A5062269387- Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Cultural Differences and Values
- Optimism, Hope, and Well-being
- Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research
- COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Resilience and Mental Health
- Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
- Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Theological Perspectives and Practices
- Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Computational and Text Analysis Methods
- Patient Dignity and Privacy
- Pain Management and Placebo Effect
- Environmental Education and Sustainability
- Behavioral Health and Interventions
- Expert finding and Q&A systems
- Human Resource Development and Performance Evaluation
- Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health
- Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Property Rights and Legal Doctrine
University of Pennsylvania
2018-2024
Philadelphia University
2022
California University of Pennsylvania
2014-2022
Scale builders strive to maximize dual priorities: validity and reliability. While the literature is full of tips for increasing one, other, or both simultaneously, how navigate tensions between them less clear. Confusion shrouds nature, prevalence, practical implications trade-offs reliability-formerly called paradoxes. This confusion results in most being resolved de facto at validity's expense despite jure higher priority. Decades-long battles against clear measurement malpractice persist...
Beck's insight-that beliefs about one's self, future, and environment shape behavior-transformed depression treatment. Yet remain relatively understudied. We introduce a set of beliefs-primal world or primals-that concern the world's overall character (e.g., is interesting, dangerous). To create measure, we systematically identified candidate primals analyzing tweets, historical texts, etc.); conducted exploratory factor analysis (N = 930) two confirmatory analyses 524; N 529); examined...
Decades of research suggest a correlation between belief in dangerous world and political conservatism. However, relied on scale that may overemphasize certain types dangers. Furthermore, few other beliefs have been investigated, such fundamental worldview differences liberals conservatives remain largely unknown. A preregistered study nine samples ( N = 5,461; mostly US Americans) found negligible association newly improved measure generalized conservatism, the original emphasized dangers...
Generalized beliefs about the world—termed ‘primal world beliefs’ or ‘primals’—have been hypothesized to affect behavior, since they contain information which influences perceived costs, benefits, and justifications for different behaviors. For example, people who see as highly improvable may view prosocial behaviors having more benefits therefore be inclined work harder on making things better. Three preregistered studies ( N = 1,534 US participants) investigated relationship between...
Abstract Objectives We tested whether generalized beliefs that the world is safe, abundant, pleasurable, and progressing (termed “primal beliefs”) are associated with several objective measures of privilege. Methods Three studies ( N = 16,547) multiple relationships between indicators privilege—including socioeconomic status, health, sex, neighborhood safety—and relevant beliefs, as well researchers laypeople's expectations these relationships. Samples were mostly from USA included general...
Do negative primal world beliefs reflect experiences such as trauma, crime, or low socio-economic status? Clifton and colleagues recently suggested that primals-defined about the general character of a whole, belief is safe (vs. dangerous) abundant barren)-may shape many most-studied variables in psychology. Yet researchers do not yet know why individuals adopt their primals nor role experience shaping primals. Many theories can be called retrospective theories; these suggest past lead to...
Primal world beliefs ("primals") are about the basic character of (e.g., "the is an abundant place"). The first effort to empirically map primals identified over two dozen such beliefs. four highest-order beliefs--the overall belief that Good (vs. bad), followed by Good's three dimensions Safe dangerous), Enticing dull), and Alive mechanistic)-were novel strongly correlated many theoretically relevant outcomes as depression. However, measuring these currently requires administering 99-item...
The history of the world is in part story competing trends thinking, zeitgeist, as Hegel calls them, which come to dominate an age. In last 150 years, largest development ou...
People hold general beliefs about the world called primals (e.g., is Safe, Intentional), which are strongly linked to individual differences in personality, behavior, and mental health. How such form or change across lifespan largely unknown, although theory suggests that become more negative after disruptive events. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity test whether dramatic changes personal adversity affect beliefs.In a longitudinal, quasi-experimental, pre-registered design, 529...
Nonpharmacological approaches to chronic pain are being increasingly sought out by therapists and health-care providers. Cognitive reduce catastrophizing have shown some efficacy; however, interventions used increase well-being not been investigated. In this study, we examined a strengths-based approach enhance self-efficacy, the belief that one has capacity function despite pain. study 1, administered survey (N = 491) in order identify strengths most associated with self-efficacy. 2,...
