Basic hope and beliefs about social world

Basic trust is the belief that the world has a stable order and meaning and is benevolent towards human beings. The presented studied investigated the relationship between strength of the basic trust and characteristics of world-views, and socio-political attitudes. The research was conducted in years 2010 -2012 in various cities in Poland (total N = 426). The results indicate that although the strength of basic trust was associated positively with approval of the traditionalist perspective, it also moderated the relationship between self-efficacy and acceptance of modernist perspective: among people with lower self-efficacy the stronger basic trust was associated with greater acceptance of modernist perspective. The belief that the world is ordered (one of the components of basic trust) was negatively associated with acceptance of the postmodernist perspective, but it correlated positively with self-efficacy. The belief that the world is benevolent (the second component of basic trust) was negatively related to the declared hostility against out-groups. Strength of basic trust was positively related to the perceived entitativity of the world (the world as an object that really exists and has specific structure and history), to belief in just world - for oneself and for others, and to trust in other people. The basic trust was negatively associated with the belief that social relations are based on permanent conflict: where one wins, the other looses. In conclusion, the results suggest that the strength of basic trust is an important factor in the formation and acceptance of the world-view. peerReviewed publishedVersion