Abstract
In this article, we make a connection between perceptions of African‐American women’s appearances and candidate evaluation. We specifically focus on cases where voters possess limited information. In low‐information elections, voters compensate by taking informational shortcuts based on candidate cues. We anticipate our findings to show that evaluations of African‐American female candidates are influenced by physical appearances, and that appearance provides a distinct “cue” to African‐American voters as to whether the candidate (1) can best be described by certain stereotypes, (2) subscribes to black nationalist views, and (3) supports progressive policies. The data consist of African‐American students from a historically black university in the Deep South. An experimental research design was employed to test whether candidates who possessed phenotypes that mirrored the prototypical African American in appearance were perceived differently when compared to those with more Eurocentric phenotypes. The results reveal that African‐American students perceived candidates who possessed the prototypical Afrocentric appearance to be more likely to be supportive of historically black colleges and universities, progressive policies, and were perceived to be more hardworking, when compared to lighter‐skinned candidates. Light‐skinned candidates with straight hair were ranked the lowest in each of these categories.