Goldsmith, Benjamin E.Moen, Lars J.K.2025-03-252025-03-25Scopus:85193046837https://dspace-test.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/733736897The unusually loyal supporters of Donald Trump are often described as a cult. How can we understand this extreme phenomenon in U.S. politics? We develop theoretical expectations and use the Big Five personality dimensions to investigate whether Trump's most loyal supporters share personality characteristics that might make them inclined to cult-like support. We find that (1) Trump's supporters share high levels of Conscientiousness; (2) this is substantively and statistically distinguishable from the commonly identified association between Conscientiousness and Conservatism; and (3) the association is highly robust to a range of sensitivity tests. Our main findings are robust across two surveys. Study 1 is an online survey conducted in 2021 designed specifically for this project. Study 2 is the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES).Previous versions of this article were presented at the School of Politics & International Relations, Australian National University, and in the POLIS seminar series, Deakin University. We thank all seminar participants for their feedback. We also thank Paul Kenny and Alex Nai for detailed feedback on the manuscript. We thank Katja Curtin for excellent research assistance. Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, grant FT140100763 (Goldsmith). Austrian Science Fund, grant ESP447 (Moen).19EnglishPublisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology.Big Fivepersonality cultpolitical loyaltyTrump supportersU.S. politics202510.1111/pops.12991http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85193046837&partnerID=8YFLogxK