Presidential Profiles in Hope: Donald Trump and Joe Biden

In 1987, University of Michigan professor David Winter published a study on the motive profiles of US Presidents. Winter surmised that the ideal pattern for a US president was high achievement and high power motivation, along with a lower need for affiliation. Winter assembled the profiles from a content analysis of each president’s first inaugural address. Debates followed Winter’s publication. Some critiqued his methodology; others questioned his selection of motives.

A Pivot to Hope

Like David Winter, I also studied under David McClelland, who was the first psychologist to champion the importance of achievement, power, and affiliation. I agreed with them that certain motives, tied to humanity’s basic needs, were critical psychological indicators. I differed in two respects, the selection of motives and the belief that patterns of hope are the key derivative from their interaction in human development.

I view power and achievement as springing from one source, a mastery motive that evolution theorists relate to self-expansion and a desire for environmental control in self-organizing biological systems. I add the survival motive. I also add a fourth motive: spirituality. The needs for mastery, attachment (affiliation), and survival are unconditional, but human life cannot offer guarantees of fulfillment; some kind of transcendence that I call “spiritual” (not necessarily religious) is required. Two sources of evidence support this model.

Any literature review on hope across disciplines will invariably reveal references to one or more of these motives. Secondly, the motives for spirituality include empowerment (mastery), presence (attachment), or salvation, broadly conceived (survival or liberation from “evil”). For simplicity, I refer to these hope sources as the “critical M.A.S.S.”.

Revisiting Winter’s Study

For more than three decades, I have been studying hope. My primary focus has been on applications (assessments for hope and hopelessness as well as interventions to build hope). Several years ago, a student expressed interest in political psychology. Recalling the Winter study, I suggested that we explore the kinds of hope manifested by US presidents. We would use the same general methodology as Winter. However, we would develop a far more detailed map of the psychological domain for our content analysis. We started with a description of the four motives, then further divided each domain into three subdomains, and then again, into two smaller 3^rd-level domains, resulting in 24 scorable hope themes.

For example, survival hope was divided into the subdomains of promised protection and liberation, appeals to resilience, and fear reduction. Each of these themes was represented by two more specific categories, e.g., for fear reduction, we looked for general emotional reassurance as well as promises to reduce specific fears.

We had multiple scorers rate the first inaugural address of the last 12 presidents, from Eisenhower to Trump. We scored and rescored to achieve inter-rater reliability. As a cross-check, each scorer completed a brief political quiz. We confirmed that scorer locations on the political spectrum (e.g., liberal or conservative) were unrelated to hope scores. Our sample included six Democrats and six Republicans.

Profiles in Hope: Trump and Biden

We presented our results at several conferences. A book is forthcoming. I will share a few findings. For this blog, I stay clear of implications for presidential success, or historical rankings (a President’s Day ritual). Instead, I focus on the different ways that hope has been expressed by Donald Trump and Joe Biden and suggest ways that we are linking these profiles to presidential character as well as policy priorities.

Our hope profile labels are remarkably consistent with campaign banners. For example, GW Bush’s scores suggested “idealistic hope”. His banner was “compassionate conservatism.” Barack Obama’s score was representative of “collaborative hope.” His banner was “Yes we can.” The references below to “lower” or “higher” scores are in comparison to the entire sample of twelve presidents.

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Donald Trump reflects “nostalgic hope.” His banner was “Make American great again.” Trump’s hope profile was lower in mastery. He was in the middle of the pack in planning and collaboration but much lower in aiming for higher goals. On attachment, Trump was high in presence and openness but low in manifesting trust. With regard to survival, Trump scored in the middle of the pack on themes of protection, resilience, and fear reduction. On the spiritual dimension, Trump scored highest among the twelve presidents, edging out GW Bush.

Trump’s hope profile reflects his personality and priorities in office. He was ever-present and open but often unpredictable. He frequently battled with members of his own administration and party. He sought a reduction in funding for the Department of Education, and the elimination of NASA’s Training Program. His highest rankings are in survival hope. He pressed to build a wall. He asked for a significant increase in military spending. He selected Mike Pence, self-described as “a Christian, conservative, and Republican, in that order.” He opposed abortion rights and supported the expansion of religious schools. On June 20^th, 2020, Trump made his way to St. John’s church to pose with a bible.

Biden represents “resilient hope.” His banner is “build back better.” Biden was tied for first with JFK in survival hope and finished third in spiritual hope. In the mastery domain, Biden ranked lower in planning and higher goals but 1^st in calls for collaborative problem-solving. In attachment, Biden scored high in openness but ranked lower in themes of connection, trust, or presence. On the survival dimension, Biden ranked lower in promised protection or fear reduction but first in appeals to American resiliency. Biden ranked first in spiritual inspiration (empowered or justified in a righteous cause). Biden frequently notes his “battle for the soul of the nation.”

Biden has long been underestimated, and the resilient hope that he manifests reflects his own journey to the presidency. Supporters and critics alike point to the messaging problem which our scoring registered as high openness but lower connection and presence. Robert Reich has suggested a more “emotive” presence aligned with today’s social media buzz machine. However, Biden was able to get bipartisan support for infrastructure and gun control legislation. Brent Budowsky suggested, “With Biden, bipartisanship is not a tactic or strategy, it is a cause and philosophy and way of political life.”