In my last column I discussed a personality type that is defined by responses to a specific questionnaire that measures something called “Social Dominance Orientation (SDO).” The experimental social psychologists who devised the questionnaire had observed that, in group interactions, there are usually some individuals who seek to become dominant over others, to assume a leadership role, to exercise power.

They wondered if that might not be a significant trait and one that was linked to other attitudes and inclinations. After testing thousands of college students and older adults using the SDO questionnaire and other questionnaires, they found many correlated traits and put together a profile of those who made high scores on the SDO.

High-SDOs, it turns out, are usually men. They are men who believe that it is normal and proper for humans to create hierarchies of authority and responsibility in which the higher up you are, the more you benefit. They strive single-mindedly to occupy those positions of dominance.

They tend not to be especially religious. They have little regard for moral considerations, which they see as impediments to achieving their primary goal. Their economic beliefs are usually conservative — the rich deserve their wealth, the poor their poverty, and efforts to produce economic equality are misguided. Yet on the whole they have few ideological commitments other than the supreme importance of their own success.

High-SDOs are extremely competitive; for them, winning is everything. They enjoy exercising their power and are inclined to be harsh and coercive with underlings. They lack empathy for others. They also tend to be bigoted — ethnocentric and racist. They feel no qualms about manipulating people in order to achieve and maintain their dominance. Lying is simply another tool to be used in doing so.

When this profile was created, Donald Trump was nothing but a playboy real estate mogul. He is now, as president, arguably the international poster child for the High-SDO personality.

He certainly exemplifies the willingness of the High-SDO to lie. In my previous column I raised the question that has puzzled many of us: Trump’s lies are regularly exposed, so how is it that his “base” apparently continues to believe him?

The answer lies in the nature of another personality type that has been explored most fully by social psychologist Bob Altemeyer. The trait is called “Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA).” The questionnaire that Altemeyer developed in the early 1990s reveals characteristics that social scientists first tried to understand immediately after WWII, when they asked themselves: why did so many Germans support Hitler and the Holocaust?

High-RWAs are of both sexes and are very conventional people. They are usually more religious than the average American— often fundamentalist. They tend to be plagued by the fear that the world they know is changing for the worse, that the old ways, the old relationships and ways of life, are being subverted by social movements and “others” of whom they disapprove. Their political, social and economic orientation is conservative.

High-RWAs are authoritarian not in the sense that they seek to have authority, but in that they rely upon established authorities for their beliefs, and for guidance in their behavior. They tend to be prejudiced against those minorities that they see as having undermined the values and the social order that they cherish. They are ready to act out their prejudicial anger, but only if the authorities to whom they look for validation seem to condone it.

Altemeyer investigated the mental habits of High-RWAs. He found that they are not inclined to employ critical thinking skills, especially when they agree with whatever claim is made, and that claim comes from someone in authority. They also tend to compartmentalize their ideas and hence are usually unaware of holding contradictory beliefs. Neither are they likely to engage in self-examination; they are often unaware that their prejudices are, indeed, prejudices.

All of which suggests, as Altemeyer remarks, that “High-RWAs will be particularly vulnerable to an insincere communicator who tells them what they want to hear.” This gullibility means, he writes, “that nonreligious SDOs can rather easily pass themselves off as true believers, donning sheep’s clothing to take over the flock.”

In other words, several decades before Trump made his political debut, these social psychologists had provided an explanation of how an unscrupulous demagogue could bewitch a segment of the population and rise to power. They may have seen their work as helping us to understand Hitler and Mussolini, but it turns out they have helped us to comprehend how Trump became the authority figure for a group of disenchanted, credulous citizens who fear social change and hate those who they blame for their hard times.

One question remains: how would Trump score on the RWA questionnaire? It’s rare for someone to get high scores on both the SDO and RWA, largely because the latter records a desire to submit to authority, and religiosity. But conservatism and prejudice give high scores on both. It’s possible that Trump might support submission to authority because he assumed that he would be that authority. As to the religious factor, well, would anyone be surprised if he just lied about that?

Leonard Hitchcock of Pocatello is an alumnus of the University of Iowa and did graduate work at Claremont Graduate University and the University of California, San Diego. He taught philosophy in California and Arizona for 15 years. In 1985, after earning a library degree, he was hired by Idaho State University. He retired from ISU’s Oboler Library in 2006.