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Study links identity threat among white

evangelicals to the belief Trump’s election
was part of God’s plan
by Vladimir Hedrih — November 15, 2022 in Donald Trump, Psychology of Religion

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 Study links identity threat among white

An analysis of data from the American Trends Panel relating to white
 evangelicals to the belief Trump’s
evangelical protestant Christians found a link between the belief that election was part of God’s plan
Donald Trump’s election was a part of God’s plan and whether a person

considers him/herself a religious minority. While 66% of white evangelicals  Psychopathic tendencies are
associated with an elevated interest in
 who do not see themselves as a religious minority stated that Trump’s
fire, study finds
election was a part of God’s plan, this percentage increases to 74% for
 white evangelicals who do consider themselves a religious minority. The  When texts suddenly stop: Study
study was published in Politics and Religion. investigates why people “ghost” — and
 it’s consequences
Eighty-one percent of white evangelicals reported voting for Trump in the
 Autistic people outperform
 2016 presidential elections. This number declined by only 3% in the 2020 neurotypicals in a cartoon version of
election, in spite of multiple well-publicized events in which president an emotion recognition task
 Trump displayed irreligiosity or committed moral transgressions.
 Attractive female students no longer
 earned higher grades when classes
moved online during COVID-19

 New psychology research reveals

Given previous findings that white evangelicals consider religiosity of a men’s motives for sending unsolicited
dick pics
candidate an important factor when making their voting decisions, their
staunch support for president Trump has been a puzzle for researchers.
Some scholars have proposed that negative partisanship, a tendency of
voters to form political opinions in opposition to parties one dislikes might
be part of the answer. But can the perception of threat to one’s religious
identity be the factor behind it?

To answer this question, Jack Thompson of the University of Exeter in the

United Kingdom analyzed data from Wave 61 of the American Trends
Panel that included responses of 6,395 U.S. persons aged 18 and above.
Thompson analyzed responses to questions about respondents own
religious denominations, the importance they attribute to the religiosity of
U.S. presidential candidates, and their assessments of the religiosity of
the presidential candidates.

Whether the respondent considers him/herself a religious minority and

answers to a 4-category question about God’s role in Trump’s election
were considered dependent variables. Possible answers to this latter
question were that (1) Trump was chosen by God, that (2) his election
was part of God’s plan, that (3) God does not get involved in the elections,
and respondents could also state that (4) they do not believe in God.

The author assessed religiosity using items asking about the importance
of religion for the respondent, and about how often the respondent prays
and attends religious services. Religious denominations were classified
using an eight-category system proposed by the Public Religion Research
Institute (PRRI) that combines religious denomination and race.
Categories were: white evangelical Protestant, Black Protestant, Hispanic
Protestant, white Catholic, Hispanic Catholic, other Christian, non-
RECENT
Christian, and the religiously unaffiliated.

The author hypothesized that white evangelicals will have a high  Psychopathic tendencies are
associated with an elevated interest in
probability of considering themselves a minority due to their religious fire, study finds
beliefs and that this perception will condition their beliefs about God’s role
in Trump’s election.  Web-based exercise intervention leads
to mental health improvements in 3
months, according to controlled trial

 When texts suddenly stop: Study

investigates why people “ghost” — and
it’s consequences
The results indicated that the vast majority of white evangelicals consider
stance towards religious beliefs an important trait of a U.S. president, but
 Adolescents with eating disorders
only a third of them considered Trump to be religious. While Mike Pence report exposure to “pro-Ana” materials
was considered religious by 87% of white evangelicals, this was only 37% on TikTok without searching for it
for Trump. Prominent Democratic (or Democrat-aligned) politicians like
 Greater fusion with gaming culture
Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren were considered even less religious
predicts heightened narcissism,
than Trump, but Joseph Biden was considered a bit more religious. psychopathy, hostile sexism, and
racism
“This finding suggests that Trump is a unique case when it comes to white
evangelical evaluations of the religiosity of elites: instead of projecting
their beliefs onto Trump, and thereby supporting him because of his
 perceived religiosity, white evangelicals support him despite his lack of
religiosity,” Thompson wrote.

White evangelicals considered themselves a religious minority much more

often than other popular Christian denominations and it is only the non-
Christian denominations that had visibly higher proportions of people
seeing themselves as a religious minority.

When asked about God’s role in Trump elections, white evangelicals who
considered themselves a minority were more likely to see Trump’s election
as a part of God’s plan (74%) compared to those who do not consider
themselves a minority (66%). Although very low, the percentage of white
evangelicals who consider themselves a minority and stated that God
chose Trump is still greater than the percentage of those who do not
consider themselves a minority who gave the same answer (9% vs 7%).

“The findings concerning the salience of identity threats on conditioning

white evangelical beliefs also provide an additional explanation for why
evaluations on Trump’s religiosity might not have mattered when it came
to their vote choice in 2016,” Thompson concluded. “Namely, because
Trump’s invocation of the decline of white Christian America proved
effective in activating religious identity threat in a way that led to white
evangelicals to coalesce around his candidacy. In this way, Trump’s ability
to articulate white evangelicals’ fears about the declining influence of
Christianity likely overrode any lingering concerns about his religiosity.”

The results highlight the link between minority status perception and
political decisions. However, study did not take into account various
religious cues that presidential candidates might be using, which might
have been shaping white evangelical political stances and responses to
the survey.

This paper is titled “Does it Matter if the President Isn’t Pious? White
Evangelicals and Elite Religiosity in the Trump Era”.

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