World beliefs, character strengths, and hope for the future

Abstract

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 to as deaths of despair based on evidence that they are concentrated in relatively poor communities with less access to social resources and low labor force participation. The pattern was first noted in middle-aged White men but seems to be gradually spreading to other ethnic groups. As a first step in establishing a psychological response to this public health issue, the present article summarizes two studies that compared psychological variables to demographics as predictors of hopefulness. A number of intriguing findings emerged. Despite concerns about American despair and conflict, U.S. residents proved the most hopeful among residents of eight countries. Low-income Americans are particularly hopeful except for low-income Whites. Positive character traits and primal beliefs about the world generally proved to be better predictors of hope than ethnicity, financial status, or their interaction. A number of relationships were found between psychological variables and community demographics. The findings as a group suggest hopefulness is driven more by psychological variables than by life circumstances. It is suggested that psychologists could play an important role in the study of this topic by implementing programs intended to enhance hopefulness in impoverished populations, and by encouraging an intentional communal focus on the importance of enhancing well-being.

Psychologists return to the first question of Western philosophy.

“…If primals alter ambiguity interpretation like other beliefs are known to do, they theoretically should influence many well-being outcomes, consistent with major theories in clinical and positive psychology (Beck, 1963; Clifton & Meindl, 2022; Janoff-Bulman, 1989). In cross-sectional studies, negative primals correlate to less job success, less job satisfaction, worse health, more frequent negative emotions, lower life satisfaction, higher depression rates, lower well-being, less virtuous character, and suicide attempts (Clifton & Meindl, 2022; McGrath, 2023; Nelson et al, 2023; Stahlmann & Ruch, 2023). Some correlations are large.…”

“…Clifton and Crum (2024) note that, of all beliefs, primals are most likely to influence personality for the simple reason that patterns of behavior that follow the individual wherever the individual goes (personality traits) theoretically must be influenced by the beliefs about the one place the individual never leaves (the world). Primal’s personality correlations can be sizeable (Clifton et al, 2019; McGrath, 2023; Stahlmann & Ruch, 2023). For example, Safe world belief correlates with neuroticism at r = −.44, Enticing world belief correlates with curiosity at r = .61, and Alive world belief correlates with spirituality at r = .50.…”

“…This replicated Clifton et al’s (2019) initial findings, including those showing Abundant world belief to be largely orthogonal to family income, gender, age, race, education, and parent socioeconomic status. If the qualities ascribed by one’s world beliefs do not directly reflect those same qualities in personal or worldwide circumstance, then Janoff-Bulman’s (1989) suggestion is probably correct that world beliefs are more like Piagetian schemas (i.e., lenses) used to interpret situations than Bayesian priors (i.e., mirrors) that get updated by personal experience such that the content of our primals reliably describes the content of our backgrounds (a lively debate is expected; McGrath, 2023; Thomas, 2022). Nevertheless, researchers remain optimistic that primals can be changed via interventions (optimisim now bolstered by some successful intervention studies now being prepared for publication; Clifton, 2020; Clifton & Crum, 2024) but are pessimistic that the path to changing primals is merely objective improvement in circumstance.…”

“…Clifton et al's (2019) initial findings, including those showing Abundant world belief to be largely orthogonal to family income, gender, age, race, education, and parent socioeconomic status. If the qualities ascribed by one's world beliefs do not directly reflect those same qualities in personal or worldwide circumstance, then Janoff-Bulman's (1989) suggestion is probably correct that world beliefs are more like Piagetian schemas (i.e., lenses) used to interpret situations than Bayesian priors (i.e., mirrors) that get updated by personal experience such that the content of our primals reliably describes the content of our backgrounds (a lively debate is expected;McGrath, 2023;Thomas, 2022).…”