The Influence of the Big Two

Abstract

The present article concerns the relationship of the Big Two with generalized negative worldviews (i.e., negative beliefs about human nature and pessimistic expectations of interpersonal relationships). Morality/communion and competence/agency – in the form of generalized judgments concerning other people’s attributes – may be a substantial basis for formulating negativistic beliefs about the social world. Because people automatically adopt the recipient’s perspective rather than that of the active agent while processing information, the communal/moral qualities of other people are profitable for them, while their competence/agency qualities are profitable for the actor. On the basis of these considerations we formulated the following hypotheses: (1) High morality/communion judgments of people in general are inversely related to negativistic worldviews, and high competence/agency judgments are directly related to negativistic worldviews. (2) Low morality/communion judgments together with high competence/agency judgments correlate with the most negativistic worldviews. (3) The relationships stated in Hypothesis (1) holds for the perception of people in general, but not for members of one’s own family. These hypotheses were tested and partly supported in a representative sample of adult Poles (n = 853).