Investigating the Structure and Functions of Worldview Assumptions

Abstract

The goal of this dissertation was to develop a relatively comprehensive and culturally de-centered measure of worldview assumptions, basic beliefs that humans have about the world and reality. A pool of 179 items was compiled from a selective review of the literature and submitted to Exploratory Factor Analysis in a US sample. The emergent 6-factor structure was submitted to increasingly stringent tests of invariance in samples from Lebanon, Singapore, and India and met the standards for factorial invariance. The 6-factors showed a diverse set of relationships with measures of the potential functions of worldview: subjective well-being, meaning in life, and tolerance for inequality.