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No, really, please do not stand next to me … if you are not considered socially desirable. As opposed to the Police song in which the narrator has mixed feelings about the attractive subject standing so close to him (for fear of scandal or worse), recent research suggests that it can also be detrimental to be in close proximity to people who are not deemed attractive by society. This truism has been tied to political behavior by Shankar Vendantam in his recent Washington Post article. Here are some selections:

Social psychologist Michelle Hebl of Rice University once conducted an interesting experiment that helps explain the phenomenon. Hebl had volunteers evaluate a mock job applicant. Some volunteers saw the applicant sitting in a waiting room next to an overweight person, while others saw the applicant in the waiting room sitting next to a person of average weight. A variety of experiments have shown that overweight people suffer from discrimination; what Hebl wanted to find out was whether strangers in the vicinity of overweight people would share in such approbation.

Remarkably, Hebl found that volunteers rated job applicants more negatively when they had been seen seated next to an overweight person than when they were seen seated next to an average weight person. The volunteers had no idea that they were showing not only a prejudice against fat people but also a bias against people who were merely in proximity to overweight people.

But what does this tell us about how the public views politicians, or politicians’ behavior?

The experiment tells us something about the Obama-Wright controversy. The presidential candidate may have made it clear that the minister does not speak for him, but every time Wright’s words are replayed on talk radio and cable TV, they automatically retrieve mental associations in many voters’ minds with Obama. Hebl similarly found her volunteers unconsciously made associations even after being explicitly told there was no connection between the job applicants in the waiting room.

Obama is not the only politician whose image is shaped by voters’ associations. Politicians, in fact, take care to shape our associations of them: Ronald Reagan draped himself in the American flag at every public opportunity. President Bush landed on a warship in a flight suit, helmet under one arm, to make his “Mission Accomplished” speech about the Iraq war. Then-New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) had their wives stand by as they confessed sexual indiscretions.

The reason pols do these things, of course, is that Reagan wanted us to link him with patriotism, Bush with military success, Spitzer and Vitter with being lovable husbands. Because associations often operate outside conscious awareness, politicians can succeed in making them stick, even when we have evidence the associations are false.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find some attractive people to stand next to - every little bit helps and I’ll take all the help I can get.

Below - a gratuitous Police video to match the post title - remember when videos cost like $500 to shoot?