Category Archives: Times of Malta

Last week, the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) issued a press release with the title, “Rightwing candidates are better looking, says study”. The item described a study conducted by Swedish and Finnish economists in which 2,500 non-Finns rated 1,357 Finnish election candidates for attractiveness. The authors identified two main conclusions. Firstly, right-wing candidates were rated as being more attractive than left-wing candidates. And secondly, candidates rated as more attractive (who were mainly right-wing) were found to have received more votes. The press release was picked up and reported by a wide range of news outlets, including the Independent (London), the Daily Mail, the Wall Street Journal, Discovery News, the Albuquerque Express, The National (Abu Dhabi), the Times of Malta, the Ottawa Sun, and many more. It’s too bad then that: (a) the study has not been published in a peer-reviewed academic journal; and (b) its main findings are almost certainly unreliable. Continue reading →