Donald Trump, Populism, and the Age of Extremes: Comparing the Personality Traits and Campaigning Styles of Trump and Other Leaders Worldwide

Abstract

A common narrative portrays Donald Trump as impetuous and quick to anger, thin skinned, constantly lying, brazen, vulgar, and boasting a grandiose sense of self and his accomplishments. Little systematic evidence exists that this is the case, however. With a novel data set based on expert ratings, we (1) provide systematic empirical evidence about Trump’s personality profile, (2) contrast his profile with 21 other populist leaders and 82 mainstream candidates having competed in recent elections worldwide, and (3) discuss the implications of such an extreme profile in terms of campaigning style and the use of negative and emotional campaigns. Our results illustrate Trump’s off‐the‐charts personality and campaigning style and suggest that even when compared with other abrasive, narcissistic, and confrontational political figures, he stands out as an outlier among the outliers. We conclude by discussing the implications and potential outcomes of such an extreme personality profile for Trump’s policy style and achievements while in office.

The personality of populists: provocateurs, charismatic leaders, or drunken dinner guests?

“…As perhaps the best symptomatic example, our data reveal that Trump's personality is characterised by extreme extraversion, off-the-charts narcissism, high psychopathy and Machiavellianism, very low agreeableness and low emotional stabilityall of which is in line with several accounts published elsewhere (e.g. Hamblin 2016;McAdams 2016McAdams , 2016Nai and Maier 2018;Nai et al 2019;Olbermann 2016;Visser et al 2017).…”

When do people prefer dominant over prestigious political leaders?

“…Although originally conceived as an explanation for social rank hierarchies within small, face-to-face groups, the prestige-dominance distinction has also been applied to the political arena in large-scale societies, as described above for the 2016 US Presidential Election (Kakkar & Sivanathan, 2017;McAdams, 2017;Witkower, 2017). In these applications, Donald Trump is depicted as dominant because of his more aggressive vocabulary, threats against political rivals (e.g., "lock her up", referring to his election rival Hilary Clinton), non-verbal displays of dominance such as occupying more space and extending his arms (Witkower, 2017), and the display of emotional and personality traits associated with dominance (Cheng, Tracy, & Henrich, 2010) such as high neuroticism, low agreeableness, and hubristic pride (McAdams, 2017;Nai, Martínez I Coma, & Maier, 2019). Conversely, Hillary Clinton is depicted as prestigious because of her greater political experience and expertise (e.g., having previously been Secretary of State) as well as her more frequent demonstrations of knowledge and non-verbal displays associated with the prestige strategy (e.g., smiling) during the Presidential debates (Witkower, 2017).…”

The peculiar personality of strongmen: comparing the Big Five and Dark Triad traits of autocrats and non-autocrats

“…One candidate, Donald Trump, seems to consistently diverge even from the baseline of autocrats' average profile: lower agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability, and higher extraversion, narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Other studies have discussed the 'off the charts' profile of the current US president (Visser, Book, and Volk 2017;Nai, Martinez i Coma, and Maier 2018), which suggest in itself that idiosyncrasies are to be expected when assessing the profile of political leaders in contexts as different as the ones studied here. Nonetheless, even beyond these contrasts, the average profile of autocrats differs consistentlyand often substantiallyfrom the profile of non-autocrats.…”

“…The personality of political leaders mattersand, indeed, scholars have been paying increasing attention to it recently (Bittner 2011;Watts et al 2013;Antonakis, House, and Simonton 2017;Visser, Book, and Volk 2017;Costa Lobo 2018;Nai, Martinez i Coma, and Maier 2018). Evidence exists that certain personality profiles could be more conducive to electoral successfor instance, Joly, Soroka, and Loewen (2018) find that politicians low in agreeableness tend to be more successful, Scott and Medeiros (2020) highlight the potentially detrimental role of openness, and Nai (2019b) shows that candidates high in conscientiousness and psychopathy tend to attract more votes, whereas extraversion might be detrimental.…”