Tag Archives: primals

August 17, 2016

What Reality are Trump People Living In?

If you are anything like me, you don’t quite understand what to make of the Trump phenomenon. Sure Hillary is winning, but what is more interesting to me is that over a third of Americans still plan to vote for this guy. Why? I’m bored with demonizing Trump and Trump supporters. I want to understand the world they are seeing because I don’t get it.

As luck would have it, I happen to be a researcher at Penn who studies the impact of primal world beliefs, which are beliefs about the nature of reality writ large such as “the world is fascinating.” Primals are the most super simple, essential, and general beliefs we have. As of a few months ago, we can now measure 28 primals (yay!). To give away the results, 24 of them mostly collapse into three big ones (Safe, Enticing, and Alive) and these in turn collapse into 1 big one (Good, defined hedonistically). Currently, I’m trying to publish all these measures and look at psychological correlates (super happy…lots of big effect sizes and highly significant findings… primals predict depression, wellbeing, life satisfaction, etc.), but I had some data on current politics and, in this season of absurdity, I thought some people might find it interesting. I’m also learning how to report and conduct these analyses, so it’s good practice. What follows is a summary and an appendix with all the numbers. Keep in mind that all findings below come from one online sample of 533 people [so place grain of salt here]. Eventually, I plan to publish a peer-reviewed journal article with much of this information.

What reality are Republicans and Democrats living in?

So I had this fantastic theory that Republicans would see the world as way more dangerous than Democrats. I though that might explain Republicans’ “irrational” a) fear of criminals which manifests as interest in law and order and support for mandatory minimums, b) fear of ISIS, c) fear of Mexicans, d) fear of people coming to take their guns, e) fear of government, and f) fear of out-group members generally. At their last convention, and indeed for every single Republican debate, it seemed like candidates were always trying to out-terrorize each other (“No, I understand the great peril we are in!”…”No, no. I understand it better.”)

However, this theory was wrong. True, Republicans see the world as slightly more dangerous, but way less than I thought. It’s a small relationship.

Furthermore, both parties see the world as about more or less equally good, revolving around them, abundant, acceptable, beautiful (Dems were slightly higher), changing, pleasurable, improvable, improving (Dems were slightly higher), interesting, meaningful, needing them, fragile, understandable, and against them. There were so many similarities!

Ok. So where do they differ? Republican reality differs from Democratic reality in 9 ways, 4 small, 4 medium, and 1 big. Let’s get the small ones out of the way first.

On average, Democrats see the world as less competitive. That is, on average, their honest opinion is that collaboration, and not competition, makes the world go round. In turn, this would make sense of why Republicans tend to see Democrats as more naive “kum-by-ya-ists,” and Democrats tend to see Republicans as more merciless cutthroats.
On average, Republicans see the universe as more atomistic while Democrats tend to see the universe as more of an interconnected whole. Perhaps this helps Clinton’s slogan of “Stronger Together” have traction among those with a worldview in which deep interconnection and cooperation is more of a felt reality. Perhaps this allows the issue of climate change to find more fertile ground among Democrats.

I predicted the two above. They make sense of Republicans emphasizing free markets and American exceptionalism, among other things. I did not predict the two below:

On average, Dems see the world as more funny. Republicans tend to think that funny things are fewer and farther between. I wonder if this partly explains why virtually all comedians and entertainers are Democrats.
One of the primals I measured is what I call “Characterizable.” Basically, do you think the world has an overall nature or not? On average, Republicans tend to think it has a nature while Democrats do not. Again, however, these are all fairly small differences.

Moving on to the 4 differences that are a bit bigger:

On average, Republicans see the world as more alive, which means they see the universe as more imbued with intention and that the world is interacting with them personally. However, these sorts of views correlate with increased religiosity, so I’m not sure if seeing the world as alive is relevant to political views or just a side effect of religion. My intuition says it’s probably more of a side effect, so I don’t talk about it as much in the analysis below.
On average, Republicans see the world as less worth exploring. This is essentially a gut level sense of return on investment for the worthwhileness of exploring or learning more about any given thing, place, or person. Democrats do not necessarily actually explore their worlds more; it just means that they think most everything is more likely to be worth exploring.
On average, Republicans see the world as more just. Does the arc of life trend towards justice. Does life find a way to reward those who do good and punish those who do bad? Is the world a place where working hard and being nice pays off? Republicans tend to say ‘Yes,’ and Democrats say ‘No.’
Dems (top) tend to see reality as unfair and Republicans (bottom) tend to have the honest opinion that life will find ways to reward those who work hard and help others.

Finally, the second biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans live in a reality marked by decline, and Democrats think the world is getting better. On the one hand, this makes sense of why such vague rhetoric as “We don’t win anymore” appeals to Republicans and not Democrats, because even though it’s a super vague statement, it corresponds to a primal world belief that distinguishes these groups. On the other hand, this distinction between Reps and Dems might be to some degree an artifact of who’s in the White House. I imagine that when Bush was in charge, Republicans might have seen the world as in less decline and Democrats’ views would have changed a bit too. Still, I doubt this distinction would disappear.

