Based on theory linking heightened authoritarianism to threat, 2 studies tested the hypothesis that the ' 'strength'' of presidential popular vote winners and the degree of societal threat are interactively related to the popular vote victory margin. In Study 1, strength was a composite of power motive, forcefulness, strength, and activeness, threat was gauged by an election year threat level index based on historians 1 opinions, and victory margin was a composite of 3 popular vote criteria. The hypothesis was supported, but the interaction could be accounted for by an interaction previously found between strength and A.M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s (1986) history cycles. In Study 2, a strength-conservatism composite replaced the initial strength variable. The hypothesis was supported. The interaction was independent of the Schlesinger interaction, and the two accounted for 47% of the variance in victory margins in 33 elections from 1824 to 1964.

Formulas to predict presidential greatness on the Maranell index were constructed for 29 presidents from Washington to L. Johnson. When a Zeitgeist variable, derived from the historian A. M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s (1986) work on the public purpose-private interest cycle of American political history, served as the initial predictor and stepwise selection was made from a personological pool and then from a situational pool, a 6-variable formula containing S personological variables accounted for 91% of the greatness variance. With free stepwise regression, years served and 6 personological predictors accounted for 94% of the greatness variance. Contrary to Simonton's (1987) attributional interpretation, a dispositional basis for presidential greatness may exist. The results also suggest that public purpose phases bring forth presidents who exhibit the personological characteristics most related to historians' acclaim for presidential leadership.What characteristics define successful leaders? What constitutes successful leadership? Because the answers are clearly of theoretical and practical importance to contexts ranging from immediate interpersonal relationships to the arena of global politics, it is not surprising that social psychologists and scholars from other disciplines have spent considerable time and energy trying to delineate the characteristics and disentangle the dynamics of successful leadership. The American presidency is a rich source of material for researching leadership in the political domain. An enormous fund of both qualitative and quantitative data is continually accumulated, and the number of presidents who have now served permits opportunities to apply relatively sophisticated quantitative and statistical strategies and techniques to the information.One line of political leadership research has focused on the relative "greatness" of the presidents. The presidents have been formally assessed several times since 1948 by groups of experts (e.g.,

On the basis of K. Stenner's (2005) authoritarian dynamic theory, it was hypothesized that the number of death sentences and executions would be higher in more threatened conservative states than in less threatened conservative states, and would be lower in more threatened liberal states than in less threatened liberal states. Threat was based on state homicide rate, violent crime rate, and non-White percentage of population. Conservatism was based on state voter ideological identification, Democratic and Republican Party elite liberalism-conservatism, policy liberalism-conservatism, religious fundamentalism, degree of economic freedom, and 2004 presidential election results. For 1977-2004, with controls for state population and years with a death penalty provision, the interactive hypothesis received consistent support using the state conservatism composite and voter ideological identification alone. As well, state conservatism was related to death penalties and executions, but state threat was not. The temporal stability of the findings was demonstrated with a split-half internal replication using the periods 1977-1990 and 1991-2004. The interactive hypothesis and the results also are discussed in the context of other threat-authoritarianism theories and terror management theory.

Building on the work of S. M. Sales, who related contemporaneous economic threat to authoritarian behaviors, two studies tested the hypothesis that threat is associated with relatively more attraction to authoritarian churches and less attraction to nonauthoritarian churches. The hypothesis was supported in Study 1, when the annual percentage of changes in memberships (1928-1986) for two authoritarian and two nonauthoritarian denominations were examined in relation to several annual social, economic, and political threat indices, and in Study 2, when changes in the proportion of the population having membership in 25 representative denominations were examined over periods of relatively low threat (1955-1964), high threat (1965-1974), and low threat (1965-1979). Both studies suggest that social and political threat as well as economic threat may activate authoritarian behaviors.

A new precocity-longevity hypothesis that those who reach career peaks earlier tend to have shorter lives was tested with 23 samples of eminent persons (N = 1,026), including U.S. presidents, French presidents, Canadian prime ministers, British prime ministers, New Zealand prime ministers, Australian prime ministers, male British monarchs, popes, U.S. Supreme Court justices, U.S. vice presidents, Nova Scotia premiers, Nobel prize winners, Oscar winners for acting, signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and distinguished American psychologists. Support was found in 22 samples. Supplementary analyses showed that the association between precocity and life span is robust and apparently does not result wholly from the artifact of persons with younger sample recruitment ages having shorter life expectancies or from a sample selection artifact described by D. K. Simonton. Explanatory dynamics based on stress and Type A personality are suggested.