People who support strong, rule-breaking political leaders are often assumed to be exclusively aligned with the political right. But a new study published in Psychological Science challenges that assumption by revealing that ethnic minorities, regardless of political affiliation, tend to favor strong leaders more than left-leaning Whites. This preference was linked to levels of generalized trust, with groups expressing lower trust in others more likely to support authoritative leadership.
The findings complicate long-standing ideas about what drives political preferences for dominant or authoritarian figures, such as former U.S. President Donald Trump. While support for strong leaders has been widely associated with conservatism, the new evidence suggests that ethnicity and trust in others also play a key role.
For decades, political psychology research has focused on how individual personality traits and ideological values shape people’s views on leadership. A consistent narrative has been that people on the political right are more likely to desire leaders who are forceful, uncompromising, and even willing to break rules to achieve their goals. Much of this research has roots in mid-20th century work, including the influential studies of authoritarian personality types.
But those earlier studies were based almost entirely on White samples. As minority populations continue to grow in countries like the United States, a deeper understanding of how ethnic background influences leadership preferences has become increasingly important. Recent political trends—such as rising support for Donald Trump among Latino and Black voters—suggest that the traditional picture may be incomplete.
The researchers behind the new study set out to examine whether generalized trust—people’s broad belief about whether others can be relied on—might explain why certain groups are drawn to strong leaders. They hypothesized that groups with lower levels of trust would be more likely to support leaders who promise control, order, and punishment of wrongdoers, even if that comes at the expense of democratic norms.
“I was born in the Netherlands to parents of Indian origin, and spent much of my formative years in Japan and in Texas. As an adult, I have been at institutions of higher learning in different regions of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands,” said study author Krishnan Nair, a postdoctoral research associate with the Illinois Strategic Organizations Initiative at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“The experiences I have had interacting with people from varying ethnic, religious, political, and linguistic backgrounds have fueled my interest in better understanding differences in attitudes and values between different groups. This project is a reflection of that.”
To test whether the link between conservatism and strong-leader preference holds across different ethnic groups, the researchers conducted six studies using a combination of representative national surveys, online samples, and experiments. Altogether, they analyzed data from more than 34,000 people living in the United States and 13 Western European countries. Participants were asked about their political preferences, trust in others, and attitudes toward strong leadership.
In the first study, the team analyzed data from over 4,200 Americans who participated in the 2016 American National Election Studies survey. Participants were asked whether they agreed with the idea that “having a strong leader in government is good even if the leader bends the rules.” Ethnic minorities—Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans—were more likely than White Americans to support strong leadership. Among White participants, Democrats were especially likely to oppose strong leaders. In fact, White Democrats were the group most averse to strong leaders across all demographics.
The second study, based on the World Values Survey, replicated these findings in a separate U.S. sample. Again, ethnic minorities showed stronger support for authoritarian-style leadership than White respondents, and left-leaning Whites stood out as particularly opposed.
A third study extended the results to a European context, using data from over 24,000 people across 13 countries. Ethnic minorities in Europe, including those of Middle Eastern, African, and Asian descent, also expressed more support for strong leaders than White Europeans. Left-wing White Europeans had the weakest preference for such leadership.
In all three studies, the researchers found that generalized trust played a key role in shaping leadership preferences. People who reported trusting others were less likely to support strong leaders, regardless of ethnicity or political ideology. White individuals, especially White Democrats and left-wing Europeans, tended to score higher on measures of generalized trust than ethnic minorities or right-wing individuals. Mediation analyses showed that differences in trust helped explain the gap in strong-leader preference between these groups.
“Our findings suggest that the preference for strong, dominant leaders in Western countries is not restricted to the political right,” Nair told PsyPost. “Notably, minorities across ethnic/racial and political backgrounds in the United States and Western Europe are closer to right-wing Whites in their preference for strong leaders than they are to left-wing Whites. This means that left-wing Whites are relatively unique in their weaker preference for strong leaders than other groups.”
To test whether trust was a causal factor, the team conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, which included 903 individuals, participants read a fictional scenario designed to increase their trust in others. In the second experiment, involving 891 participants, individuals observed cooperative behavior in a simulated group task.
In both cases, the manipulation increased trust and reduced support for strong leadership—particularly among groups that typically showed a stronger preference for authoritarian leaders. For example, when trust was experimentally raised, differences in leadership preference between White Democrats and other groups became statistically insignificant.
These findings suggest that experiences of disadvantage and perceived social threat may reduce generalized trust, making strong leadership more appealing. Ethnic minorities in Western countries often face economic inequality, discrimination, and social exclusion—factors linked to lower trust in others. At the same time, many right-leaning individuals hold a more pessimistic view of human nature, which may also foster support for forceful, rule-breaking leaders.
“These findings may provide one potential explanation for an emerging puzzle in modern politics,” Nair said. “While many view Donald Trump’s rhetoric as racially insensitive, ethnic minority support for the Republican Party has grown during the Trump era. Our findings provide preliminary support for the notion that greater strong leader preference among minorities may have contributed to this phenomenon. ”
Although they used large and diverse samples, some of the data came from previously collected surveys not designed for their specific research questions. In addition, the experiments used hypothetical scenarios and may not fully capture how people behave in real-world political decisions. The researchers call for more work to explore other potential factors—such as personality traits, moral values, or perceptions of government effectiveness—that may contribute to group differences in leadership preferences.
“We mostly relied on self-reported measures of strong leader preference, which can be subject to social desirability bias,” Nair noted. “See for example, this paper my co-authors and I published recently, which failed to find a political divide in racial discrimination (unlike prior survey-based work) when using a research design that addresses social desirability bias.”
These findings have implications beyond politics. Leadership preferences may also shape how people evaluate potential employers and workplace environments.
“Much has been written in support of having a relatively flat organizational structure in the workplace,” Nair explained. “I want to examine whether the preference for flat organizations is weaker among ethnic minority job seekers than among (left-wing) White job seekers, consistent with the pattern of strong leader preference we uncovered in the present work.”
The study, “The Ethnic and Political Divide in the Preference for Strong Leaders,” was authored by Krishnan Nair, Marlon Mooijman, and Maryam Kouchaki.