All this, however, except for decline, is relatively small potatoes. Let’s talk about the biggest difference, because it both makes sense and doesn’t make sense: hierarchical.

Democrats are on top, and Republicans are below. As you can see, despite plenty of overlap between the two groups, there is a striking difference.

What the hell does “hierarchical” mean? Out of all the primals we have identified, this one is the least intuitive. For me, it was also super fun to see it “pop” in relation to politics because Hierarchical wasn’t related to depression, anxiety, optimism, curiosity, income, education, or really any of the other variables I looked at.

The “hierarchical” primal concerns the nature of differences. Namely, does difference imply that something is better or worse? For those who believe that reality is hierarchical, if two things are different that usually implies that one is better than the other. Likewise, for those who see reality as nonhierarchical, differences are likely surface and meaningless distinctions and probably distractions. Under the latter view, any attempt to organize the world into “better” or “worse” things will either fail or be inaccurate and superficial. However, for folks who see the world as hierarchical, most things can be fairly usefully ranked and ordered from better or worse. This includes objects, from knives to landscapes, and people, from individuals to ethnic groups. The biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans, on average, see the world as more hierarchical, or, to put it a different way, Democrats gloss over differences.

Are Trump supporters particularly strange Republicans?

In a nutshell, no. Trump people, as opposed to old Cruz and Kasich people, as well as independents, are fairly similar on every primal except 4. Trump supporters out-Republican their Republican peers by seeing the world as even more Alive, Just, and Hierarchical. Also, Trump people think the world isn’t changing quite as much.

All Republicans/independents on top. Trump folks on the bottom.

So what does this all mean?

I’ve been trying to wrap my head arounds what this means, but it is starting to make some sense. I’d love input:

Those who see the world as hierarchical and just will tend to assume in small ways that successful people are better people. This suggests susceptibility to infatuations with billionaires.
If we assume that the world is hierarchical and just, then political correctness appears foolish. PC culture is a real problem because it glosses over differences that really matter. This might explain a deep frustration on the Right about political correctness that the Left just doesn’t get.
I’ve often been confused by why Americans need to talk about their country like it’s the best country in the history of the world. But, if we assume that the world is hierarchical and just, and America is the most powerful country in the world, then it stands to reason that America is also the best. It would feel false to say, “America is unique” without also saying, “America is the best.”
If we assume that the world is hierarchical and just, then we will have more difficulty mixing with and including out-groups. Obviously, hispanic or African American culture is different than the culture of small-town white America where, according to Haidt, sanctity concerns matter more.
Jon Haidt identifies 5 political values: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, & sanctity/degradation. Democrats score higher on two–care and fairness–while Republicans score more equally on all of them. It may be useful to understand how primals interact with these values. For instance, if, like many Republicans, you see the world as more just, then pursuing fairness should be less of a priority. Likewise, if you see the world as hierarchical, then it is natural to value authority and submit to it. Indeed, investigating the relationship between the values and primals of political ideologies could be a fascinating line of research.
The difference between Dems and Reps regarding Worth Exploring may be merely a manifestation of the much bigger difference on Hierarchical. For Dems, the tendency to assume that differences don’t speak to value may be a tendency to gloss over differences in how worth exploring things are too. In turn, for Republicans, seeing the world through the lens of rankings and hierarchies can’t allow every thing to be equally interesting because some things got to be boring.
Finally, the very definition of conservatism entails conserving something. This is not an urgent priority for someone who sees reality as improving. But, if the world is going to the dogs, then we need to hold on to the more just hierarchy of yesterday.

Ok. Pretending this makes sense for a second, where do these primals come from?

We don’t know. I speculate that they come from many sources, including religion and numerous life experiences. But what seems promising for explaining Hierarchical is simply where one lives. Ask yourself, if you wanted to design an intervention that encouraged people to see the world as less hierarchical, what would you do? Well, we would want to expose people to many different types of people and things that were quite different from each other, but not necessarily better or worse.

Where better to do that than in cities?

With all the talk about red and blue states, we forget that the political divide in America is likely better described as the rural-urban divide. Check out the map below of the 2012 presidential election results by county. You will find, of course with plenty of exceptions, that rural areas are red and urban areas are blue. For instance, Oregon is a reliably blue state, but what’s really happening is that a redder countryside surrounds Portland and Eugene. In Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Erie, Pittsburgh, Scranton, Allentown, and Harrisburg are blue dots in a mostly red state. In Texas, Dallas (up there on its own), Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Beaumont are particularly striking. This seems to hold for Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and others. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. If I remember correctly, Oklahoma City is particularly conservative.

In other words, belief that the world is nonhierarchical could be a side-effect of urban life.

Could Democrats or Republicans use my data to help win this election or future elections?

I think so, but should we? Full disclosure: as a missionary kid who grew up overseas and is quite intercultural, I see the world as deeply nonhierarchical. Adopting the lens of hierarchy does not come naturally to me, and of course I’m very much a fan of making everyone more like me. Woohoo! Let’s do it! Further, as a scientist, we’ve discovered no evidence so far that seeing the world as hierarchical helps or hurts wellbeing that much (though that’s not saying much… we’ve just started looking at this).

