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A woman's good looks are more important than policies to help her get ahead in politics, a psychological study has found.

The research suggests that women with more feminine faces tend to do better at the ballot box, especially in more conservative areas.

The U.S. scientists say their results do not mean a supermodel is guaranteed political success - she would still need to be perceived as being politically competent. But they found that a woman's looks do have a profound impact on voters.

A woman's good looks are more important than policies to help her get ahead in politics, a psychological study has found and the effect is most pronounced in conservative areas. However, the woman still needs to be perceived a politically competent. Labour politician Caroline Flint is pictured

The researchers, from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, suggest the shape of a face plays a key role in influencing voting behaviour.

The key, they say, is how voters read so-called 'gender cues' - how feminine or masculine someone looks.

The attribute is influenced by the shape of the eyes, cheekbones, jawlines and brow, as well as the length of hair and application of makeup.

Previous research has shown that faces with atypical gender cues – women with masculine features and men with feminine features – cause initial uncertainty when people try to categorise them.

The new study demonstrated for the first time that gender cues uniquely predict female politicians' electoral success above and beyond competence, suggesting a discrepancy between traits used to evaluate male and female politicians.

In the experiment, a female politician's success was related to how feminine or masculine her face was perceived less than one half-second after its initial exposure, suggesting that the way a face's gender is rapidly processed may translate into votes at the ballot box (pictured)

Professor Jon Freeman, director of the social cognitive and neural sciences lab at Dartmouth, said: 'Individuals are highly sensitive to gendered facial cues, and these cues are processed within only milliseconds after seeing another's face.

'It's important to examine how facial cues could inadvertently affect female politicians' electoral success, especially given the possibility of a female U.S. president in the near future and the rising number of women in Congress.'

The study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, used software to track the computer mouse movements of 300 participants who were shown politicians' faces. They were asked to categorise them as male or female.

The new study demonstrated for the first time that gender cues uniquely predict female politicians' electoral success above and beyond competence, suggesting a discrepancy between traits used to evaluate male and female politicians. Hilary Clinton is pictured

The results showed that the more that participants were drawn to select the male response when categorising the gender of a female politician's face, the less likely she was to have been successful in elections.  The lab participants also indicated they would be less likely to vote for such politicians.

Professor Freeman said: 'We show that subtle uncertainty during the initial processing of a face's gender predicts the electoral success or failure of female politicians, and this is a unique effect not explained by perceived competence or attractiveness.

'A female politician's success was related to how feminine or masculine her face was perceived less than one half-second after its initial exposure, suggesting that the way a face's gender is rapidly processed may translate into real-world political outcomes.'

The effect was more pronounced as the conservatism of the constituency increased, which supports previous research indicating that conservatives may be less tolerant of uncertainty.