Evaluating Presidential Candidates: Who Focuses on Their Personal Attributes?

Abstract

This article shows that highly educated individuals are more concerned with personal attributes than less educated people. Moreover, both those at the high and low ends of the educational ladder express interest in trivial as well as important aspects of candidates' attributes. Finally, personal attributes have as large an impact on the vote of the best educated as on the vote of the least educated. These findings flatly contradict the standard assumptions about the terms in which educated individuals evaluate presidential candidates.