Despite the many important considerations relevant to selecting a leader, facial appearance carries surprising sway. Following numerous studies documenting the role of facial appearance in government elections, we investigated differences in perceptions of dictators versus democratically elected leaders. Participants in Study 1 successfully classified pictures of 160 world leaders as democrats or dictators significantly better than chance. Probing what distinguished them, separate participants rated the affect, attractiveness, competence, dominance, facial maturity, likability, and trustworthiness of the leaders’ faces in Study 2. Relating these perceptions to the categorizations made by participants in Study 1 showed that democratically elected leaders looked significantly more attractive and warmer (an average of likability and trustworthiness) than dictators did. Leaders’ facial appearance could therefore contribute to their success within their respective political systems.

尽管与选择领导者有关的许多重要考虑因素，面部外观仍具有惊人的影响力。在大量研究记录了面部容貌在政府选举中的作用之后，我们调查了对独裁者与民选领导人的看法差异。研究 1 的参与者成功地将 160 位世界领导人的照片归类为民主人士或独裁者，这明显优于偶然。探究是什么使他们与众不同，不同的参与者对研究 2 中领导者面孔的影响力、吸引力、能力、支配力、面部成熟度、讨人喜欢度和可信度进行了评分。将这些看法与研究 1 中参与者所做的分类相关联，表明与独裁者相比，民选领导人看起来更有吸引力、更热情（平均而言，讨人喜欢和值得信赖）。因此，领导人的容貌有助于他们在各自的政治体系中取得成功。