However, for a Democrat, I’m also a bit of an outlier on the belief that the world is just. I tend to assume that life finds ways to reward those who work hard and do good. As a scientist, I should note too that belief in a just world is the most studied primal to date. It is connected to wellbeing, being more productive, being kinder to those around you, and numerous other good things. Unfortunately, it’s also tied to blaming victims for their misfortunes, whether the victim is poor, sick, or disenfranchised.

What about Decline? Way before I got into primals, and as a history super nerd (seriously friends, audiobooks and lectures on history are almost exclusively what I listen to in my spare time; I’m currently working through 3 books on medieval England), I have had a strong view that the world, in almost every way, is improving. For example, Harvard’s Steven Pinker makes a case that violence has declined over human history. Reasonable people can disagree, however, including Democrats like my wife, who happens to be much smarter than I am!

So, though I’m personally not down for changing Just beliefs, I could get excited about changing Declining and Hierarchical. For the former, I would suggest that, in school, we study social history more and the history of those in power less. Much of the improvements across the ages have been in such things as health, how we treat the mentally ill, women’s rights, human rights, legal systems, etc. In my view, the facts speak for themselves (but that, I suppose, is how all of us think about all of our primals).

For Hierarchical, the big trick, as implied above, seems to me to be exposure. One could seek to expose individuals to very different people, places, and things. The logic being that this is why going to college, immersive overseas travel experiences like the Peace Corps, and moving to big cities tends to manufacture liberals (nothing new here). These sorts of activities expose us to gays, jews, jesuits, rich, homeless, etc. They become our friends, and we realize that the differences between us are very visible and fairly superficial. Who knows? Maybe the DNC should think about supporting reality TV shows like Wife Swap (I’ve never seen it).

Finally, assuming we (Democrats) want to get more Republicans to vote for Hillary by capitalizing on primals already in place–to appeal to primals for political purposes without changing them–it seems that the Clinton folks were right to seize on how the Trump convention was pessimistic about America and then, at the Democratic convention, do more than the usual “America is the best” fanfare. In other words, in order to appeal to those who see the world as more hierarchical, just, and in decline, it may be useful to be seen, to some degree, as the party of and celebrating the successful in-group. I’m not sure if it’s worth it though. It could alienate all those Dems who see the world as unjust and nonhierarchical.

In the meantime, I think it is important to not be condescending. My original hypothesis had been that Trump people are essentially scared children, and that drove them, their politics, and their party into the arms of a demagogue. This paternalistic theory was wrong. The major difference between me and Trump supporters is more interesting and, hopefully, more useful.

Appendix

On average, Republicans see the world as a tad more dangerous. There’s a small difference between Republicans (M=2.31, SD=.96) and Democrats (M=2.53, SD=.92), but it’s barely significant t(321)=1.96, p=.05; g=.24.
On average, Republicans see the world as more Alive than Democrats (M=2.69, SD=.76; M=2.42, SD=.86; t(321)=-2.67, p=.008; g=.32). This means they live in a reality more imbued with purpose and intentionality (M=2.63, SD=.91; M=2.2, SD=1.01; t(321)=-3.7, p=0.0003; g=.45).
On average, Republicans see the world as more easy to characterize than Dems (M=2.86, SD=.72; M=2.55, SD=.74; t(321)=-2.36, p=.019; g=.29).
On average, Dems see the the world as less competitive than Republicans (M=2.74, SD=.9; M=2.5, SD=.9; t(321)=2.2, p=.029; g=.27).
On average, Dems see the world as more funny than Republicans (M=2.88, SD=.91; M=2.66, SD=.93; t(321)=1.99, p=.047; g=.24).
On average, Dems see reality as more interconnected (M=.303, SD=1; M=2.74, SD=.91; t(321)=2.43, p=.016; g=.29).
The 2nd biggest difference is that, on average, Republicans see the world as more just (M=.2.58, SD=.84; M=2.86, SD=.93; t(321)=-2.78, p=.0057, g=.34).
When it comes to primals, the biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is that whereas Republicans on average see reality as full of things that are meaningfully distinguishable from each other, Democrats tend to see all differences as not better or worse, but just different (M=2.73, SD=.82; M=2.17, SD=.91; t(321)=-5.23, p<.0001, g=.63). You can think of this as “hierarchical.” Republicans on average see hierarchy as more natural. Everything is different from each other in ways that can make the object or person truly better or worse. Democrats see hierarchy as more unnatural because the differences between things are not typically good or bad.
On average, Democrats see the world as more worth exploring (M=3.35, SD=.8; M=3.05, SD=.1.16; t(321)=2.8, p=0054, g=.34).
On average, Republicans tend to see the world as in decline (M=2.66, SD=1.32; M=2.12, SD=1.15; t(321)=-3.73, p=.0002, g=.45).
Compared to other Republicans/independents, Trump supporters see the world as equally good, safe (not even a little different), enticing, scarce (not even a little different), acceptable, beautiful, characterizable (Trump people see the world as slightly more characterizable), competitive (Trump people see the world as slightly more competitive), pleasurable, funny, improvable, improves, interesting, interconnected, meaningful, needs me (Trump people think the world needs them a little bit more), fragile, harmless, understandable, worth exploring, against them, and declining.
On average, Trump people see the world as even more Alive (M=2.69, SD=.76; M=2.38, SD=.91; t(303)=-2.94, p=.0036; g=.36). And thus even more intentional (M=2.77, SD=.91; M=2.4, SD=1.12; t(303)=-2.9, p=.004; g=.36) and about them (M=2.22, SD=.84; M=1.96, SD=.83; t(303)=-2.57, p=.011; g=.31).
On average, Trump people see the world as even more hierarchical (M=2.62, SD=.9; M=2.31, SD=.9; t(303)=-2.85, p=.005; g=.35).
On average, Trump people see the world as even more just (M=2.77, SD=.94; M=2.54, SD=.93; t(303)=-1.99, p=.047; g=.24).
On average, Trump people don’t think the world is changing all that much (M=2.99, SD=.81; M=3.18, SD=.71; t(303)=2.12, p=.035; g=.26).

