Trump has excellent charisma and emotional intelligence. These qualities make him capable of speaking effectively to the most powerful part of our brain, the emotional one. His actions exploit — intentionally or not — the systematic errors in our thinking to get what he wants.

By contrast, many prominent Republican politicians do not give our emotional system of thinking due attention. For instance, Mitt Romney condemned Trump as a “phony” and “fraud” shortly before the March 15 primaries. This type of attack only strengthens the emotional desire to vote for Trump among anti-establishment voters by triggering a thinking error called the backfire effect — a tendency for our beliefs to grow stronger when they are challenged by contradictory evidence.

We can see the results of Romney’s attack by Trump’s decisive victories in the primaries on March 15. Likewise, the barrage of negative advertisements and more recent condemnations by mainstream Republicans did not stop Trump from winning over 60 percent of voters in New York, 35 percent more than his closest rival.

By contrast, Trump has lost a number of states in between March 15 and April 19, which mostly make decisions via caucuses of committed party activists, as opposed to primaries. This is because the delegates at caucuses are less motivated by primal emotions of fear and anger, and instead are more strategic in their political engagement, seeking out the best candidate to win the presidential race. To avoid the backfire effect among primary voters, establishment Republicans would be much better off spending less time bashing Trump and instead focusing on praising his rivals.

Trump also receives heavy criticism for not laying out specific policy proposals. Yet this line of attack is ineffective for voters motivated by anger and fear, because the large majority of Trump’s voters trust him emotionally. Consequently, Trump has been able to avoid laying out major policy proposals. As a result, his supporters see whatever they wish to see in him. Yet they may be relying on wishful thinking, another error that involves forming beliefs based on what is pleasant to imagine rather than actual evidence.

While Trump is a master at exploiting the emotional part of our brain, he is not the only candidate doing so. Whatever candidate you are considering, my fellow Americans, I hope you deploy intentional thinking and avoid the predictable errors in making your political decisions.