*The Ethnic and Political Divide in the Preference for Strong Leaders

The prevailing view among scholars has been that the preference for strong leaders is an idiosyncratic feature of right-wing individuals. However, it is unclear whether this inference is accurate given that prior research has largely overlooked the role of ethnicity. We analyzed data from the United States and Western Europe ( N = 34,443) and found that ethnic minorities (and right-wing individuals) preferred strong leaders to a greater extent than Whites (and left-wing individuals). Notably, ethnic minorities across diverse ethnic and political backgrounds were closer to right-wing Whites on strong-leader preference than to left-wing Whites. Our work also provides some evidence, using both measurement-of-mediation (Studies 1–4) and experimental mediation (preregistered Studies 5 and 6), that generalized trust helps explain group differences in strong-leader preference. In sum, our research illustrates the unique nature of left-wing Whites’ leadership preferences, and highlights the importance of testing social science theories using diverse participant samples.