Note: After this post got approximately a bazillion more views than I expected (actually just 15,000), I thought I would double-check my analysis. So, FYI, the above has been updated in light of a further review of effect sizes.

128 Comments | tags: Clinton, Democrats, political discourse, primals, Republicans, Trump, trump supporters, Worldview | posted in Politics, primals, psychology

August 27, 2015

My Nerd Dream Team

By Jer Clifton

I discovered my preferred form of intellectual hedonism by staying up past my bedtime one evening in late 2006. I was a junior at Houghton College and hanging out with intellectual heavyweight classmates Alicia Walmus (now Clifton…bam!), Brent Chamberlain, and Chris Fiorello in the basement of Wesley Chapel. They had just read a draft philosophy manuscript of mine and, before I knew it, Chris came out swinging, Alicia disagreed, Brent nuanced, and they were off debating whether I was right, what I had meant, and whether I was being brilliant or a totally inept monkey typist.

At first, I was trying to jump in to lay down some wisdom. But, thank goodness, stuttering slowed me down enough to be distracted by the conversation itself. It riveted me. Hours flew by. I found myself adopting an observer role with occasional questions (remarkable only for being uncharacteristic), and something clicked:

There’s nothing more fun and weirdly addictive than listening to smarter better-informed people wrestle with your own ideas.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m into being super virtuous and all, but the current topic is straight-up selfish infantile pleasure. Whether it’s bashing, praising, building off my ideas, connecting them to other ones, etc., I love it when smarter people discuss my ideas and find them interesting. (Finding them accurate is good too I guess). Years later, I would learn that my top two strengths, according to the VIA strengths survey, are Creativity and Bravery. Basically, this means that I like coming up with crazy shit and putting it out there. My life can be generously described, therefore, as one sustained effort to gather smart people and hog discussion topics.

Ten months ago, all my nerdiest dreams came true in the form of a three day event at the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvannia. I meant to blog about this sooner but I’ve been irrationally fearful. Frankly, I have a hard time believing it happened. In short, my tombstone will read,

Here lies Jer, who had an idea, made a top-ten list of the world’s scholars he’d most enjoy talking to about it, got them into a windowless conference room, didn’t let them leave for three days, made them talk about nothing else but the idea, and they seemed it find it super interesting.

These scholars are worth knowing about. I want to introduce you and share a quote that gives a flavor of their thinking about primals.

Dr. Carol Dweck

Stanford Professor Dr. Carol Dweck has held professorships at Columbia and Harvard and is considered by some to be one of the most influential psychologists alive today.

Carol’s research focuses on how to foster success by influencing mindsets. In particular, the belief that abilities can be improved is critical to actually improving–we pursue what we think can be caught. Her bestselling book Mindset has been widely acclaimed and translated into more than 20 languages. I highly recommend it.

The picture above cracks me up because Carol is an incredibly kind person. She was also one of the first to buy into the primals concept, inviting me out to stay with her in California, spending hours talking about primals, and continues to shepherd me through this crazy time. I’m proud to call her my friend. She says,

Beliefs are at the heart of motivation, personality, well being, and much pathology, yet this is not widely recognized. To the extent that studying primals (or core beliefs) can bring this to the fore, it could have a tremendous effect on how we conceptualize and study human nature.

Dr. Alia Crum

Dr. Alia Crum received her PhD from Yale, her BA from Harvard, and is now Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford–one of the youngest ever.

Alia’s Mind & Body Lab focuses on how mindsets—the lenses through which information is perceived, organized, and interpreted—alter objective reality. For example, our beliefs about the effects of stress changes the effects of stress and beliefs about fattening foods makes some foods more fattening.

