Positive world beliefs (e.g., believing in a safe world) are associated with higher well-being and more social connections. While these associations have often been interpreted as causal, little is known about their origins. Here, we utilized a large ( N ∼ 9000) Swedish twin sample to investigate the role of familial confounding (genetic influences and family environmental effects influencing both primals and social well-being) and test whether associations are in line with a causal effect. Indeed, positive world beliefs were associated with higher well-being, reduced loneliness, and less social isolation. When adjusting for familial confounding, associations were substantially attenuated, but remained significant—consistent with a causal association. Bivariate twin models strengthened this finding, indicating that genetic effects explain approximately half of the covariation. When also accounting for personality differences in addition to familial confounding, a small—yet significant—association remained. These findings highlight that familial influences and personality differences explain a substantial part of the observed associations between primals and social well-being, while also lending support for a small potentially causal effect—though the directionality of this effect remains unknown. We discuss the implications of these findings for primals research and positive psychology.
Perizonius et al. (Sat,) studied this question.