Demography

Neuroscience

Social psychology

Face (sociological concept)

Autocracy

Developmental psychology

Economics

Psychology

Politics

Life expectancy

Political science

Demographic economics

Democracy

Population

Sociology

Expectancy theory

Charisma

Perception

Social science

The International Journal of Aging and Human Development

Environmental characteristics can influence aging. Democracy results in higher life expectancy for its members. However, there is a lack of research that indicates the influence of democracy on its leaders. Specifically, we examine how the nature of democracy affects the perceived aging of its leaders. In this paper, we capture perceived aging via face perception. We suggest that leaders in a democracy are perceived to age more compared to those in an autocracy. Counter to the common belief that democracies are less stressful, we find that the stress of being a leader in a democracy can have adverse effects. Study 1 uses picture pairs of 268 leaders from across the world, and participants judge age difference in years between the pictures. Study 2, a controlled study, examines downstream influences on the leader’s specific attributes. Results indicate that leaders appearing to age more are more likely to avoid complex decisions, to be less charismatic, and to be less inspiring.

The Perils of Leading a Democracy