Even in modern democracies, a significant share of citizens hold so-called authoritarian attitudes, emphasizing obedience, strong leaders and cultural conformity. Authoritarian attitudes have been linked to outcomes such as the contemporary emergence of populism and democratic backsliding in many countries. Yet, it remains poorly understand why the prevalence of such attitudes varies between individuals, societies, and over time. This paper revisits the hypothesis that exposure to existential insecurity - emerging from physical or economic threats - promote authoritarian attitudes. It explores this in a global analysis linking spatial survey data capturing authoritarian attitudes to precise information on the location and timing of natural disasters, offering exogenous sources of variation in physical and economic treats between individuals. Combining different empirical approaches, including cohort-analysis and a differences-in-differences approach, we explore whether exposure to natural disasters explain authoritarian attitudes. We further investigate whether disaster exposure during the formative years of childhood and adolescence matters more than these same experiences in adulthood. Finally, using data on second generation immigrants, we explore whether any effects of natural disasters on authoritarian attitudes persist across generations.