Differences in attitudes on social issues such as abortion, immigration and sex are hugely divisive, understanding their origins is among the most important tasks facing human behavioural sciences. Despite clear psychological importance of parenthood motivation to provide care for children, researchers have only recently begun investigating influence political attitudes. Because socially conservative values ostensibly prioritize safety, stability family values, we hypothesized that being...
(2020). Happy in a crummy world: Implications of primal world beliefs for increasing wellbeing through positive psychology interventions. The Journal Positive Psychology: Vol. 15, Psychology Interventions, pp. 691-695.
When ancient humans gained the ability to investigate abstract questions, what first question did they pose? This article offers a novel, sweeping, historical analysis with important implications for psychological theory. The story begins identifying in Ancient Greek philosophy as "Where am I?" particular interest world's overarching basic traits. For example, Pythagoras proposed world was defined by beauty and Heraclitus suggested change. Though this discourse has traditionally puzzled...
Sometimes skeptics are tempted to dismiss world beliefs as meaningful phenomena. Such dismissal, we argue, is a mistake. How about many broad topics impact behavior well-established. Psychologically rich have also peppered the cultural milieu for centuries. Multiple, decades-old literatures already established psychometrically existence of beliefs, proposed effects, and developed sufficient theory define explain effects (e.g., Belief in Just World literature). However, shared,...
Beliefs about the general character of world – called primals have received much attention in recent years. Primals (e.g. believing that is safe) are associated with psychological and social outcomes, such as personality traits, strengths life satisfaction. We performed first study genetic environmental influences on primals, explored phenotypic associations between big five a large (~9000) population-wide Swedish twin sample. Correlations traits were low to moderate. Broad-sense...
Abstract The Enticing world belief factor—encompassing beliefs that the is interesting, beautiful, abundant, and worth exploring—has been hypothesized to promote subjective well-being several character strengths (e.g., curiosity). present pre-registered longitudinal-experimental study tests a 9-day intervention aiming increase in 247 high school university students (aged 14–35). Results show increased from pre post. However, these changes did not persist at 2-week follow-up. Although we find...
Primal world beliefs–or primals–are a category of beliefs about the overall character that inform individual differences in cognition, affect, and behavior. In recent comprehensive effort, Clifton et al. (2019) cataloged 26 pervasive primals developed Primals Inventory (PI-99) to measure them. this study (N = 592), we describe adaptation initial validation German (PI-66-G), an instrument German-speaking countries. The PI-66-G's first-order structure was supported by exploratory factor...
Courses on well-being are increasingly evaluated to see how they may promote mental health in college. We examined the impact of a course students' well-being, anxiety, and depression.Subjects were undergraduates enrolled "Science Happiness," (SOH) (n = 105), "Child Adolescent Psychopathology," (CAP) 114). Well-being measures included PERMA Profiler Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) at beginning conclusion semester. The Depression Anxiety Stress - 21 items (DASS-21) measured...
Primal world beliefs ('primals') are about the world's basic character, such as is dangerous. This article investigates probabilistic assumptions value of negative primals (e.g., seeing dangerous keeps me safe). We first show common. For example, among 185 parents, 53% preferred for their children. then searched evidence consistent with these intuitions in 3 national samples and local undergraduates, immigrants (African Korean), professionals (car salespeople, lawyers, cops;), examining...
Measures of the same phenomenon should produce results; this principle is fundamental because it allows for replication-the basis science. Unfortunately, measures a psychological construct in one language can often measure something bit different another (i.e., low "scale equivalence"). Historically, problem was thought to stem from insufficient knowledge best-practice translation procedures. Yet solutions based on diagnosis and their widespread adoption have not resolved issue. In article,...
Many of us-60% humanity, according to one study-would like change some our personality traits, such as decreasing pessimism or neuroticism. Dweck (2008) proposed that traits might be altered by changing beliefs. However, novel beliefs must identified, she contends, because currently studied are empirically inadequate (e.g., low correlations broad traits) and a belief's influence on behavior is usually confined particular situation topic. When psychologists refer the psychological impact...