Despite popular intuition, positive world beliefs poorly reflect several objective indicators of privilege, including wealth, health, sex, and neighborhood safety

N Kerry, KC White, ML O'Brien, LM Perry… - Journal of …, 2024 - Wiley Online Library
Objectives We tested whether generalized beliefs that the world is safe, abundant,
pleasurable, and progressing (termed “primal world beliefs”) are associated with several …

Beliefs that influence personality likely concern a situation humans never leave.

JDW Clifton, AJ Crum - American Psychologist, 2024 - psycnet.apa.org
Many of us—60% of humanity, according to one study—would like to change some of our
personality traits, such as decreasing pessimism or neuroticism. Dweck (2008) proposed …

World beliefs, character strengths, and hope for the future

RE McGrath - Plos one, 2023 - journals.plos.org
Research in recent years has revealed the rate of premature and avoidable deaths from
suicide and drug/‌alcohol misuse is rising in the United States. These are sometimes referred …

Psychologists return to the first question of Western philosophy.

JDW Clifton - American Psychologist, 2024 - psycnet.apa.org
When ancient humans gained the ability to investigate abstract questions, what first question
did they pose? This article offers a novel, swee**, historical analysis with important …

The world as I see it: genetic and environmental influences on primal world beliefs in a large Swedish twin sample

S Perizonius, LW Wesseldijk, JDW Clifton… - The Journal of …, 2024 - Taylor & Francis
Beliefs about the general character of the world–called primals–have received much
attention in recent years. Primals (eg believing that the world is safe) are associated with …

The funnier, the happier? The interplay between interpersonal humor styles on mental health via gratitude

S Lu, F Jiang, J Lan, T Wang - Current Psychology, 2024 - Springer
According to Martin's taxonomy, affiliative and aggressive humor are the two humor styles
with an interpersonal focus. Many studies have demonstrated the mental health benefits of …

Believing in an enticing world: Testing a positive psychological intervention aimed at increasing character strengths and well-being via world beliefs

J Hämpke, SJ Diller, N Kerry, JDW Clifton… - International Journal of …, 2024 - Springer
The Enticing world belief factor—encompassing beliefs that the world is interesting,
beautiful, abundant, and worth exploring—has been hypothesized to promote subjective …

Theorizing “Primal World Beliefs”: A Relational-Developmental Account

MF Mascolo - Human Development, 2024 - karger.com
Clifton and his colleagues have proposed a dimension-based conception of “primal world
beliefs”–beliefs about “the overall character of the world.” Citing the potential importance of …

Mindfulness Interfused with Humor: Insights From a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Humor-Enriched Mindfulness-Based Program

CT Kastner - Mindfulness, 2025 - Springer
Objectives Both mindfulness and humor are inherently connected to well-being. Recent
research found evidence for their combined effect in a joint training, the Humor-Enriched …

Moving from is to ought: the relation between primals and moral foundations

M Siems, MEL Hall, EI Smith, T Pickavance… - … health, religion & …, 2023 - Taylor & Francis
Primal world beliefs theoretically operate outside of conscious awareness, influencing
perception, appraisals of stimuli, and behaviours. Moral foundations theory proposes that …