Who are the "Social Darwinists"? On the determinants of the disposition to perceive the social world as a competitive jungle

Release date: August 11, 2021

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254434

Commentary

The theory of Dual Process Motivation (DPM) model explains a naive social evolutionary theory, also known as Competitive Jungle Beliefs (CJB), which is related to deep personal traits and sociopolitical attitudes and ideologies.

This study was conducted with the aim of investigating individual differences that may be dispositional to believe in the principles of the competitive jungle scheme.

The main theoretical question was.

・Is the CJB based on positive "personal resources"?

・Is it based on some psychological defect?

These were investigated.

In the study, an extensive survey involving four randomly selected representative samples of adult Poles (N ranges from 624 to 853 respondents) tested the predictive power of five categories of variables.

1) Attachment style

2) The Big Five personality traits.

3) Dark Triad of Personality

4) Basic human values.

5) Moral judgment

These results indicated that the psychological profile of Social Darwinists is dysfunctional in terms of quality of life for individuals. People with this trait expressed admiration for power and a desire to dominate, pursuing their own goals at any cost, exploitative attitudes toward people, and hostility.

On the other hand, they were shown to have fearful thoughts in close relationships with others, low self-esteem and low self-sufficiency. From a social perspective, it was shown that this belief constitutes a vision of social life that is detrimental to building a cooperative, helpful, and relatively egalitarian society.