People Prefer Politicians with Matching Implicit Motives: A Study on the Achievement and Affiliation Motives

ObjectiveFor centuries, researchers have been interested in the factors determining political preference. These four studies tested the prediction that a match between political leaders’ and voters’ implicit motives – i.e., non-conscious tendencies to strive for particular social rewards – predicts the appeal of leaders.MethodWe used student samples in all studies (Study 1a: N = 100; Study 1b: N = 52; Study 2: N = 72; Study 3: N = 62). We assessed two implicit motives: (a) the achievement motive, which refers to striving for excellence, and (b) the affiliation motive, which refers to striving for social harmony. Correlational analyses and polynomial regression with response surface analysis were used to assess the relation between implicit motives and political preference.ResultsParticipants were more likely to positively evaluate and vote for politicians whose speeches indicated a motive profile that matched their own implicit motives. Thus, people who are relatively achievement-motivated prefer relatively achievement-motivated candidates, and participants who are relatively affiliation-motivated prefer relatively affiliation -motivated candidates. Conversely, explicitly measured motives did not have these predictive effects.ConclusionsThese results indicate that individual differences in implicit motives play a significant role in political preference.