Russia's attacks on civilians strengthen Ukrainian resistance.

The all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine commencing in February 2022 has been characterized by systematic violence against civilians. Presumably, the commanders of Russian forces believe that, for example, the bombing of residential buildings will force Ukrainians to lay down their arms. We ask whether military attacks against civilians deter or, in contrast, motivate resistance against the attackers. Two-wave probability surveys were collected in Ukraine in March and April 2022 (Ns = 1,081 and 811, respectively). Preregistered analyses indicate that perceptions and experience of military attacks (victimization) did not decrease Ukrainians' motivations to resist the invading forces. The analyses suggest that victimization positively relates to motivations to join military combat in defense positions. Military attacks against civilians are morally impermissible and prohibited under international humanitarian law. Our results suggest that such attacks are also counterproductive from a military perspective.

Experimental and cross-cultural evidence that parenthood and parental care motives increase social conservatism.

Differences in attitudes on social issues such as abortion, immigration and sex are hugely divisive, and understanding their origins is among the most important tasks facing human behavioural sciences. Despite the clear psychological importance of parenthood and the motivation to provide care for children, researchers have only recently begun investigating their influence on social and political attitudes. Because socially conservative values ostensibly prioritize safety, stability and family values, we hypothesized that being more invested in parental care might make socially conservative policies more appealing. Studies 1 (preregistered; n = 376) and 2 (n = 1924) find novel evidence of conditional experimental effects of a parenthood prime, such that people who engaged strongly with a childcare manipulation showed an increase in social conservatism. Studies 3 (n = 2610, novel data from 10 countries) and 4 (n = 426 444, World Values Survey data) find evidence that both parenthood and parental care motivation are associated with increased social conservatism around the globe. Further, most of the positive association globally between age and social conservatism is accounted for by parenthood. These findings support the hypothesis that parenthood and parental care motivation increase social conservatism.

Is a disease leader attractive? Six tests of whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected follower preferences for attractiveness, health and other traits in political and non-political leaders.

Attractive political candidates receive more votes on Election Day compared to their less attractive competitors. One well-cited theoretical account for this attractiveness effect (White et al., 2013) holds that it reflects an adaptive psychological response to disease threats. Voters are predicted to upregulate preferences for attractiveness because it constitutes a cue to health. The global COVID-19 pandemic constitutes an ecologically relevant and realistic setting for further testing this prediction. Here, we report the results from six tests of the prediction based on two large and nationally representative surveys conducted in Denmark (n = 3297) at the outbreak of the pandemic and one year later. Utilizing experimental techniques, validated individual difference measures of perceived disease threat and geographic data on COVID-19 severity, we do not find that disease threats like the COVID-19 pandemic upregulate preferences for attractive and healthy political or non-political leaders. Instead, respondents display heightened preferences for health in socially proximate relations (i.e. colleagues). Moreover, individuals who react aversively to situations involving risks of pathogen transmission (scoring high in Germ Aversion) report higher importance of a wide range of leadership traits, rather than for health and attractiveness in particular. Results are discussed in relation to evolutionary accounts of leadership and followership.

Harsh but Expedient: Dominant Leaders Increase Group Cooperation via Threat of Punishment.

Dominant leadership is, surprisingly, on the rise globally. Previous studies have found that intergroup conflict increases followers' support for dominant leaders, but identifying the potential benefits that such leaders can supply is crucial to explaining their rise. We took a behavioral-economics approach in Study 1 (N = 288 adults), finding that cooperation among followers increases under leaders with a dominant reputation. This pattern held regardless of whether dominant leaders were assigned to groups, elected through a bidding process, or leading under intergroup competition. Moreover, Studies 2a to 2e (N = 1,022 adults) show that impressions of leader dominance evoked by personality profiles, authoritarian attitudes, or physical formidability similarly increase follower cooperation. We found a weaker but nonsignificant trend when dominance was cued by facial masculinity and no evidence when dominance was cued by aggressive disposition in a decision game. These findings highlight the unexpected benefits that dominant leaders can bestow on group cooperation through threat of punishment.

Dominant leaders and the political psychology of followership.

