Trait Preferences for Leaders During War: Experimental and Panel-Based Evidence from Ukraine 2022

When do citizens want a dominant political leader? A prominent hypothesis suggests that such preferences arise as a result of intergroup conflict. However, this conflict-sensitivity hypothesis has not yet been tested in the context of a real war. Here, we report results from an original experiment embedded in a two-wave panel survey with 1,081 (811 re-interviewed) Ukrainians conducted at the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The results show that respondents generally value competence and warmth over dominance in leaders. Yet, war increases preferences for dominance and reduces preferences for warmth and competence. Additional analyses reveal that emotional reactions to the war also relate to leader trait preferences: Ukrainians who react with aggressive emotions display enhanced preferences for all leader traits, whereas fearful reactions leave leader trait preferences mostly unaffected. Taken together, these results substantially advance existing knowledge about how violent conflict shapes citizens’ leader preferences.