Primal world beliefs

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.

[1][3] 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.

[1] Researchers think that primals may affect a wide range of human experiences, from parenting[4][need quotation to verify] to political ideology.

[12] Recent studies show that this literature, however, relies on a measure that emphasizes dangers like societal decline and deemphasizes some other types of threat.

[14][15] CBT can be equally efficacious as antidepressant medication for severely depressed patients, and has been shown to reduce rates of relapse/recurrence.

According to this theory, new information and experiences are integrated with these existing schemas—except in instances of trauma which may "shatter" a person's positive assumptions about the world.

[19] Primal world beliefs were identified through a broad-based empirical effort by a research team at the University of Pennsylvania led by Jeremy D. W. Clifton from 2014 to 2019.

A measurement model was tested through multiple rounds of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and examined for validity and reliability.

These can be understood as the three main reasons to view the world as an overall Good (rather than bad) place, and are among the primals most strongly correlated to wellbeing and other mental health indicators.

This figure provides definitions for each of the 26 primal world beliefs, and illustrates their basic structure (note five tertiary primals that are largely independent).
This figure provides definitions for each of the 26 primal world beliefs, and illustrates their basic structure (note five tertiary primals that are largely independent).