Primal world beliefs

Beliefs about the general character of the world

In psychology, primal world beliefs are basic beliefs which humans hold about the general character of the world. They were introduced and named by Jeremy D. W. Clifton and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania between 2014–2019 and modeled empirically via statistical dimensionality reduction analysis in a 2019 journal article. This publication posited twenty-six primal world beliefs that people held. Most cluster under the beliefs that the world is Safe, Enticing and Alive, which in turn cluster under the overall belief that the world is Good. The beliefs that the world is Just or Dangerous had received extensive prior study in other research on the just-world belief, which is the belief the world is a karmic place where outcomes are typically deserved. Each primal is modeled as a normally-distributed continuous variable. Research has shown that primals remain quite stable over time, including across the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Primal world beliefs are largely independent of most demographic variables, but correlate strongly with many personality and wellbeing variables—including depression, optimism, spirituality, extraversion, curiosity, and so forth. Researchers think that primals may affect a wide range of human experiences, from parenting to political ideology.

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