Positive Psychology Center
Dr. Jeremy (Jer) D. W. Clifton received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania studying with Dr. Martin Seligman (advisor) and Dr. Angela Duckworth (committee chair). He was recently named a 2024 APS Rising Star from the Association of Psychological Science that recognizes “researchers whose innovative work has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions”.
He is currently Senior Research Scientist at the UPenn Positive Psychology Center where he directs the Primals Project. His research has been featured in numerous publications, including The Washington Post, Hidden Brain, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Al Jazeera, Forbes, and The Atlantic.
His primary research area concerns primal world beliefs, which are beliefs about the world’s typical character (e.g., the world is dangerous), with a secondary focus on measurement. Academic journal publications include the original Psychological Assessment article introducing primal world beliefs, a Psychological Methods article on tradeoffs between validity and reliability, a Perspectives on Psychological Science article on scale equivalence, a Social Psychological & Personality Science article on the primal world beliefs that separate the political left and right, and an American Psychologist article historically situating modern primal world belief research as a return to the first question of Western philosophy and summarizing research progress over the last few years.
Primal World Beliefs Website
Dr. Clifton's CV including PDFs of his academic articles
Take the quiz and discover your own primal world beliefs
Hidden Brain Podcast Featuring Dr. Clifton's Work - The best introduction to what primals are and why they matter.
Donate to the Penn Primals Project - This is the world's foremost group researching primal world beliefs. All funding comes from grants and donations.