Your post is misleading. There is not one type of HODLer. There are many different reasons to become a "HODLer".

However, I tend to distinguish two kinds of underlying characteristics for strong HODLers:
a) rational
b) irrational

Irrational is mainly driven by greed and speculation, and is usually fueled by the "hope" that bitcoin valuation will be greater in the future. These people are subject to emotional barriers and run the risk of cashing out at the wrong time.

Rational is mainly driven by wealth creation strategies which are mainly based on risk management strategies. E.g. if you have invested $10k in bitcoin in 2011 and have cashed out $10k by now your "investment risk" is zero. Of course this assumes that you do not count your remaining bitcoin position towards your liquid or cash-based assets. Also there are a lot of "rational" investor strategies which do not result in HODLers - it really depends on your underlying investment philosophy. For an example of a rational HODLing strategy read this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345065.0