Mark van Vugt

How do ecological threats shape the cultural evolution of leadership preferences? This paper examines whether exposure to earthquake risk influences the emergence and transmission of preferences for strong, autocratic leaders. Building on an ecological approach to leadership and cultural evolution theory (Lonati & Van Vugt, 2024), we distinguish between evoked and transmitted cultural processes. From an evoked perspective, unpredictable environmental threats such as earthquakes should activate evolved psychological mechanisms favoring centralized authority, rapid coordination, and decisive leadership. From a transmitted perspective, repeated exposure to seismic risk may give rise to culturally inherited leadership norms through intergenerational social learning, institutional reinforcement, and collective memory. We test these ideas using large-scale survey data combined with fine-grained measures of seismic risk. Study 1 exploits subnational variation across more than 70 countries, showing that individuals living closer to high-intensity earthquake zones express stronger preferences for autocratic leadership. This reveals substantial cultural heterogeneity within countries, suggesting that ecological “fault lines” map onto differences in political leadership. Study 2 leverages migration as a natural experiment. Using data on second-generation immigrants, we examine whether ancestral exposure to earthquake risk predicts leadership preferences independent of current ecological conditions. Preliminary findings indicate that such preferences persist across generations, consistent with cultural transmission. Together, these results suggest that ecological threats do not merely shape immediate behavior but leave enduring cultural imprints on leadership ideals. By integrating ecological variation, migration, and intergenerational transmission, this study contributes to broader debates on the origins, persistence, and diversity of cultural norms in human societies.