Leader choices reflect cultural differences in ideal affect more during organizational growth than decline.

What emotions do people prefer in their leaders, and do these emotional preferences vary depending on how their organizations are performing? In three studies conducted between 2018 and 2023 with European American, East Asian American, and Hong Kong Chinese participants, we predicted that people would choose leaders whose emotional expressions matched their culture's ideal affect (the affective states they value) more during growth, when conditions are favorable and people default to cultural ideals, than during decline, when conditions are unfavorable, and people are more open to other options. In Study 1 (N = 304), participants imagined that their own organizations were undergoing growth or decline and rated the emotions they would ideally like their leaders to have. In Studies 2 (N = 449) and 3 (N = 558), participants read hypothetical scenarios of student organizations undergoing growth and decline, and chose a leader among excited, calm, and neutral candidates. Across the studies, during growth, European Americans and East Asian Americans chose excited candidates more and calm candidates less than did Hong Kong Chinese, consistent with cultural differences in the valuation of high arousal positive affect. During decline, however, these cultural differences disappeared. Moreover, in Study 3, participants' ideal high arousal positive affect predicted their positive judgments of the excited candidate when conditions were favorable but not when they were unfavorable, suggesting one mechanism underlying these cultural differences in leader choice. Together, these studies suggest that people prefer leaders who express culturally ideal emotions more during organizational growth than decline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).