Is This What Makes Trump Unstoppable?

Trump is a divisive leader, and the recent impeachment trial left many shaking their heads, much as they did after the surprise presidential win in 2016. Short of arriving at an apocalyptic scenario where we are forced to come together as a community to deal with an existential threat, we seem to be stuck with a great deal of uncertainty, confusion and lack of direction as a nation.

What Makes Trump Tick?

Trump seems bullet-proof. Over and over again, what seemed impossible has happened. Never in our history has a president been so many things to so many different stakeholders, able to occupy so many different identities under the umbrella of his on-the-nose personality.

How do we account for his invulnerability? Others do the same things, and it's game over. He seems to have signed a deal with the proverbial devil, while touting divine right—literally. How can we account for this, psychologically? How does his leadership work? Why don't facts seem to matter?

Recent research sheds light on these questions, looking at how people assign leadership identity, how to properly wield authoritarian power, and how beliefs are shaped.

In His Own Image

The first paper looks at how people conceptualize notions of who a leader should be. In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, "God as a white man: A psychological barrier to conceptualizing black people and women as leadership worthy," authors Roberts and colleagues (2020) conduct seven surveys to build a case that the idea of God as a white man influences people to expect leaders to also be white men.

In the first study, they found that Christians conceptualized God as an older male, regardless of whether women or men. White Christians thought of God as White, while Black Christians directly reported God was more Black than White. In prior research, Black people indirectly conceptualized God as White.

In the second, they tested whether leader choice for Christians is influenced by their ideas about God. The more they saw God as a White male, the more they saw White males as natural leaders. The third study showed that young U.S. Christians learn this conceptualization in childhood, correlated with seeing Whites as leaders, regardless of sex.

The fourth and fifth studies presented Christian and atheist adults with a made-up world of different races and studied how participants determined which group should be in power as a function of the race of their deities. Participants, regardless of religious belief, selected the ruling class to mirror the ethnicity of the made-up god. So, if god is White, then the ruling class is expected to be White as well.

Study 6 showed that for adult Christians, the God-leader relationship is a two-way street. Not only is the ruling class made in God's image, but God is expected to be the same ethnicity as the ruling class.

Study 7 was notable because it showed that for agnostic preschoolers, the relationship was one-way. God’s ethnicity predicted who they expected as a leader, but who the leader was did not inform what they expected for God. This suggests that social learning plays a role in how leadership expectations develop.

Overall, the authors conclude: “Across seven studies, we find a clear and consistent pattern: attributing a social identity to God predicts perceiving individuals who share that identity as particularly fit to lead.”

Rule with an Iron Fist

The second paper, "Deterrence effects: The role of authoritarian leadership in controlling employee workplace deviance" (Zheng et al., 2020), looked at when and how authoritarian leadership keeps people in line.

Deviance, defined as “intentional behavior that violates organizational norms and is harmful to organizations and its members,” comes in two forms: interpersonal and organizational, respectively behaviors like rudeness and bullying, and lateness, missing work and theft.

While deviance may be lessened under authentic, benevolent leaders, there is reason to believe that firmer leadership be more effective under the right circumstances. Authoritarian control of deviance is based on consequences. Deterrence theory works off the idea that those in higher power positions can use threat to control the behavior of those with less power though punishment and control of resources.

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There are two other critical factors. First, the role of leader benevolence is a mitigating factor, which could undermine authority but also build good-will. Second, “resource dependence”—the extent to which employees rely on their leaders for their needs to be met and thus how vulnerable they are—is key.

The authors conducted two studies analyzing the role of leadership style, deterrence, and resource dependence on deviance in different settings, a state-run power plant and an insurance company. They found that authoritarian leadership alone was not enough to suppress deviance.

However, authoritarian leadership was effective at deterring deviance when accompanied by low leadership benevolence and high employee resource dependence. Top-down control works when the leader shows little kindness and followers live in fear of deprivation and punishment.

The Nail That Sticks Out Gets Hammered

Given Trump’s authoritarian leadership style and religious identification, it makes sense why people follow him, falling into line. Heightening resource dependence by firing people, creating an atmosphere of scarcity and fear in a variety of ways, the lack of benevolence, pulls all the psychological levers.

It makes it all the more remarkable when someone does deviate, as Mitt Romney did in voting not to acquit during the early 2020 impeachment trial. It also makes sense that Obama's presidency, given his perceived ethnicity, multifaceted identity, and leadership style, set the stage for Trump's ascent.

Prior research shows that “right-wing authoritarianism” is associated with closed-mindedness and a tendency to hold fast to prior beliefs, for example denying climate change. Related work (Sinclair et al., 2020) shows that right-wing authoritarianism governed by underlying closed-mindedness prevents people from learning new information—even when presented with compelling evidence. The incapacity for belief updating prevents such individuals from learning from mistakes—keeping the status quo feels safe and reassuring.

Neuroscientists (Kappes et al., 2020) showed that such confirmation bias is related to decreased activity in an executive area of the brain, the pMFC (posterior medial prefrontal cortex) which affects how sensitive we are to others' opinions. “The behavioral tendency to discount disconfirming information has significant implications for individuals and society as it can generate polarization and facilitate the maintenance of false beliefs”.

Finally, De keersmaeker and colleagues (2020) showed the power of the illusory truth effect, the tendency for people to believe info is true if they have heard it before. It doesn't matter if it is actually true—just hearing it over and over makes it feel true. The illusory truth effect cuts across individual differences in cognitive ability and style. It's a robust evolutionary short-cut that makes fake news and alternative facts so powerful.

In a caveman world governed mainly by physical reality and predictable animal behavior, illusory truth is a great approximation because repetition is reliable. However, in our world, where social reality reigns, the illusory truth effect is a fearsome brain hack.

What's Next?

Along with other considerations, this research helps us to understand why our political and societal gaps are so hard to bridge. It helps us understand why reality doesn't seem to matter so much. Because of the way we are socialized, and the way the brain is wired, polarization and talking past each other is much easier than ambiguous give-and-take of communication and mutuality.

The situation is likely to persist and become more pronounced before things change. If we somehow had the collective will to pursue a coherent future we could agree upon, this kind of research could be very useful to provide guidance on how to think together more effectively, to avoid common pitfalls and more effective collaborative approaches.

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