1. Are good looking people more persuasive?
Prepared by J. Scott Armstrong (details on him at jscottarmstrong.com).
Please inform Scott about errors and also make suggestions (armstrong@wharton.upenn.edu)
Scott has taken these slides from adprin.com, a site that he founded. That site contains interactive versions of these
slides, along with linked references, videos, and webcasts, all in PPT and PPTX format that you can download.

2. Personal beauty
“Personal beauty is a greater recommendation
than any letter of reference.”Aristotle, 350 BC
In terms of spokespeople in an advertisement,
was Aristotle correct?
___ No
___ Yes
See the next slide for the answer.
Adapted from AdPrin.com 2

3. Only under some conditions. Under what conditions
should the spokesperson be beautiful?
Use a physically attractive spokesperson
for
products that enhance beauty (Principle 5.6.4)
Evidence
• An analysis of 53 journal articles and 23
dissertations obtained substantial support that
beauty aids persuasion in areas related to
“social competence,” somewhat to so for
“intellectual competence,” and not at all for
“integrity and concern for other” (Eagly et al. 1991)

4. Does the candidate look competent?
31 subjects were presented with only pictures of candidates for
the forthcoming U.S. Senate race in 2004. Based on one-
second exposures, subjects rated how competenteach
candidate looked. At that time, the candidates were all
unknown to them.
In what % of the races did the most competent-looking
candidate win?
– a) less than 40
– b) 40-50
– c) 51-60
– d) more than 60
See the next slide for the answer.
Adapted from AdPrin.com 4

5. 69% (Todorov et al. 2005)
Similar results were obtained for the 2004 U.S. House of
Representatives elections, as well as for the 2000 and
2002 U.S. House and Senate elections. See Persuasive
Advertising p121 and AdPrin.com for additional
evidence.

6. Based on this exercise, write a small application step for yourself,
and set a deadline, preferably within one week. If you are
working with someone else, share your application plan and the
results of your application.
• For example, use a competent looking spokesperson.
Adapted from AdPrin.com