What is the psychology underlying preferences for dominant political leaders? Against earlier theories about authoritarianism and submissiveness, recent research shows that followers strategically promote dominant individuals to leadership positions in order to enhance their ability to aggress against other groups. Thus, recent evidence supports the existence of dedicated mechanisms for generating summary impressions of the dominance of potential leaders from a wealth of cues. Furthermore, research demonstrates how preferences for dominant leaders are heightened in contexts of conflict and among individuals prone to view the social world as conflictual. At the same time, this research shows that followers intuitively fear exploitation from dominant leaders and the political psychology of followership also contains dedicated mechanisms for identifying and counteracting such exploitation.

Presidential, But Not Prime Minister, Candidates With Lower Pitched Voices Stand a Better Chance of Winning the Election in Conservative Countries.

Previous studies have shown that voters rely on sexually dimorphic traits that signal masculinity and dominance when they choose political leaders. For example, voters exert strong preferences for candidates with lower pitched voices because these candidates are perceived as stronger and more competent. Moreover, experimental studies demonstrate that conservative voters, more than liberals, prefer political candidates with traits that signal dominance, probably because conservatives are more likely to perceive the world as a threatening place and to be more attentive to dangerous and threatening contexts. In light of these findings, this study investigates whether country-level ideology influences the relationship between candidate voice pitch and electoral outcomes of real elections. Specifically, we collected voice pitch data for presidential and prime minister candidates, aggregate national ideology for the countries in which the candidates were nominated, and measures of electoral outcomes for 69 elections held across the world. In line with previous studies, we found that candidates with lower pitched voices received more votes and had greater likelihood of winning the elections. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed an interaction between candidate voice pitch, national ideology, and election type (presidential or parliamentary). That is, having a lower pitched voice was a particularly valuable asset for presidential candidates in conservative and right-leaning countries (in comparison to presidential candidates in liberal and left-leaning countries and parliamentary elections). We discuss the practical implications of these findings, and how they relate to existing research on candidates' voices, voting preferences, and democratic elections in general.

When the Party Decides: The Effects of Facial Competence and Dominance on Internal Nominations of Political Candidates.

The facial traits and appearance of political candidates have been found to predict election outcomes across countries with different electoral systems and institutions. Research over the last decade has provided two different versions of this overall conclusion. First and most thoroughly studied, candidates who from their mere faces are evaluated as more competent get more votes on Election Day. Second, recent research finds that the ideological leanings of candidates and the voters they cater to also matter: Right-wing and conservative candidates receive more votes if they look more dominant, while liberal candidates lose votes when looking dominant and masculine. In this article, we investigate whether these patterns extend to candidate selection and support within parties as determined by party organizations. We test this through an original combination of naive respondents' trait ratings of candidates in Danish local elections and these candidates' positions on the ballot as decided by nomination processes within local party organizations. The results strongly support that the conclusions in previous studies extend to dynamics within the party among party members: Danish local party organizations tend to nominate facially competent candidates at the top of the ballot regardless of their ideological leaning. Moreover, liberal and conservative parties position dominant-looking candidates significantly different on the ballot with liberal parties being less likely to assign facially dominant candidates to top ballot positions. These results add important new insights about the underlying psychological processes causing appearance-based voting and relate to the ongoing discussion about the quality of public opinion formation.

Vote Choice, Ideology, and Social Dominance Orientation Influence Preferences for Lower Pitched Voices in Political Candidates.

Humans are equipped with a psychological system of followership that evolved to regulate choices of leaders based partly on would-be leaders' physiological features. One such feature is voice pitch, which is determined by the physiology of the throat. Recent studies find that political candidates in modern elections with lower-pitched voices are generally more successful. As lower-pitched voices are perceived as stronger and more dominant, these findings have been taken to indicate a general preference for dispositional abilities in leaders to protect and prevail in conflicts. Here we extend upon these findings by demonstrating that conservatives and Republicans tend to view the world as much more competitive and threatening than liberals and Democrats. We utilize two existing data sources to show that political candidates with lower-pitched voices are preferred more among conservative Republicans than among liberal Democrats. In a third study we show that preferences for lower-pitched candidate voices stem from individual differences in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Importantly, across all three studies subjects' party affiliation, ideology, and SDO only predict preferences for male candidate voices. We conclude with a discussion of the results in relation to followership psychology and general debates on the rationality of the public with respect to elections.