I adore Alia. We struggle with having conversations that last less than 3 hours. We talk about examining the influence of meta-beliefs (beliefs about the usefulness of a belief), how primals relate to health, and how to navigate academia. The main difference between our focus is that she studies beliefs that are more specific than primals (e.g. beliefs about stress rather than beliefs about everything), and she focuses on how they impact physical health. She says,

Although some may be confused—or even overwhelmed—by the premise that we have implicit assumptions about the nature of the world and that those assumptions play a powerful role in shaping our experience of the world, it makes complete sense to those of us who study mindsets and beliefs…Primals, as Jer has defined them, are the most general beliefs of all. As such, they have the greatest potential to assert a biasing influence into our lives, for better or for worse.

Dr. Alan Fiske

Dr. Alan Fiske is a famous anthropologist from UCLA.

Alan received his BA from Harvard, PhD from the University of Chicago, and has done fieldwork in Malawi, Congo, Bangladesh, and Burkina Faso. He’s well known for his theory of social relationships which breaks down all human relationships into four basic types. He’s just written a new book, Virtuous Violence, in which he suggests that much violence is pursued by a genuine desire to be moral. He helped us at the retreat by voicing some cautions. In particular, he wants us to be careful when it comes to applying primals theory and research to other cultures. He says,

The concept of primals is stimulating…as was evident from the animated discussions….[but] my claim [is] that concepts about the world are culturally embedded: they don’t make sense in isolation.

Dr. Rob DeRubeis

Dr. Rob DeRubeis is a depression expert, having authored more than 100 articles and book chapters on the topic.

Rob was Chair of the Psychology Department at the University of Pennsylvania at the time of the retreat, so we were lucky to have him. He put some thought into how primals relate to depression and has also had some advice for me on how to pursue measuring primals.

In clinical psychology, we do not adopt a hands-off attitude when one has a belief such as “I am worthless.” We try to help the patient re-evaluate such beliefs, as they lead to poor life outcomes and nearly always are exaggerations or simply untrue. Jer and Marty want to study the belief “the world is worthless.” It’s imperative that we find out if this belief is also connected to poor life outcomes.

Dr. James Pawelski

Dr. James Pawelski is Director of the Master’s of Applied Positive Psychology Program (MAPP) at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Dynamic Individualism of William James.

James is a mentor. I love him. We share an affinity for facial hair, philosophy, goofiness, scholarship, and we both grew up overseas the children of Christian missionaries. He was my Master’s capstone advisor and helped launch all this. James is one of the world’s experts on William James, a philosopher important to both psychologists and philosophers, and is building projects exploring how the humanities can be used to explore and advance subjective wellbeing. Also, he recently figured out what “positive” means in “positive psychology” (he would hate me for saying that). He says,

It appears that most people, most of the time, do not know their primals, even though it seems likely that they influence us in a variety of ways. Given the promise primals research has for yielding life-changing insight and for facilitating profound individual and cultural transformation, I eagerly await the results Jer’s research will uncover.

Dr. Crystal Park

Dr. Crystal Park is a psychologist at the University of Connecticut, associate editor of four journals, Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and former president of Division 36 of the APA (Psychology of Religion).

Crystal’s research explores many aspects of human life (including yoga!) with a focus on how certain beliefs influence an individual’s ability to cope with hardship. You might say that, if there was such a thing as “primals literature,” she would be one of the world’s top experts. She knows the studies done on beliefs which are most similar to primals, she knows how to measure them, and is now helping me figure out how to measure primals too. She’s also become a close mentor, a constant source of expertise and encouragement, and I am deeply grateful for her. She says,

I am quite familiar with the literature on those psychological constructs most similar to primals, and can therefore say without reservation that focusing on primals provides an opportunity to explore a fundamental element of human experience that has heretofore been minimally examined. It may be that it is so obvious that psychologists simply overlooked it… This is one of those projects that has great potential for identifying an important piece for what it means to be human.

Dr. Paul Rozin

Dr. Paul Rozin is a well-known psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Paul’s major research focus has been human food choice, the emotion of disgust, and cultural psychology. It was fun to have him. He was one of the guest professors for the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program when I was a student. Before the retreat, he put some thoughts into how primals relate to cultural differences. He, David, and Alan shared a concern that helped us to become more nuanced. He says,

The problem that David, Alan and I kept returning to is that there is often no adaptive general belief that works for all situations. I will use the “world is safe” proposed primal. It is appropriate to feel unsafe in the Middle East and to feel safe in Denmark. It is appropriate to feel safe with one’s family, and less safe when dealing with strangers.

Dr. Richard Reeves

Dr. Richard Reeves is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, historian, philosopher, policy-maker, and former director of strategy for the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister

Richard’s one of my favorite people in the world to have a beer with: the smartest, wittiest (most English) philosopher/historian/policy guy I know. Richard’s policy work focuses on inequality. The image above is from his kickass appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart earlier this year and in the video below he explains the current state of American inequality with legos. I recommend both.

