Seeing the World Through a Dark Lens: The Dark Core of Personality and Its Relation to Primal World Beliefs

OBJECTIVE: Aversive ("dark") personality traits are traditionally studied as predictors of harmful or manipulative behavior, yet their underlying cognitive-affective structures remain underexplored. This research investigates whether the Dark Core of personality (D)-the common aversive essence of all dark traits-is associated with primal world beliefs, which are deep-seated assumptions about the nature of the world (e.g., viewing the world as safe, meaningful, or beautiful). METHOD: Across four studies (total N = 2245), latent correlations and latent regression analyses involving D and primal world beliefs were examined. RESULTS: D was associated with more negative world beliefs, indicating that high-D individuals tend to hold globally pessimistic worldviews that extend beyond instrumental beliefs serving to reduce cognitive dissonance. That is, high-D individuals also see the world as less pleasurable, less stable, less regenerative, and less meaningful. CONCLUSIONS: Specifically, the facet Meaningful emerged as uniquely associated with D, suggesting that perceiving many aspects of life as meaningless reflects a broader worldview underlying D-one that extends beyond specific beliefs used to justify aversive behavior.