TY - JOUR AU - Lima, Marcus E. O. AU - de França, Dalila X. AU - Jetten, Jolanda AU - Pereira, Cícero R. AU - Wohl, Michael J. A. AU - Jasinskaja-Lahti, Inga AU - Hong, Ying-yi AU - Torres, Ana Raquel AU - Costa-Lopes, Rui AU - Ariyanto, Amarina AU - Autin, Frédérique AU - Ayub, Nadia AU - Badea, Constantina AU - Besta, Tomasz AU - Butera, Fabrizio AU - Fantini-Hauwel, Carole AU - Finchilescu, Gillian AU - Gaertner, Lowell AU - Gollwitzer, Mario AU - Gómez, Ángel AU - González, Roberto AU - Jensen, Dorthe Høj AU - Karasawa, Minoru AU - Kessler, Thomas AU - Klein, Olivier AU - Megevand, Laura AU - Morton, Thomas AU - Paladino, Maria Paola AU - Polya, Tibor AU - Renvik, Tuuli Anna AU - Ruza, Aleksejs AU - Shahrazad, Wan AU - Shama, Sushama AU - Smith, Heather J. AU - Teymoori, Ali AU - van der Bles, Anne Marthe PY - 2021/05/10 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Materialist and Post-Materialist Concerns and the Wish for a Strong Leader in 27 Countries JF - Journal of Social and Political Psychology JA - JSPP VL - 9 IS - 1 SE - Original Research Reports DO - 10.5964/jspp.6213 UR - https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/6213 SP - 207-220 AB - There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong leaders is increasing. Although the causes of these developments are complex and multifaceted, here we focus on one factor: the extent to which citizens express materialist and post-materialist concerns. We explore whether objective higher levels of democracy are differentially associated with materialist and post-materialist concerns and, in turn, whether this is related to the wish for a strong leader. Testing this hypothesis across 27 countries (N = 5,741) demonstrated a direct negative effect of democracies’ development on the wish for a strong leader. Further, multi-level mediation analysis showed that the relation between the Democracy Index and the wish for a strong leader was mediated by materialist concerns. This pattern of results suggests that lower levels of democracy are associated with enhanced concerns about basic needs and this is linked to greater support for strong leaders. ER -