The psychology of personal worldviews

An individual’s personal worldview consists of his or her most basic values, beliefs, and narratives about the world. This worldview is a central aspect of the person’s individuality.

Yet its role has long been neglected in personality psychological theory, which has instead focused predominantly on dispositional traits (e.g., “extraversion” or “openness”). Previous empirical research on specific aspects of worldviews is also highly fragmented and disorganized.

The overarching purpose of the proposed research project is therefore to present a unified framework for the study of personal worldviews from a personality psychological point of view. The project consists of three parts.

The purpose of each part respectively is to: (1) conceptualize, clarify and organize the study of personal worldviews, illuminate weaknesses of past research, and present an agenda for future research; (2) present a new personality theory, based on contemporary philosophy of mind, that situates personal worldviews within personality; (3) present a new integrative empirical model that divides basic beliefs about the world into six dimensions: belief in a higher reality, human agency, the knowability of the world, the goodness of the world, the simplicity of the world, and importance of the environment for human beings.

The project duration is one year, including a two month stay at the University of Oregon. The project will result in a series of publications in scientific journals.