“Our Country Needs a Strong Leader Right Now”: Economic Inequality Enhances the Wish for a Strong Leader
Publication date
2019-11-01
Authors
Sprong, Stefanie
Jetten, Jolanda
Wang, Zhechen
Peters, Kim
Mols, Frank
Verkuyten, Maykel
Bastian, Brock
Ariyanto, Amarina
Autin, Frédérique
Ayub, Nadia
Editors
Advisors
Supervisors
Document Type
Article
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taverne
Abstract
Societal inequality has been found to harm the mental and physical health of its members and undermine overall social cohesion. Here, we tested the hypothesis that economic inequality is associated with a wish for a strong leader in a study involving 28 countries from five continents (Study 1, N = 6,112), a study involving an Australian community sample (Study 2, N = 515), and two experiments (Study 3a, N = 96; Study 3b, N = 296). We found correlational (Studies 1 and 2) and experimental (Studies 3a and 3b) evidence for our prediction that higher inequality enhances the wish for a strong leader. We also found that this relationship is mediated by perceptions of anomie, except in the case of objective inequality in Study 1. This suggests that societal inequality enhances the perception that society is breaking down (anomie) and that a strong leader is needed to restore order (even when that leader is willing to challenge democratic values).
Keywords
anomie, authoritarianism, economic inequality, leadership, populism, preregistered, subjective and objective inequality, Taverne, General Psychology, SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
Citation
Sprong, S, Jetten, J, Wang, Z, Peters, K, Mols, F, Verkuyten, M, Bastian, B, Ariyanto, A, Autin, F, Ayub, N, Badea, C, Besta, T, Butera, F, Costa-Lopes, R, Cui, L, Fantini, C, Finchilescu, G, Gaertner, L, Gollwitzer, M, Gómez, Á, González, R, Hong, Y Y, Jensen, D H, Jasinskaja-Lahti, I, Karasawa, M, Kessler, T, Klein, O, Lima, M, Mégevand, L, Morton, T, Paladino, P, Polya, T, Renvik, T A, Ruza, A, Shahrazad, W, Shama, S, Smith, H J, Torres, A R, van der Bles, A M & Wohl, M J A 2019, '“Our Country Needs a Strong Leader Right Now” : Economic Inequality Enhances the Wish for a Strong Leader', Psychological Science, vol. 30, no. 11, pp. 1625-1637. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797619875472