Presidential electoral success depends on motive congruence with society, not on motive direction

Evidence

Presidential appeal, as measured by success at both election and re-election, is a straight-forward function of how congruent the president’s motive levels were with those of the American society of the time. … Algebraically signed discrepancy scores gave no significant results. This suggests that what is important is the discrepancy between president and society, rather than whether the president or the society is higher on any particular motive. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1349

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the broader leader-follower congruence / person-situation fit literature and the logic of ‘fit’ in organizational psychology.