are high in dominance.
We further find that the effect of gender stereotypes on
the dominance attributed to male versus female faces was ev-
ident in judgments of their electability. Conservatives are
more likely to rate high fWHR male faces as more electable
than low fWHR male faces, whereas this same electability
effect was not exhibited by liberals. In contrast, neither conser-
vatives nor liberals exhibited any indication that high fWHR
affected females’ electability, although liberals, unlike con-
servatives, were generally more likely to attribute electability
to female faces than to male faces.
Theoretical Implications
Previous research has shown that people make rapid person-
ality judgments based solely on other people’s appearance

and that this can predict their electoral success (Antonakis
and Dalgas 2009; Olivola and Todorov 2010). However,
these earlier studies relied primarily on subjective judgments
of others’ personality based on their faces without determin-
ing the basis for these judgments. Our research eliminated
this ambiguity by highlighting the causal relationship be-
tween face ratio, dominance ratings and judgments of lead-
ership. It also examined differences between male and fe-
male faces driven by the associated gender stereotypes.
Our research also contributes to the literature on motiva-
tional influences and social perception. Prior studies show
that motivational factors such as goals can bias perceptual
processes by enhancing or inhibiting the sensitivity to visual
cues that can help to achieve the activated goal. Assuming
that political conservatism and liberalism reflect motivated
social cognition (Jost et al. 2003), our research demonstrates
the central role of this motivation in face perceptions and ex-
pectations of political success. Finally, our findings might
help us better understand why women are still a minority
in political leadership roles, and why the United States is still
one of the few countries in the world that has not elected a
woman as head of state.
Future Research
Although we demonstrated the differential effect of fWHR
on dominance judgments and electability of male versus fe-
male political candidates, our research is far from the final
word on this topic. One question for future investigation
is what facial cues, if not fWHR, are linked to females’ elect-
ability. Some research suggests that masculinity of female
faces are a cue to dominance perception (Quist et al. 2011)
and leadership judgments (e.g., Rule and Ambady 2009),
while other research shows that feminine-looking females
(Hehman et al. 2014) as well as attractive-looking females
(e.g., Chiao, Bowman and Gill 2008) are more likely to get
elected as leaders. Thus, it might be worthwhile to further in-
vestigate whether perceptual congruence of female facial cues
with (a) the social stereotype of women as nurturing or
(b) the traditional leader prototype (assertiveness and mas-
culinity) leads to greater political leadership preferences.
Another potentially rewarding avenue for future research
might be to explore if the electability perceptions of racial
minority faces are also influenced by racial stereotypes, es-
pecially with respect to people’s own political orientations.
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