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Research researchers had digitally lightened or darkened Obama's skin tone in some photographs, while leaving other photographs unchanged. In the experiment, students who identified as liberals chose the light- ened photos as most representative of President Obama; those who identi- fied as conservatives more frequently chose the darkened photographs. These results suggest that racial Political Views Affect Perceptions of Skin Tone How dark or light an individual perceives a political candidate's skin tone to be can be affected by that individual's own political views. So finds a recent study by Eugene Caruso, assistant professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Busi- ness in Illinois; Emily Balcetis, assistant professor of psychology at New York Uni- versity in New York City; and Eugene Caruso Nicole Mead, a postdoctoral fellow at Tilburg University in The Nether- lands. Caruso, Balcetis, and Mead showed undergraduate students a set of photos of President Barack Obama. The photos were taken dur- ing the 2008 presidential debates or included on his campaign Web site. The students were asked which images were most representative of President Obama. Next, they were asked questions about their own political beliefs. Unknown to the students, the 46 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2010 perceptions go beyond black and white, says Caruso. An individual's political outlook also could affect how he or she perceives light-skinned and dark-skinned individuals within the same racial group. In the future, the researchers want to explore whether these findings also hold true for the mainstream media, in terms of how liberal and conserva- tive media outlets choose different images of political candidates. Know- ing whether there is unconscious bias is important, says Caruso, because the images media choose can influ- ence voter behavior. "Subtle differences in a person's skin tone may affect other conse- quential decisions in which pictures are part of the evaluation process, such as who we hire for a job," Caruso says. The paper, "Political Partisanship Influences Perception of Biracial Can- didates' Skin Tone," was published in the December 1 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Anatomy of Great Fund Managers If investors want to find a great actively managed mutual fund, they should look for fund managers who don't stay the course. Funds with managers who adapt their strategies to market conditions have stronger returns, say professors from New York Univer- sity's Stern School of Business. Finance professors Marcin Kacperczyk and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh and economics professor Laura Veldkamp exam- ined the top 25 percent of actively managed equity mutual funds. These funds outperformed other funds even after adjusting for risk and accounting for expenses. The researchers found that the managers of these successful funds shifted their strategies over the busi- ness cycle in two significant ways: They invested based on macroeco- nomic information during recession- ary times, and they invested based on microeconomic informa- tion during expansionary times. These managers also were more likely to have earned MBA degrees. They were more likely to run smaller, more actively managed funds, and to move on to hedge fund management later in their careers. The researchers examined alternative explanations for these results. For instance, they considered the pos- sibility that these funds succeeded not because of superior strategy, but simply by chance; how- ever, a random sampling of funds revealed no similar pattern. They also looked at whether fund managers became natu- rally more risk-averse dur- ing recessions, but found that explanation did not account for their results. Mar c in Kacperczyk St i jn Van Nieuwerburgh Laura Veldkamp KARSTEN MORAN/GETTY IMAGES