The desire to matter and feel significant among Donald Trump
supporters is associated with support for hostile and vindictive
actions against the president’s political rivals, according to new
research published in the journal Political Psychology. In a series
of studies conducted immediately before and after the 2016 election
in the United States, the researchers examined how the quest for
personal significance was related to confrontational intergroup
behaviors.
“Our team studies what motivates people to support and engage in
radical political actions. In the past we focused on actions — both
peaceful and violent — that were aimed against the political system
such as protesting, donating money for a cause, or using
politically motivated violence,” explained study author Katarzyna
Jaśko, an associate professor at Jagiellonian University in
Poland.
“In this study we wanted to look at both sides and to explore
the motivations of not only those who protest against the
government but also those who support it. Our thinking was that
just like some citizens contest the system and engage in aggressive
actions directed against it, the government can use its power in
benevolent or hostile ways and it’s important to understand whether
its supporters accept it, and if so why?”
The researchers surveyed 189 supporters of Donald Trump and 305
supporters of Hillary Clinton the week preceding Election Day about
how different outcomes of the election would make them feel. The
participants also indicated their willingness to engage in actions
against the future president and their support for hypothetical
actions performed by the president against his or her political
opponents.
“We asked whether they would support their elected president if,
for example, he or she sued the media that criticized them, used
the military to stop anti-government demonstrations, investigated
political opponents’ email accounts or, in contrast, he or she
demonstrated respect for their political opponents and included
them in a political process,” Jaśko explained.
The researchers then repeated the study with another 217 Trump
voters and 261 Clinton voters a week after the 2016 election.
“We were interested whether psychological factors such as gain
of personal significance (i.e., feeling proud, strong, and
important) derived from the victory of one’s political candidate or
loss of personal significance (i.e., feeling humiliated, excluded,
and ashamed) experienced after the defeat could predict those
peaceful or aggressive reactions,” Jaśko said.
Trump supporters were more likely to approve of him taking
hostile actions against his political opponents than Clinton
supporters were to approve hers. The more Trump supporters thought
his election would result in a gain of personal significance, the
more supportive they were of his hostile actions.
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The researchers also analyzed data from the Pew Research
Center’s November 2016 Post-Election Survey, which included 533
Trump voters. They found that voters who indicated that the
election of Trump made them feel proud were more likely to believe
that he should not work with Democratic leaders to accomplish
things and should stand up to Democrats even if it means less gets
done in Washington.
“It means that among those who were particularly invested in
supporting Donald Trump and whose individual sense of personal
significance was mostly affected by the victory, his hostile
actions were accepted the most,” Jaśko told PsyPost.
“In contrast, among voters of Hillary Clinton (when they were
asked about it a week before the elections), expected gain of
personal significance (should she be victorious) was weakly but
significantly related to support for her benevolent but not hostile
actions toward her opponents. Thus, Trump supporters seemed to be
more vindictive in their expected (and actual) victory, whereas
that was not the case for Clinton’s supporters.”
“Among the losers of elections, we found that loss of personal
significance was related to greater motivation to engage in
peaceful, but not violent, actions toward the government. This was
true for both groups and we did not find any differences between
supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. This result could
suggest that support for aggressive and hostile actions depends on
whether those actions are perpetrated against the political system
(in which case support for such actions is low in both groups) or
whether they are endorsed by elected authorities,” Jaśko
explained.
All research includes some limitations, and the current study is
no exception. One thing the study was unable to assess was why
there was a difference between Trump and Clinton supporters.
“We don’t know what psychological factors account for the
differences we obtained between supporters of Trump and Clinton in
their support for hostile actions of their elected candidate. None
of the variables that we included in our study such as political
ideology, socioeconomic status, or education explained those
differences,” Jaśko said.
Future research could also examine “how the dynamic between
feelings of personal significance gained from supporting one’s
leader and support for hostile versus peaceful actions unfolds over
time,” she noted.
The study, “Making Americans Feel Great Again? Personal
Significance Predicts Political Intentions of Losers and Winners of
the 2016 U.S. Election“, was authored by Katarzyna Jasko, Joanna
Grzymala‐Moszczynska, Marta Maj, Marta Szastok, and Arie W.
Kruglanski.