At the retreat, Richard talked about primals across history, looking at the primals of Sparta and Athens, which was candy for a history nerd like me. He, James, Rob, and others, are convinced that primals have relevance across academic disciplines and for policy. He says,

There have been a few times in my professional life when an idea came along with that feeling of freshness—like putting one’s spade into genuinely new intellectual soil. This is how I feel about primals. The idea is so basic, so simple, but I really think that is has the potential to do some really good work and influence a wide range of fields.

Dr. David Sloan Wilson

Dr. David Sloan Wilson, President of the Evolution Institute, studies evolution at the University of Binghamton, examining all aspects of humanity in addition to the biological world.

You’ve probably heard of David’s books. He’s written Darwin’s Cathedral (2002), Evolution for Everyone (2007), and, his latest, Does Altruism Exist? (2015). In a room of top scholars, David’s breadth of knowledge across disciplines stood out. In addition to putting some thought into the relationship between primals and evolution, David had a suggestion for us,

Primals might not describe human and cultural universals. Instead, they might be culturally specific…vital for some cultures but marginal or even absent in others. [This] does not detract from the importance of the concept—especially if primals are found primarily in modern cultures, which are most relevant for improving human welfare in the future.

Dr. Chandra Sripada

Dr. Chandra Sripada holds a joint appointment at the University of Michigan in Philosophy and Psychiatry. He works on issues of human mind and agency that connect philosophy and the behavioral and brain sciences.

Chandra is an incredibly encouraging human being and has supported me in key moments over the year. He had a great deal to say about values, which he thinks are really important to consider in conjunction with primals, and what was great is that he could talk about his stuff so deeply from both a philosophical and empirical perspective. He says,

I deeply hope that this project continues and that we come to identify these primal world views, measure them, and come to understand how they influence our lives. The results could be extraordinarily useful, not just in psychology, but also for other academic disciplines.

What Fun!

Honestly, bringing these folks together is an honor and privilege I will treasure for the rest of my life. Writing these posts, and seeing photographic evidence of us in windowless conference rooms bathed in warm fluorescence, I’m starting to believe it actually happened.

In the next post, I’ll share more about what we did at the retreat itself. Spoiler alert: Where’s Marty Seligman? In the meantime, here’s two group shots.

Primals Research Retreat Participants left to right front: Dr. Alia Crum (Stanford), Jer Clifton (UPenn), Dr. Carol Dweck (Stanford). Middle: Dr. James Pawelski (PPC), Dr. Alan Fiske (UCLA), Dr. Robert DeRubeis (UPenn), Dr. Chandra Sripada (Michigan), Jess Miller (PPC), Dr. Crystal Park (UConn). Back: Dr. David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton), Dr. Paul Rozin (UPenn), Dr. Chris Stewart (Templeton), David Yaden (PPC), Dr. Richard Reeves (Brookings),

Crew left to right front: Dr. Alia Crum (Stanford), Jer Clifton (UPenn), Dr. Carol Dweck (Stanford). Middle: Dr. James Pawelski (PPC), Dr. Alan Fiske (UCLA), Dr. Robert DeRubeis (UPenn), Dr. Chandra Sripada (Michigan), Jess Miller (PPC), Dr. Crystal Park (UConn). Back: Dr. David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton), Dr. Paul Rozin (UPenn), Dr. Chris Stewart (Templeton), David Yaden (PPC), Dr. Richard Reeves (Brookings),

3 Comments | tags: Alan Fiske, Alia Crum, Carol Dweck, Chandra Sripada, Crystal Park, David Sloan Wilson, Martin Seligman, nerd dream team, Paul Rozin, Positive psychology, primals, Psychology, Richard Reeves, Rob DeRubeis | posted in primals

August 27, 2015

Remember me?

By Jer Clifton

I’ve not posted in months. I blame it on the Templeton Religion Trust who 15 months ago gave me and Marty Seligman (former president of APA, founder of positive psych, one of the most influential psychologists alive today, [insert further accolades here]) a couple hundred thousand dollars to explore an idea that I’ve been obsessed with for the past decade. That grant just ended in a raucous celebration of sleeping. For the next few weeks, I’m writing a series of posts with three purposes:

summarize everything we did
summarize what we plan to do
announce that these are my last blog posts until 2017

The series won’t make much sense without knowing what primals are. So, for those who don’t know, post 1 is a quick recap on the idea I plan to spend my life studying and why funders have been interested.

Primals in a Nutshell

primal (ˈprīməl/) adj.

1) essential; fundamental.

2) relating to an early stage in evolutionary development; primeval.

“What sort of world is this?” is the oldest question in Western philosophy. I want to study how our gut-level answers to this question, what we call “primal world beliefs” or primals, influence our lives.

Primals are an individual’s simplest and broadest understandings of the world’s essence. They serve as automatic assumptions that provide a framework—a lens—by which we filter and interpret millions of bits of information we receive every day. Like all assumptions, primals involve a claim about something. In this case, the claim is kinda weird because it’s (almost literally) about everything: what most things are usually like most of the time. Individually, primals can be expressed as propositions like “the world is dangerous” or “the world is beautiful.” Together, primals describe one’s cosmic situation, forming an implicit world which feels like “the real world” for each individual. Philosopher William James described these worlds as, “our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos.”

