A series of studies published in Political Psychology suggests that liberals may underestimate the prospects of dominant leaders because they react negatively to the leaders’ forceful style. Across workplace and political scenarios, liberals generally rated dominant figures as less caring, fair and likable than conservatives did, and gave them lower chances of winning promotions or elections.
The researchers, Danbee Chon of the University of South Florida and Hemant Kakkar of the National University of Singapore, distinguished between prestige and dominance as two ways leaders gain influence. Prestige-oriented leaders earn respect through expertise, cooperation and fair treatment, while dominant leaders rely on assertiveness, intimidation and forceful authority.
In the first study, 177 full-time U.S. employees evaluated their supervisors’ leadership behavior and later assessed their fairness, likability and prospects for promotion. As supervisors’ dominance increased, liberal employees rated them less positively and considered them less likely to be promoted than Conservative employees did. These ideological differences were not statistically significant when supervisors showed low levels of dominance.
The researchers then tested the pattern in controlled experiments involving fictional mayoral candidates. In one experiment, participants read about a competent candidate described either as dominant or as prestigious. Liberals responded more negatively to the dominant candidate, rating the person as less caring, fair and likable than conservatives did. The ideological gap did not appear in the same way for the prestige-oriented candidate.
Another experiment asked participants to assess a candidate’s likability and chances of winning an election. Participants received a 10-cent bonus and could bet part of it on the candidate’s victory, with successful bets doubled. Liberals rated the dominant candidate as less likable, estimated lower chances of victory and wagered less than conservatives. Statistical analyses indicated that reduced likability partly explained the lower success estimates and smaller bets.
The researchers also examined whether the effect depended on partisan assumptions. In a study involving 1,042 participants, the election was explicitly described as nonpartisan. Liberals still disliked the dominant candidate more than conservatives did and assigned lower odds of victory. The difference in betting amounts was not directly statistically significant, although the pathway through lower likability remained reliable.
The studies also examined possible complacency. Lower expectations that a dominant candidate would succeed were associated with placing less priority on voting and expressing weaker voting intentions. However, liberals and conservatives did not differ directly on those measures, so the findings do not establish that opponents of dominant leaders actually vote at lower rates.
A further experiment tested whether polling information changed the pattern. Among 788 participants, liberals continued to rate a dominant candidate as less likable and less likely to win than conservatives did. They also bet less on the candidate when polls showed a 45.13% or 50.13% chance of victory. When the stated probability rose to 55.13%, the overall difference in betting was no longer statistically significant, although the candidate’s personal unlikability remained linked to smaller bets among liberals.
An internal meta-analysis found that the ideological difference was modest but consistent across the studies. Supplemental analyses, including data from the World Values Survey, pointed in the same direction.
The authors connect the findings to the affect heuristic and the halo effect: people’s emotional reactions to a person can influence unrelated judgments about that individual’s future performance. They suggest that liberals may see coercive or domineering behavior as conflicting with values such as fairness and protection from harm. That negative moral impression may then lead to dislike and, in turn, to lower estimates of the leader’s chances.
The researchers emphasize that the studies did not establish whether liberals were objectively less accurate. Participants’ estimates were not compared with the actual success rates of the leaders they evaluated. The results could therefore reflect liberal underestimation, conservative overconfidence or both.
Other limitations include the use of fictional candidates, small monetary bets and experimental settings that did not replicate the party cues, media coverage and higher stakes of real elections. The study also measured participants’ perceptions of leaders’ values rather than directly measuring the participants’ own moral priorities. Future research could compare predictions with real election outcomes and test whether negative expectations actually reduce participation among people who oppose dominant leaders.
Sources: PsyPost.