A More Competent, Warm, Feminine, and Human Leader: Perceptions and Effectiveness of Democratic Versus Authoritarian Political Leaders Sainz, Mario Moreno Bella, Eva Torres Vega, Laura Democratic Authoritarian Leaders Effectiveness Stereotypes (Social psychology) Masculinity-feminity Humanity This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the R&D project "Clase social y crisis economica/sanitaria: Consecuencias interpersonales y sociopoliticas" [PID2020-114464RB-I00 (MINECO/AEI/FEDER/UE)], and by the Vice-Rectorate of Research and Transfer of the University of Granada for the Young Researchers Precompetitive Project "Leadership in times of crisis: Analysis of leadership profiles and their perceived usefulness in the resolution of psychosocial conflicts (ref: PPJIB2018-22)." Nowadays, to the detriment of democratic leaders, the emergence of authoritarian leaders has drastically modified the political sphere. This project aims to shed light on this issue by analysing how the perceived effectiveness of democratic and authoritarian political leaders are shaped by the common dimensions of social perception, such as competence/warmth, masculinity/femininity, and human uniqueness/human nature. Accordingly, three experimental studies were conducted. In Study 1 (n = 1001), we revealed that democratic leaders are perceived as more competent, warm, feminine and human. In Study 2 (n = 548) and Study 3 (n = 622), we investigated whether these dimensions of perception mediated the relationship between leaders and their perceived effectiveness. The results revealed that democratic leaders are perceived as effective in cooperative scenarios due to their competence, femininity, and human nature. Alternatively, democratic leaders are preferred in ambiguous contexts due to their competence and cognitive flexibility, that is, human nature. In contrast, authoritarian leaders are perceived as effective in competitive scenarios because of their masculinity. In Study 3, we manipulated the (in)stability of socio-economic contexts. The results revealed that democratic and authoritarian leaders are perceived as more competent, warm, human and more effective in socio-economic contexts that are stable compared with those that are unstable. The implications of the results regarding the emergence of authoritarian leaders are discussed. 2021-07-29T08:37:47Z 2021-07-29T08:37:47Z 2021-07-12 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Sainz, M., Moreno-Bella, E., & Torres-Vega, L. C. (2021). A More Competent, Warm, Feminine, and Human Leader: Perceptions and Effectiveness of Democratic Versus Authoritarian Political Leaders. International Review of Social Psychology, 34(1), 16. DOI: [http://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.452] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/69970 10.5334/irsp.452 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España Ubiquity Press