From improving your salary to making you more popular, being attractive has benefits in a wide range of areas.

And a new study suggests that attractiveness of a candidate also correlates with their politics.

The findings indicates that people in Europe, the US and Australia find right-wing politicians better looking than those on the left.

Research suggests that people in Europe, the US and Australia find right-wing politicians, such as Donald Trump, better looking than those on the left, such as Barack Obama

WHY ARE RIGHT-WING POLITICIANS BETTER LOOKING? The researchers suggest that being better looking makes you more likely to earn more, and that richer people are typically more opposed to policies favoured by the left, such as progressive taxes and welfare programmes. Good-looking people also tend to be treated better, and therefore see the world as a more just place. Previous studies have found that the more attractive people perceive themselves to be, the lower their preference for egalitarianism – a value associated with the political left. Advertisement

An international team of researchers, led by the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Sweden, looked at the correlation between attractiveness and political belief in candidates.

They suggest that being better looking makes you more likely to earn more, and that richer people are typically more opposed to policies favoured by the left, such as progressive taxes and welfare programmes.

In their paper, published in the Journal of Public Economics, the researchers, led by Niclas Berggren, wrote: 'Politicians on the right look more beautiful in Europe, the United States and Australia.

'Our explanation is that beautiful people earn more, which makes them less inclined to support redistribution.'

The researchers also suggest that good-looking people tend to be treated better, and so see the world as a more just place.

Previous studies have found that the more attractive people perceive themselves to be, the lower their preference for egalitarianism – a value associated with the political left.

To assess the link between attractiveness and political values, the researchers showed people pictures of political candidates in Finland, the US and Australia, and asked them to rate them on attractiveness.

The results showed that right-wing politicians were seen as more attractive than left-wingers.

They also looked at the Finnish elections in more detail, and found that Republican voters care more about appearance in a candidate than Democratic voters.

In the study, voters who didn't know much about candidates tended to see candidates who were better looking as more likely to be conservative. Pictured left is Jeremy Corbyn, head of the labour party, and pictured right is Theresa May, head of the conservative party

And when voters didn't know much about candidates, they tended to see candidates who were better looking as more likely to be conservative.

The researchers added: 'Our model of within-party competition predicts that voters use beauty as a cue for conservatism when they do not know much about candidates and that politicians on the right benefit more from beauty in low-information elections.'

But while right-wingers may be more attractive, studies have suggested that they are not as intelligent as left-wingers.

A study last year used information from two UK studies from 1958 and 1970, where several thousand children were assessed for intelligence at age 10 and 11, and then asked political questions aged 33.