By Douglas Perry, The Oregonian/OregonLive

When Donald Trump announced in 2015 that he was running for president, Washington, D.C.’s political tastemakers didn’t take him seriously. After all, he was a reality-TV star, not a senator or governor.

But that was stinkin’ thinkin’, as Dr. Phil, another TV personality, might put it.

Being a reality-TV star is the reason Trump is now president of the United States, concluded Shira Gabriel, a psychology professor at State University of New York at Buffalo.

It’s not just name recognition that put Trump over the top. It was TV viewers’ “parasocial bonds with Trump” thanks to his 14 years on “The Apprentice” and “The Celebrity Apprentice.” That is, we don’t really distinguish, at least subconsciously, between people in our real lives and characters we regularly see on TV -- especially reality TV.

Don't Edit

Photos: AP

"Fourteen seasons of hour-long episodes that presented Trump as a calm, infallible decision-maker, who listened to others but came to his own conclusions, greatly emphasized his success [as a candidate]," Gabriel said in a SUNY Buffalo statement about her research.

Gabriel is the lead author of a study on the subject that soon will be published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science. The study is based on a survey of 521 voters that measured their attitudes about Trump as a TV personality and political candidate.

Trump’s reality-TV shows, Gabriel found, served as a 14-year-long campaign ad, but viewers did not bring to them the cynicism they typically have for political advertising.

Trump’s reality series, the psychology professor pointed out, “weren’t presented as campaign ads. They were presented as reality shows that gave us a glimpse into a real process for our entertainment. The defensiveness we exhibit when we’re [watching political advertising] wasn’t there for ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘The Celebrity Apprentice.’”

Don't Edit

Gabriel added:

“I strongly believe that Donald Trump would not be president if it weren’t for his being on ‘The Apprentice’ and ‘The Celebrity Apprentice.’ It’s not the only factor, but this was a close election, and knowing what I know about the strength of parasocial relationships and based on what we found through this research, I believe that he wouldn’t be in office if it weren’t for these television shows.”

In short: the relationships we develop with TV characters “are real to people psychologically and have actual psychological outcomes.”

Don't Edit

“Logically, that doesn’t make sense,” Gabriel said, “but we still feel connected to them when we spend time with them -- and it’s a relatively healthy and common thing to do.”

That might be why many people view Clint Eastwood as a hero rather than simply as an actor playing a hero, or why TV viewers tend to believe they know talk-show host Oprah Winfrey like they know a close friend, even though they’ve never met her.

This phenomenon made “Apprentice” viewers prone to like Trump the candidate and reject criticism of him. This was especially true, the research showed, of Trump voters who were not lifelong Republicans.

-- Douglas Perry