Primals theory has three basic tenets that are really quite simple. First, every day, most people operate under the assumption that other people, including family, friends, and strangers walking down the street, live in the same world we do. They don’t. Though many details may be the same, we often perceive reality’s essential character differently. For example, I might see the world as sinister and ugly, and you might see it as benevolent and beautiful. These worlds feel like totally different places. The first tenet of primals theory holds that though we all grew up on the same planet, we live in different worlds.

The second tenet holds that different implicit worlds encourage different behaviors, resulting in many different outcomes over a lifetime. Why work hard, for instance, if life’s not fair and will not reward you for what you do? Why be curious if the world is usually boring and around every corner, as you guessed, is more of the same? We suspect primals influence personality, politics, pathology, and parenting, as well as strengths, success, and split-second decision making—really any behavior or thought pattern that involves the world around you and some degree of ambiguity. For example, the world is dangerous may influence a police officer drawing a weapon on a suspect, an entrepreneur starting a business, a nervous boy asking a girl out on a date, or a toddler exploring a room.

A third tenet holds that millions of us may have unwittingly imprisoned ourselves in maladaptive implicit worlds that lead us to act in ways that support fear, injustice, and suffering. For example, by seeing the world as a dog-eat-dog world, we create a more competitive and cruel environment. Moreover, millions could also benefit from understanding the implicit worlds of ourselves, family, friends, bosses, and employees. For example, Sarah, one of my interns this year, noted that she struggles to get along with her sister because while her sister tends to see the world as super safe where things naturally tend to work out, Sarah sees a place where things naturally tend to get worse and that’s just the way things are. My hope is expressed by philosopher and psychiatrist Dr. Chandra Sripada,

Right now, primals seem to form in people largely without our awareness. If this project can give nothing else to the world, I hope it affords the opportunity for all of us to form our implicit worlds with eyes wide open and make conscious choices about what we want to believe and what we want to pass on to our kids.

I find that many people don’t “get” the primals concept until we start talking about what beliefs about the world they want to pass on to their children. Often people want to pass on the view that the world is beautiful, fascinating, and improvable.

Why Funders Are Interested

From the perspective of a research foundation, primals research is in the funding ‘sweet spot’ of being new(ish) and super promising, but not super risky. I’ll explain.

Three primals have already been explored by psychologists enough to know that they can be measured and they matter. Belief that the world is fair, for instance, is unsurprisingly connected to working harder, being nicer, trusting people, and bouncing back. In a particularly cool study on the belief that the world is dangerous, scholars found that cops who see the world as dangerous are more likely to shoot innocent people in shooting simulations. Seriously, those who scored high on a self-reported sense of general danger made more automatic reflexive decisions within a 0.63 seconds time window to shoot members of a perceived “out-group.” In other words, at least some primals seem to matter.

Still, we know very little. Though current literature demonstrates that primals are measurable and meaningful, implicit worlds remain under-examined, unidentified, and unmapped. Only three primals have been studied (we are currently trying to measure 22 more), no primals classification exists, experimental research on primals is negligible, causal relationships remain unknown, no attempt has been made to identify primals conducive to human flourishing, and this lack of classification condemns the field to inefficiency. As it stands today, a researcher will occasionally bump into an interesting primal, define it idiosyncratically, and examine it en route to understanding something else, like prejudice or trauma, and not talk to researchers in other areas. As a result, how primals ground interactions with our environment remains a mystery.

This, in our view, is silly and solvable (and super interesting). My main contribution has been merely to convince Marty, Templeton, and other scholars that primals are cool, a separate category of beliefs, worth studying in their own right, and that understanding them could allow us to improve the human condition.

To explore this further, Templeton gave us a grant last year to figure out what to do next. At first, our task struck me as strange. I was under the impression that research foundations give out research grants, right? But apparently sometimes they give out “planning grants.” Templeton does this when they think that an idea could be huge, but needs further thought. So our job, rather than doing new empirical research, was to figure out how one might turn my little baby idea into a concrete multi-million dollar research program–a nerd’s dream.

The remaining posts in this series describe outputs from this year (i.e. what we did) and our plans for the future, starting with output 1: hosting a scholarly retreat.

Participants at the 2014 Primals Planning Retreat.

Here’s the folks from the 2014 Primals Planning Retreat. Anyone you know? In the next post, I’ll introduce you.

Leave a comment | tags: beliefs, Positive psychology, primals, Seligman, Templeton | posted in primals

February 6, 2015

Parenting in a Scary World vs. Parenting in a Safe World

By Jer Clifton

On the afternoon of Saturday December 20th, 2014, Danielle and Alexander Meitiv let their 10-year old son and 6-year old daughter, without adult supervision, walk home together down Georgia Avenue, a main thoroughfare in Silver Springs, Maryland, a town in Washington DC. (I biked through there often when I lived in DC. It seemed to me a fairly well-to-do area with a few minor rough spots.) A neighbor spotted the two little kids alone, called the police, and the police picked them up and drove them home. When Alexander answered the door he had what he describes as a “tense” exchange with police who demanded ID and “told him about the dangers of the world” (CBS News) expressing disgust at his negligence.

