The Personality of Trump’s ‘Personality Cult‘
There have been many attempts to explain the unwavering appeal of Donald Trump among his loyal supporters. What is different about Trump that sets him apart from other populists? Does the former U.S. President have a ‘personality cult‘? In mainstream media, the most loyal Trump supporters are often said to form such a cult. Even members of Trump’s own party have used the term to describe his followers. Republican politician Liz Cheney, for example, has stated that her party has "embraced Donald Trump [and] embraced his cult of personality."
In our recent paper in the journal Political Psychology, Professor Ben Goldsmith at the Australian National University and I found that the most fervent, loyal supporters of Trump share personality traits that distinguish them from other U.S. citizens, including other Trump voters not expressing strong loyalty to the former president. And these distinct set of personality traits are associated with cult membership. We suggest that these fanatic followers endorse Trump to satisfy a basic psychological need for a strong leader. Recognizing this mentality can help us understand Trump’s strong and persistent political appeal.
What makes a personality cult?
A personality cult is the social phenomenon of people showing unquestioned loyalty to a strong leader they perceive as infallible and truthful. It even has religious parallels to the extent that the leader is considered a saviour with the unique ability to protect society against internal or external threats. Cult members, according to The American Psychological Association’s definition, show "exaggerated devotion to a charismatic political, religious, or other leader, often fomented by authoritarian figures or regimes as a means of maintaining their power." The phenomenon is most commonly associated with societies where a strong leader sits on top of a regime with strict control of public information.
Goldsmith and I explored the grounds for referring to Trump’s most loyal supporters as his personality cult. We especially examined whether these members of the U.S. population can be distinguished by personality traits we consider to be characteristic of cult members. We did so based on data from two nationwide surveys. In 2021, we conducted a survey of 1,083 U.S. adults designed to identify the most devoted Trump supporters and to reveal their fundamental personality traits. We then compared our data to those of the large American National Election Studies with 4,270 respondents from 2016, when Trump was elected president.
Trump loyalists are highly conscientious...
We identified individuals as Trump loyalists in terms of three aspects of Trump support: (1) belief in Trump as the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, (2) belief in Trump’s leadership abilities, and (3) belief that he has an elevated status that is frequently disrespected by the mainstream media. These Trump supporters comprised about 10 percent of all American adults and roughly one-third of Trump-voting Republicans in our total sample.
To measure respondents’ personality, we employed the ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions standardly used in personality psychology indicating respondents’ degree of:
- agreeableness,
- conscientiousness,
- extraversion,
- neuroticism (tendency towards negative emotions), and
- openness (or open-mindedness).
These dimensions are considered ‘big’ because each summarizes a number of more specific personality characteristics, and we also explored lower-level and more precise facets of the Big Five. We considered whether Trump loyalists share personality traits and the degree to which these are traits one would expect to find among cult members. This enabled us to explore whether loyalty to Trump could be explained in terms of psychological needs rooted in their personality – needs we expect to find in members of a personality cult.
Our most striking finding is that Trump loyalists are highly conscientious. We found conscientiousness to be significantly associated with all the three cult-like aspects of Trump support. That is, high conscientiousness is detected in Trump supporters who believe that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’, that Trump has outstanding leadership abilities, and who elevate Trump above most other U.S. presidents.
... and particularly self-disciplined
Conscientiousness is associated with being careful and thorough, dependable, orderly, and self-disciplined. These are the so-called ‘facets‘ of this personality trait. Yet ‘orderly‘ is not what we typically associate with Trump’s fervent base. On a closer look at our data, we found that it is particularly on the ‘self-discipline‘ facet of conscientiousness, not on the ‘order‘ facet, that these Trump supporters get distinctly high scores. Self-discipline involves being focused, reliable, and persevering. Here we see a difference between Trump loyalists and Social Conservatives, as Conservatism is commonly associated with both facets of conscientiousness. We find high self-discipline also in Trump loyalists not identifying as Conservative or Republican. This shows that the most loyal supporters have personality characteristics distinct from the broader group of Trump voters.
When we think of Trump loyalists as a personality cult, it is not surprising that they are particularly self-disciplined. Cult members show stable, disciplined loyalty to their leader and their cult. While Conservatives value social stability and order, cult members can favour destabilising acts like the storming of the U.S. Capitol following their leader’s election defeat.
Trump loyalists are not as open to new experiences
As is also expected from cult members, Trump loyalists show a distinctly low degree of openness. This personality dimension is associated with being curious, original, and widely interested. These are characteristics not expected in members of a personality cult, who show uncritical loyalty to their leader and will not entertain thoughts contradicting their belief in his abilities.
However, we also found that this low score on openness does not distinguish Trump loyalists from other Trump voters, such as Conservatives and Republicans not expressing loyality to Trump but nevertheless vote for him.
Are groups more than just collections of individuals?
What determines the behaviour of a group, like a company or a sports team? This raises important moral questions concerning who is responsible for a group's actions. In 2023, Lars Moen received a FWF ESPRIT grant to study "The Ontological and Normative Status of Groups". This project explores whether models used to explain social phenomena should include groups as irreducible actors or focus strictly on individuals and their motivations for producing collective outcomes.
Psychological needs may drive personality cults
We can draw important lessons for the study of U.S. politics from our study of the personality of Trump’s ‘personality cult.‘ The devoted support many Americans show for Trump demonstrates that political behaviour need not be motivated by policy preferences or ideology. It might instead be motivated by psychological needs found in individuals seeking the guidance of strong leadership based on their personalities. They put their faith in a strong leader they believe can effectively solve problems and save their country from internal and external threats. They find assurance in a leader like Trump, who boasts that “I alone can fix it.” Such a leader–follower relationship is typical of personality cults. Voters with high scores on conscientiousness, and particularly its self-discipline facet, are the most likely to respond to such strong leaders calling for unwavering loyalty and exclusive followership.
We suggest, then, that Trump exerts a personality cult over his followers that may account for his continued political appeal. That a personality cult may exist in democratic political systems should be a topic of discussion among political scientists working on such systems. It is a phenomenon we ought to account for in our attempts to understand U.S. politics since 2016. Personality cults could also elsewhere take democratic systems in a more authoritarian direction.
In 2023, he was awarded an FWF grant to study the ontological and normative status of groups. His first book, The Republican Dilemma, was published by Oxford University Press in 2024.