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.

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.

The lightning-fast ascent and political invincibility of Donald Trump has left many experts baffled and wondering, “How did we get here?” Any accurate and sufficient answer to that question must not only focus on Trump himself, but also on his uniquely loyal supporters. Given their extreme devotion and unwavering admiration for their highly unpredictable and often inflammatory leader, some have turned to the field of psychology for scientific explanations based on precise quantitative data and established theoretical frameworks.

Although analyses and studies by psychologists and neuroscientists have provided many thought-provoking explanations for his enduring support, the accounts of different experts often vary greatly, sometimes overlapping and other times conflicting. However insightful these critiques may be, it is apparent that more research and examination is needed to hone in on the exact psychological and social factors underlying this peculiar human behavior.

In a recent review paper published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology, Psychologist and UC Santa Cruz professor Thomas Pettigrew argues that five major psychological phenomena can help explain this exceptional political event.

1.     Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism refers to the advocacy or enforcement of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom, and is commonly associated with a lack of concern for the opinions or needs of others. Authoritarian personality syndrome—a well-studied and globally-prevalent condition—is a state of mind that is characterized by belief in total and complete obedience to one’s authority. Those with the syndrome often display aggression toward outgroup members, submissiveness to authority, resistance to new experiences, and a rigid hierarchical view of society. The syndrome is often triggered by fear, making it easy for leaders who exaggerate threat or fear monger to gain their allegiance.

Although authoritarian personality is found among liberals, it is more common among the right-wing around the world. President Trump’s speeches, which include absolutist terms like “losers” and “complete disasters,” are naturally appealing to those who prefer authoritarianism.

While research showed that Republican voters in the U.S. scored higher than Democrats on measures of authoritarianism before Trump emerged on the political scene, a 2016 Politico survey found that high authoritarians greatly favored then-candidate Trump, which led to a correct prediction that he would win the election, despite the polls saying otherwise.

2.     Social dominance orientation

Social dominance orientation (SDO)—which is distinct but related to authoritarian personality syndrome—refers to people who have a preference for the societal hierarchy of groups, specifically with a structure in which the high-status groups have dominance over the low-status ones. Those with SDO are typically dominant, tough-minded, and driven by self-interest.

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In Trump’s speeches, he appeals to those with SDO by repeatedly making a clear distinction between groups that have a generally higher status in society (White), and those groups that are typically thought of as belonging to a lower status (immigrants and minorities).

A 2016 survey study of 406 American adults published this year in the journal Personality and Individual Differences found that those who scored high on both SDO and authoritarianism were those who intended to vote for Trump in the election.

3.     Prejudice

It would be grossly unfair and inaccurate to say that every one of Trump’s supporters have prejudice against ethnic and religious minorities, but it would be equally inaccurate to say that some do not. It is a well-known fact that the Republican party, going at least as far back to Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy,” used strategies that appealed to bigotry, such as by delivering speeches with “dog whistles”—code words that signaled prejudice toward minorities that were designed to be heard by racists but no one else.

While the dog whistles of the past were more subtle, Trump’s are sometimes shockingly direct. There’s no denying that he routinely appeals to bigoted supporters when he calls Muslims “dangerous” and Mexican immigrants “rapists” and “murderers,” often in a blanketed fashion. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a new study has shown that support for Trump is correlated with a standard scale of modern racism.

4.     Intergroup contact

Intergroup contact refers to contact with members of groups that are outside one’s own, which has been experimentally shown to reduce prejudice. As such, it’s important to note that there is growing evidence that Trump’s white supporters have experienced significantly less contact with minorities than other Americans. For example, a 2016 study found that “…the racial and ethnic isolation of Whites at the zip-code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support.” This correlation persisted while controlling for dozens of other variables. In agreement with this finding, the same researchers found that support for Trump increased with the voters’ physical distance from the Mexican border.

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5.     Relative deprivation

Relative deprivation refers to the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes they are entitled. It is the discontent felt when one compares their position in life to others who they feel are equal or inferior but have unfairly had more success than them.

Common explanations for Trump’s popularity among non-bigoted voters involve economics. There is no doubt that some Trump supporters are simply angry that American jobs are being lost to Mexico and China, which is certainly understandable, although these loyalists often ignore the fact that some of these careers may be lost due to the accelerating pace of automation.

These Trump supporters are experiencing relative deprivation, and are common among the swing states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. This kind of deprivation is specifically referred to as “relative,” as opposed to “absolute,” because the feeling is often based on a skewed perception of what one is entitled to. For example, an analysis conducted by FiveThirtyEight estimated that the median annual income of Trump supporters was $72,000.