This was not the first such encounter. Alexander and Danielle are known to leave their children unattended in public places and Montgomery County Child Protective Services (CPS) have confronted them about it. This included, according to Alexander, taking aside their kids at school for interviews without parental permission “and when they were talking to them, they were painting a picture of a world that is very scary.” Danielle added that the CPS Officer asked things like, “What would you do if someone grabbed you? The world’s a scary place and there are creeps out there who want to get you.” After this new incident, CPS threatened to take away their children.

So why has CNN, the LA Times, Fox News, the New York Times, and scores of other news outlets around the country reported this story? Basically, by all appearances (I’ve read only about six articles on this) these parents are the opposite of negligent. Alexander is a physicist with the NIH and Danielle is a climate scientist. They know data, trust data, take parenting very seriously, and ascribe to a growing movement called “free-range parenting.” Instead of “helicopter parenting,” which involves constant and chronic parental attention in an effort to keep kids safe, their goal is to empower children through independence, experiencing the world, and learning to navigate it.

The Meitiv family at the local playground.

“Parenthood is an exercise in risk management,” Danielle says. “Every day, we decide: Are we going to let our kids play football? Are we going to let them do a sleepover? Are we going to let them climb a tree? We’re not saying parents should abandon all caution. We’re saying parents should pay attention to risks that are dangerous and likely to happen.” For instance, her own kids are allowed to walk unaccompanied to specified places such as the local library and park. “Abductions are extremely rare,” she adds. Peter Gray, a researcher at Boston College, confirmed to the New York Times, “The actual rate of strangers abducting or molesting children is very small. It’s more likely to happen at the hands of a relative or family friend. The statistics show no increase in childhood dangers [over recent decades]. If anything, there’s been a decrease.”

The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood. I think it’s absolutely critical for their development — to learn responsibility, to experience the world, to gain confidence and competency. – Danielle Meitiv

And so Danielle and Alexander, while under investigation by the government, have found themselves on talk shows sharing their story. Across the nation, reaction is mixed. Many see them as bad parents; others as good parents. Whatever the response, I suspect that one’s take on the Meitivs and their style of parenting depends largely on one’s primals.

I am a researcher at UPenn who studies primals, or primal world beliefs, which are our most general and simple beliefs about the nature of everything, such as life is beautiful or everything is interconnected. These unprovable, gut-level, emotionally-laden assumptions are often so implicit we don’t even know we have them. Together, primals form implicit worlds in which some actions make sense and others just don’t. Why work hard, for instance, if the world’s not just? Why be curious if the world is boring? Why try if nothing ever changes?

To understand one’s response to the Meitivs I ask: Do you feel, at a gut-level, that the world is generally dangerous or safe? For the group that answers the former, the Meitivs are not only misguided, but immoral, and the government should intervene. For the group answering the latter, the Meitivs have got it right.

In debate, we can expect these groups to speak past each other. For instance, my police officer friends have suggested to me that in dealing with the most malignant people in our society day after day, in order to survive and do their jobs well, many police officers, though certainly not all, come to see the world as extremely dangerous. Many adopt a pervading posture of suspicion and have trouble understanding why others don’t do the same (whether police officers are higher in belief in a dangerous world is a testable hypothesis we hope to have data on soon). The temptation for those who see the world as safe is to cite stats, noting low abduction rates or how children are more likely to die in car accidents; it may often be safer to let kids walk home than to go pick them up. But it won’t work. To someone who holds a primal that the world is dangerous, whose seen it, whose experienced it, this type of evidence falls on deaf ears, and vice versa. Both sides “just don’t get it,” and even if stats were convincing, stats support both sides. If there is an objectively correct position, its not clear.

So, as humanity attempts to pass good laws, be good parents, and think about what primals we want to pass on to our kids, we are left with a practical question for psychologists: which primals are most useful? Unfortunately, we got little to say. Primals remain understudied by psychologists and many primals have yet to be identified (i.e. the world is beautiful, fun, or declining). If you would like to change your primals; perhaps you’re a parent who would like to see the world as more safe, a history teacher who would like to share their primal that the world is interesting, or a community organizer who would like to inspire a neighborhood that the world can change; we have no empirically-grounded ideas on how one might do that.

That is the problem the UPenn Primals Initiative is trying to solve. In addition to looking at societal level primals, we suspect millions of individuals have unwittingly imprisoned themselves in maladaptive implicit worlds where inaction, crime, desperation, depression, anxiety, cruelty, and anti-social behavior of many types, just make sense. As a scientist, we don’t yet know if this suspicion pans out empirically. As a person, this is what gets me up in the morning.

In the decades ahead, science can probably never tell us which primals are true, but scientists can begin to understand the power of our answers to the simple age-old question: What sort of world is this anyway? The UPenn Primals Initiative is one attempt to find out.