Here you can read answers to frequently asked questions about the four worldviews we distinguish, and worldviews in general. These questions were asked by students participating in our program. Want to ask us your own questions, or share your comments, with respect to worldviews? You can contact us here.

One could say that there are as many worldviews as there are people. However, generally worldviews refer to the overarching, collectively shared, ‘big stories’ through which humans make sense of their experience and world. These stories guide how whole communities or societies understand reality in a general sense.

Especially the traditional, modern, and postmodern worldviews have been widely recognised by philosophers and sociologists alike. They have also been observed more globally in large-scale cross-cultural research (more on that below). These worldviews thus express larger patterns that most of us are familiar with, and are often relatively easy to recognize.

You can see them as archetypes, or ideal-types, which depict ‘pure’ or idealised patterns. That is, though recognisable in the world around us, they generally do not exist in these ‘pure’ forms, as social reality is inherently messy and complex. They serve mainly as analytical tools, helping us ‘see the forest for the trees’.

While more worldviews could be added, these four worldviews appear dominant in our world today, and useful for analyzing societal developments and political debates (e.g., see this blog or this study). Moreover, the distinction in four worldviews adds a lot of nuance and complexity, compared to the binary approaches often used in social science (as argued here).

Non-Western worldviews are currently probably not adequately captured in this model. However, although ‘our’ four worldviews were found in research in a Western context, they appear to be relevant and recognizable beyond the West. 

Take for example the insights as emerging from the World Values Survey, a massive dataset exploring human beliefs and values across the world. Data-analysis asserts that there are two major dimensions of cross cultural variation in the world.

One axis ranges from traditional values (resonant with the traditional worldview), to secular-rational values (resonant with the modern worldview). The other axis ranges from survival values to self-expression values dominant (resonant with the postmodern worldview).

The integrative worldview can be understood as a newer worldview arising in response to the challenges of our late postmodern societies. Though this worldview is not (yet?) distinguished by the World Values Survey, it’s been described by various philosophers and also increasingly recognized in empirical work, including the study that led to the Worldview Test.

Though people who’s outlook on life is strongly defined by their religion will often identify with the traditional worldview, the relationship is not one-on-one. Clearly, there are traditional people who are not religious, and religious people who are not traditional.

It all depends on one’s interpretation of the religious ideas, values, and concepts in question. For example, people with traditional worldviews will be inclined to a more literalistic and dogmatic interpretation, while people with more integrative worldviews may interpret them in more mystical, universal ways. (The theologian and scholar James Fowler wrote an interesting book about this.)

Moreover, the traditional worldview is as much defined by its (more conventional, traditionally) religious understanding of reality, as it is by its emphasis on family and community, social values, solidarity with the group, socially defined roles and rules, and a higher, transcendental purpose in life.

These worldviews are not inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. They’re stories, value patterns, and structures that help people make sense of their experience and world.

People’s worldviews are shaped by the context they grew up in, and the challenges they were confronted with. Each worldview brings forth qualities, values, and possibilities, as well as pitfalls and limitations. The morality of one’s behaviors and choices thus depends on how one relates and gives expression to these worldviews, rather than on the content of the worldviews.

At the same time, people’s worldviews can become radicalised, highly ideological, or pathological. When individuals see their worldview as the only valid perspective, radicalization may be occurring. Then worldviews may encourage or justify ‘bad’ behaviors – like the exclusion, oppression, or prosecution of other groups or people who think differently.

Each of these four worldviews – though neutral in their basic structure, with potentials as well as pitfalls – may thus be turned into extremist ideologies. For example, the anti-democratic movement of Christian Nationalism may be understood as a radicalized expression of the traditional worldview, while the more extreme aspects of “woke” culture, may be seen as a radicalised manifestation of the postmodern worldview.

Instead of promoting any particular worldview, our educational programs are focussed on supporting people to develop healthy and inquisitive relationships with their worldviews – fostering the humility, openness, curiosity, tolerance, and reflexivity that are vital for our planetary civilization to flourish.

Just like these worldviews are not inherently good or bad, they’re also not inherently (un)sustainable. Each worldview brings possibilities as well as pitfalls in addressing our planetary issues.

For example, traditional worldviews may coincide with greater willingness to sacrifice and live in more sober ways, while generally having less affinity with green values. Modern worldviews may offer possibilities with their emphasis on science and technology, while also being associated with reductionist and exploitative attitudes towards nature.

At the same time, some worldviews are more inclined to care about sustainability issues than others. As this study showed, people with postmodern and integrative worldviews displayed significantly more concern about climate change as well as more sustainable behaviors, compared with moderns and traditionals. This makes sense, as environmental values fit with the larger story of postmodern and integrative worldviews, including their views on nature.

While some worldviews are more inclined towards sustainable values and lifestyles, for addressing our global issues a diversity of worldviews is generally preferable. Of course, differences in worldview can lead to misunderstanding, conflict, and inertia. Yet the diversity in solutions and strategies they bring forth may prove crucial for helping us adapt and transform as a society.

