The Psychology Behind Choosing A Leader

With the way the world is turning, and with the questionable decisions made by those in power, occasionally we wonder, “How on Earth did we make THIS guy our leader?” I read the news and noticed the patterns that certain leaders are copying from their predecessors. Then it came to me.

If we could deduce the trends and patterns that we as a collective follow when selecting the people in positions of power, then we would be able to understand why we find certain leaders so appealing, though they have proven incompetent. I refuse to believe that it is merely adoration or plain ignorance. There is science behind this.

My project was to discover how much personal values, situation, and social influence affect how we choose our leaders.

It is important to have knowledge of these trends because it affects every person on every level. It helps us to choose our leaders more responsibly, and it permits political scientists to further their studies on the current state of government and be able to make contrasts and comparisons.

Whoever is made a leader is responsible for the safety and well-being of their country. We do not understand these processes and are unable to identify the glaring warning signs; we end up being at risk of being led by a person who has no concern for the state of their country or its people.

Before I conducted my experiment, I researched variations of my project and how they were done before. One that stood out to me was the Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment conducted at Swarthmore College in 1951, so I decided to model my first trial of surveys based on his experiment. My surveys had scenarios that challenged people to choose their leader and the process behind their reasoning in that situation.

I had two batches of surveys; one that I released among students in the school, and the other I released at a Parent-Teacher conference.

The first batch had two surveys, with two different versions: the primed and the neutral. The prime had a line that showed bias towards a certain leader, to try to influence their choice. I went to 20 different classes, handing out my surveys randomly to students to get their replies. This is the batch I used for my regional science fair and won. After this, I decided I would cast the second batch among older individuals so I could get more diverse data.

The second batch, however, had five surveys. There was only one survey that was primed, but the rest were neutral because I needed a detailed answer based on the scenarios. This was distributed among adults as they came through the door during our school's Parent Teacher Conference. I chose this setting because I need more detailed reasons, and I concluded that adults would be able to give me the depth I was looking for.

In total, I had over 50 participants for my surveys, and it left me with tremendous data to analyze and draw conclusions from.

The results of my research showed that personal values are the forerunners of how we choose our leaders; most people would prefer a leader who shares their opinions and core values as opposed to a person who shares nothing in common with them. Though in my second batch, it showed that some of the adults made their leader choice based on the situation at hand.

I chose to keep my survey participants anonymous in both name and gender, to avoid bias in all forms. I did not want to connect their choice of leader as being a result of their gender.

My data is represented in tables and graphs to see the easy trends in both batches.

First Batch

My first wave of surveys around the school was conducted among students with only two teachers in the mix. I discovered from the survey that personal values played the most prominent role in choosing leaders. It was a similar result in both scenarios.

From this, I noticed that most people in the Emergency Leadership Scenario chose Leader B, who was more of a people person and focused more on the group happiness than actual survival. It infers that people prefer a leader who keeps them in the loop and remains calm, regardless of whether they can deliver, as long as they align with their values.

But in the National Crisis Scenario, the participants chose Leader A, who was very assertive and quick to promise results, and not much of a team player. I deduced that in tense situations, they would rather choose a firm person rather than a diplomat (which confirms my original hypothesis in my proposal). They were also heavily aligned by their Personal Values, with the situation also coming into play.

Second Batch

My second batch had five surveys, and these were the analyses for each:

National Health Advisory: Most chose Leader B, saying that they valued their transparency. Those who chose Leader A said they were the option in that situation.

Organizational Ethics Crisis: Leader B was the predominant choice in this survey. Their values aligned with transparency and accountability, which a lot of participants also shared.

International Negotiation: Leader B was the predominant choice in this survey. They are more diplomatic than their counterparts, and more participants appreciated that; to them, Leader A was more likely to cause more long-term issues.

Community Crisis: Leader B was the major choice because the participants appreciated that they included people in decision-making, preferring a team player to a firm leader, though they didn't prioritize survival as much as Leader A did.

Economic Policy Decision: Participants chose Leader B, trumping the Equality vs Equity debate, most valuing fairness over a rapid recovery in the economy. They find a potential increase in inequality as unacceptable.

I discovered that personal values influence a person most, even more than conformity, regardless of the situation. This occurred because humans are emotional beings; we like to feel seen and understood, and this reflects how we choose our leaders. Because of this, we will listen to the figure of authority and obey, even if we have different opinions or concerns. Among the students, personal values were the major concern when making a choice, but the adults were more bothered with which leader fits best with the situation.

These results help us to understand the world from a political perspective. With how the world is turning, it is important to look at the facts, so history does not repeat itself. Certain leaders in history managed to play along with people’s personal values and opinions, using religion and race as leverage to garner support for their atrocities. And such is repeating itself now, with leaders using the guise of “shared values” and group opinions to commit crimes without revolt from others in power.

Politics is a sector that requires a delicate understanding and unbiased judgment for it to work as it is meant to, though it lacks that in today's world. I have learned that people’s opinions will vary depending on the situation, and that people tend to choose based on feelings, as opposed to actual promise and action, which could be deduced as a good thing, but emotions can be deceived.

If I repeated this experiment, I could also use more detailed scenarios to correspond with the age group, and more particular leader profiles, to draw closer comparisons to current affairs and politics. I would increase my sample size and reach out to a professional in this field to give my project more validity.

In the future, I would like to refine my project including factors such as how gender, ethnicity, and race affects perception of politics, or how education and living situation influence a person's perception on leader choices.

I would like to thanks to my science teacher, Mrs. Duffy and Ms. Mack who helped a lot with my research and observational study, and giving all the class(and lunch) time needed to get my project into it's polished form.

Thank you to all the participants of my survey, I acknowledge and appreciate the time you dedicated to answer my questions, and I'm truly grateful.

Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for supporting me all the way, and for having patience with me during the long nights of my research and for checking up on me when I was off the grid for days on end.

References

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Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of Obedience. Psycnet.apa.org. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1964-03472-001

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