Most conservatives distrust academia, with some two-thirds of Republicans telling pollsters last year that colleges and universities have a "negative effect on the country."

They now might want to reconsider that conclusion. The reason: an academic study published last month in the journal Politics and the Life Sciences found that good-looking people are more likely to be ideologically conservative.

The researchers, Illinois State University’s Carl L. Palmer and Susquehanna University’s Rolfe Daus Peterson, sought to answer the eternal question, “Do physically attractive individuals develop in a bubble that creates a differential social experience and, subsequently, different political attitudes?”

Yes, they concluded.

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Photos: AP

Income, education and socioeconomic background remain the foremost indicators of where one lands on the ideological dial, but, the researchers insist, the data results indicating that beautiful people usually tilt rightward are “consistent across datasets and measures of attractiveness, and they persist even when controlling for socioeconomic status and demographics.”

It’s all about the so-called “halo effect,” the well-established cognitive bias in which the impression of someone’s positive trait in one area carries over into the overall view of the person.

We often subconsciously assume, for example, that good-looking people are smarter, more successful and even kinder than others. Various studies over the years have shown that physical appearance significantly colors life experiences, and Palmer and Peterson point out that life experiences mold our political values.

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One potential problem with this social-sciences study: it draws much of its data from in-depth surveys conducted back in the 1970s.

The Republican Party during the Me Decade, reacting to the Democratic-aligned youth movement, was still in the process of embracing a “values” agenda -- such as opposition to abortion -- to go along with its traditional, business-friendly economic platform. This new focus was only beginning to lead many working-class, lifelong Democratic voters to switch to the GOP, despite its hostility to key programs they supported, such as Social Security and Medicare.

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Palmer and Peterson attempted to take the staleness of the survey data into account by also drawing from the long-term Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. These two datasets, they claim, allowed them “to replicate and provide robustness checks for our findings.”

And those findings are pretty forthright.

“Controlling for socioeconomic status,” the researchers wrote in the study, “we find that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy, identify as conservative, and identify as Republican.”

“The mechanism for this process is a simple one,” Palmer and Peterson add. That is, we tend to define ourselves based on how others view us -- and, at the same time, we project our own experiences and world view onto others.

This is a widely accepted fact of life, though not typically put into partisan political terms. (The classic sitcom “30 Rock” devoted an episode to the subject. The guest-star: beloved eye-candy actor Jon Hamm.)

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As a result of this “mechanism,” good-looking people -- just like people of inherited wealth -- are more likely to embrace concepts like rugged individualism and reject arguments for social programs.

“In a sense, attractive individuals have a blind spot that leads them to not see the need for more government support or aid in society,” Palmer and Peterson argue.

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Or, as The Independent sniffed: "Hot people are more likely to support right-wing parties because they are stronger and more successful than their more liberal peers, apparently."

So now we understand why Sen. Bernie Sanders, with his perpetually disheveled appearance, espoused "Medicare for all" during his insurgent 2016 Democratic presidential campaign -- while ready-for-his-close-up Mitt Romney, when he was the 2012 Republican nominee, advocated for turning the retirement health-insurance system into "a voucher program."

Left-leaning Beyonce, we can only assume, must be the exception that proves the rule.

-- Douglas Perry

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• Read the study.