Ontologies of Trust

Decades of research have established that pro-social personality traits, such as Agreeableness and Extraversion, reliably predict generalized social trust. However, by predominantly measuring trust as a binary, unidimensional variable, the discipline has systematically conflated the mere absence of trust with actively held philosophical distrust. This study deconstructs generalized distrust into four distinct, active ontologies: pragmatic Distrust, ideological Cynicism, Moral Pessimism, and the Hobbesian View (the belief that homo homini lupus (humans are wolves to other humans)). Drawing on a novel survey of 1,763 university students across six Southeast European countries, we utilize hierarchical OLS regression to map the Big Five personality traits against these dark dimensions of human nature. Our findings reveal a profound paradox: rather than uniformly producing optimistic worldviews, pro-social traits often equip individuals to function as Machiavellian realists. While Agreeableness and Emotional Stability strongly predict baseline trust and suppress ideological panic, they simultaneously predict the stark, pragmatic endorsement of a predatory, Hobbesian reality. Ultimately, we demonstrate that “healthy” personality traits do not foster naive optimism; instead, they provide the psychological resilience necessary to acknowledge the structural predation of human nature without succumbing to generalized cynicism.