Thus, though some worldviews are inherently more aligned with environmental values, a diversity of worldviews and perspectives offers the best chance for coming to innovative and inclusive solutions for our planetary problems.

In a general sense, worldviews do tend to translate to behaviours and decisions. As mentioned above, this study found that postmoderns and integratives displayed significantly more environmental behaviours. This also makes sense, as environmental values gain importance with the emergence of postmodern and integrative worldviews. These environmental behaviours thus fit with the larger story, the concerns, priorities, and values of these worldviews. So this increases the probability. At the same time, worldviews can be expressed in many different ways. Also, we know that there are many factors influencing concrete behaviors, and our worldviews and values is just one of them.

Additionally, we know from fields like medicine and neuroscience that our beliefs and attitudes substantially inform a wide range of subtle behaviors, that have great impact on our experience and world, yet often without us even noticing.

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Considering the widespread calls for “mindshifts”, research into how worldviews change in practice is remarkably thin.

As far as we know, a full-blown shift of worldview tends to occur slow, and may take years. At the same time, a perspective shift can happen in a matter of moments. Such perspective shifts are perhaps to be understood as the ‘building blocks’ of larger worldview changes.

This process may be akin to Thomas Kunn’s groundbreaking depiction of how paradigm shifts happened in the history of science (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962). According to Kuhn’s observations, initially anomalies – observations that are at odds with, and contest, the current paradigm or way of understanding in a certain scientific field – tend to be resisted and oppressed. They are therefore not able to shift the paradigm. However, once more anomalies are observed and start to reach a certain threshold, the inevitable happens and the paradigm shifts. A radically and qualitatively new understanding of the same phenomena now takes over the field.

Like these paradigm shifts in science, our personal perspective-shifts may over time result in a shift of worldview. For example, one day you’re climbing a big mountain and while standing on its peak you have a powerful and deep experience like you’ve never had before. You experience an aliveness, a vastness, and a value that feels incredibly meaningful to you, and that evokes a different understanding of what nature is and the role it should play in your life. This experience  in itself , however powerful, will probably not immediately result in a shift of worldview. But when you start having more of these ‘perspective-shifting’ experiences, at some point the balance may tip and your larger understanding of reality – your worldview – may shift. (Check out this study.)

Though there is limited research available that explores how this happens in practice, many people have experienced such shift in their lives. However, this process may be so slow that one often only appreciates in retrospect, and upon conscious reflection, that that is what happened.

More research is needed to answer this vital question!

The observation is that worldviews arose societally in a certain order. That is, modern worldviews arose after, and in response to the limitations of, traditional worldviews. Postmodern worldviews arose after and in response to the problems of the modern worldview, and integrative worldviews after and in response to postmodern ones. There is indeed a developmental logic and dynamic here. This process has been observed by historians and philosophers in the West, while also having been found in cross cultural data on changing beliefs and values over time.

This understanding also aligns with developmental psychology and the “evolutions” observed in the process of mental development. Research has shown that, looking at a population as a whole, mental complexity tends to increase with age: “When an evolution occurs from one level of complexity to another, adults take greater responsibility for their thinking and feeling, can retain more levels of information, and can think further into the future, to name only some of the well-researched consequences of mental development” (Kegan and Lahey, 2016, p.60). Yet there is considerable variety within any age, and people move through these evolutions at different speeds. Also, “many of us, if not most of us, get stuck in our evolution and do not reach the most complex peaks” (Ibid, p.60).

This is a hopeful understanding, as our worldviews may display our possibility for social learning and a potential for a gradual expansion of perspectives! However, there are some things to keep in mind:

  • Take your result of the Worldview Test lightly! This test only tells you which ‘big story’ you seem to gravitate towards based on the answers you provided. It’s NOT an indication of your state of mental evolution in any way.
  • Habermas spoke about ‘the dialectics of progress’: Though the evolutionarily later worldviews often display new qualities and possibilities, they also tend to generate new (and often bigger) problems and pathologies.
  • This is not a moral order! One worldview is not inherently better than any other one. The goodness of our character depends more on what we do with these worldviews and how we give expression to them, than with the worldviews per se.

Instead of seeing this as a moral order or an oppressive ranking system, we believe a developmental or evolutionary view can in fact be highly empowering and life-enhancing, as it invites us to keep learning, growing, and evolving, to continue to widen our horizons and deepen our understanding, to fulfil our greater potentials.

Additionally, this kind of view may evoke a more compassionate understanding of human nature and behavior. ‘Undesirable’ or problematic behaviors or opinions – like racist views or unsustainable attitudes – may be ascribed to a lack of the right conditions for development, rather than to the “moral failings” of someone’s character. Instead of judging people or writing them off, this view emphasizes that, under the right conditions, each and every one of us has the potential to move beyond narrow and self-centered perspectives, and grow into a wiser and wider self.

This invites more compassion, kindness, and inclusivity – and thus hope for the future.

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