Humans are a very visual group. So much so that the purchases we make, for instance, are sometimes dictated by their physical appearance or by their "packaging" rather than the function itself. Even in choosing a leader, when it all boils down to nothing, one will choose someone who appears physically "fit" for the job. And a new study reveals that people would even prefer a healthy-looking leader over a smart-looking one.

The study, which was conducted by researchers from VU University Amsterdam, the University of Leeds and the University of Dundee, asked a group of 148 men and women to look at pairs of faces that were digitally altered to fit four types: low health and high intelligence, high health and low intelligence, low health and high intelligence, and high health and high intelligence.

The participants were asked to select the best candidate to be CEO of a company based on predefined company goals. The people were only given different versions of the candidate's faces as the only basis for their selection.

Overall, health had a stronger effect on leadership ratings than intelligence. The results of the survey saw a 69 per cent vote for healthy appearance from both men and women in choosing their ideal candidate for a leadership position. The high intelligence faces only won over the less intelligent faces when the CEO's challenge was to negotiate a partnership (cooperation) and explore a new market (exploration), according to reports from Huffingtonpost.

Brian Spisak, lead author of the study and assistant professor at the VU University Amsterdam's Department of Management and Organization said, "Healthy facial coloration, mostly as a consequence of diet, seems to be very important for people's perception of leaders."

The healthier models were based on the coloration or hue of the face of a person. The more intelligent models were "based on mostly structural changes in the face which previous research had shown to be rated more or less intelligent," Spisak explained.

However, smart-looking doesn't really lag behind the healthy appearance as a number of participants also put premium on this physical perspective.

"I would say intelligence is important for leaders -- people chose the more intelligent-looking leader over a less intelligent looking leader in 64% of trials -- but perhaps the specific facial changes representing intelligence in our study were not as important as the health manipulation," Spisak said. 

The research was published in this week's edition of the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.