How Beliefs Create Your Reality - Dr Jer Clifton, PhD

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Dr Jer Clifton from the University of Pennsylvania is one of the world’s leading researchers into how our beliefs and worldview shape almost everything about our lives, including our wellbeing, our relationships, our sense of meaning and purpose, and our basic sense of safety in the world.
Some of the key things we discuss in this conversation include:
- Jer’s incredible story of saving a stranger from certain death in the subway and how this impacted his later trajectory in life
- The pervasiveness of the “belief in a just world” in our society, its good points, but also the hidden downsides
- The four “primal” worldviews we all hold and how understanding them can improve both our own quality of life and our relationships with others.
And more.
You can learn more about Jer’s work and take a short survey to find out what your own primal worldviews are by going to: myprimals.com/.
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Jeremy D. W. Clifton-everyone calls him “Jer”-received a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania studying with Dr. Martin Seligman (advisor), Dr. Angela Duckworth (committee chair), and Dr. Rob DeRubeis. His primary research area concerns primal world beliefs, with a secondary focus on measurement. Publications include the foundational 2019 Psychological Assessment article introducing primal world beliefs that was featured in the Washington Post and a 2019 Psychological Methods article on tradeoffs between validity and reliability. He is currently Senior Research Scientist at the Penn Positive Psychology Center, Director of the Penn Primals Project, and teaches research methods in the Penn Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program.
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:21 - The Psychology of Heroic Actions
08:42 - Understanding World Beliefs
15:00 - Cultivating Empathy Through Belief
29:29 - The Impact of Beliefs on Life
44:15 - A Journey of Resilience
53:34 - Worldviews and Resilience
1:04:28 - Lessons from Research
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Interview Links:
- Dr Clifton’s profile - myprimals.com/jer/
- Dr Clifton’s X - @jerclifton

[@Curious_Jen]

What a wonderful discussion. Thank you Dr. Clifton for sharing your research. 👍👍👍🙏🏻

[@user-jc6xx4rm6e]

At six minutes in you say terrorists had guns in the cockpit. None of the 911 terrorists had guns. They have knives in he foem of box cutter.

[@paradiseisland786]

Don't ever mold yourself according to someone else's irrational system of misunderstanding this world, beliefs, or otherwise, most people don't read, I read as much as possible, hence I"ve intentionally built up, my understanding of this world, and it's a fantastic world, it's good as you make it or as bad, never stereotype yourself or another person, simply consider how they are illiterate, and most people are such. and like Dr Jer Clifton, PhD said only they read what justifies their own opinions, and nothing else matters to these types of people. My suggest is to begin with the Greek philosophers, then read C. G. Jung, if you can, keep at it until you understand Jung, he's very difficult to apprehend ask Jordan Peterson.

[@tannhauser5399]

@paradiseisland786 - I would add more... Much more :) 1. After that? You are on your own but you have to broaden your horizons a bit: maybe include reading books from somebody like Donald Hoffman, John Archibald Wheeler, James Glattfelder, Seth Lloyd, Edwardo Kastrup or even approaching people like Tom Campbell and his youtube video: "Anu Physics Experiment and the Implications for Everyone". 2. Also, helps to read a bit of something from a "classic philosophy", sort of Jung or even Joseph Campbell, Edward Edinger, Gary Lachman - and get familiar with "archetypes", and myths (NOT getting into a heavy duty stuff such Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend). Plus the usual "suspects" of a classic philosophy and old stories: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Confucius, Homer or even Marcus Aurelius or Hypatia (or Cicero, as his observations in "The Nature of Gods" as spot on, and are relevant to this day). 3. Then move to something like research done by: Peter Fenwick, Pim van Lommel, or Ian Stevenson books, or even Tom Shroder book (kind of easy to digest view of the research done by Ian Stevenson). As that is opening a new chapter, still connected with research regarding somthing like a consciousness. But at the end, it all starting to make sense, and in a way may be connected with stories from Jacues Vallee and others. Especially if you have been working in a hospital, or hospice for a while and partly you are familiar with those stories. 4. Optional: Then reach for something like Monica Sjoo - "Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth". That is opening another chapter, as it gives a good info background about ancient myths (and more of course). 5. Optional: Then move to psychology if you are interested in a basic human behaviour: read most of the books necessary to complete the psychology degree or at least core ones from each year (pick any main Uni such King's College, Cambridge, UCL and so on), and move from there (Note: Psychology - NOT a Psychiatry). Note 1: The above is skipping any modern religion related myths and subjects, sort of like Utnapishtim was a protoplast of the Biblical's Noe, (or any other myths related to Atra-Hasis, Gilgamesh, Mithra, Dionysus, Saturnalia, Egyptian or Sumerian/Akkadian myths, Isis and Osiris, Annunaki, Ramayana & Mahabharata, Gnostic and Khatars/Languedoc vs Christianity, pagan myths and what Christianity have done to pagan temples and sites across Europe/Britain, or even some of the native tribes myths such as Hopi, and so on). That is opening a completely different box of issues (in a way partly realated to the above, but is not necessary to know that at this point). You can always reach for R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, Linda Paterson, David Rohl, Rand Flem-Ath, Robert Schoch, and start from that. Probably slighly bad examples there, but there is too many authors and books to mention here. Way too many. And I also don't care about it at this point. Note 2: The above is also skipping all related to any "myths/stories/legends/archetypes" related to the last period of "Ice Age" and what may have happened there, and how those kind of events have shaped most of older and modern human's myths, legends and archetypes. In this case I would probably suggest to start with a classic astronomy research such as: - "Paleolitic Extinction and the Taurid Complex" (by W.M.Napier, from Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University, CF10 3DY, Feb 2010), - or even reach for something like a Paul.A. LaViolette, "Earth Under Fire" Then move to something like a findings at Gobekli Tepe, Çatalhöyük, or looking at the similar megalitic structures all over the planet, including piramids structures (especially in Asia/China). And there is always story from Plato or even old time research from Ignatius Donnelly as a start. All of that is changing our perception of human history in relation to some ancient global civilization that has been wiped out by a cosmic catastrophe about 12K years ago, reality as such, as in a way we are species with the amnesia - that simply have forgotten where we came from (as a whole humanity). But also is changing our perception as to our current reality, material world, simulation theory, consciousness, and even modern research in the quantum physics. Simply go from there, as there is plenty of other research out there related to those times. And I haven't even started with shamanism and psychodelics, as a part of our history.

[@rickturnr]

Jung and Jordan Peterson's ideas are also problematic in some ways