Magical thinking is the attribution of causal relationships between actions and events which seemingly cannot be justified by reason and observation. In religion, folk religion, and superstitious beliefs, the correlation posited is often between religious ritual, prayer, sacrifice, or the observance of a taboo, and an expected benefit or recompense. In clinical psychology, magical thinking can cause a patient to experience fear of performing certain acts or having certain thoughts because of an assumed correlation between doing so and threatening calamities. Magical thinking may lead people to believe that their thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it. It is a type of causal reasoning or causal fallacy that looks for meaningful relationships of grouped phenomena (coincidence) between acts and events.
"Quasi-magical thinking" describes "cases in which people act as if they erroneously believe that their action influences the outcome, even though they do not really hold that belief".
- Associative thinking 1
- Other forms 2
- Symbolic approach to magic 3
- Psychological functions of magic 4
- Phenomenological approach 5
- Idiomatic difference 6
- Substantive difference 7
In children 8
- Grieving children 8.1
- See also 9
- References 10
- External links 11
Prominent Victorian theorists identified "associative thinking" (a common feature of practitioners of magic) as a characteristic form of irrationality. As with all forms of magical thinking, association-based and similarity-based notions of causality are not always said to be the practice of magic by a magician. For example, the doctrine of signatures held that similarity between plant parts and body parts indicated their efficacy in treating diseases of those body parts, and was a part of Western medicine. This association-based thinking is a vivid example of the general human application of the representativeness heuristic.
Edward Burnett Tylor coined the term "associative thinking", characterizing it as pre-logical, in which the "magician's folly" is in mistaking an ideal connection with a real one. The magician believes that thematically linked items can influence one another by virtue of their similarity. For example, in E. E. Evans-Pritchard's account, amongst the Azande tribe members rub crocodile teeth on banana plants to invoke a fruitful crop. Because crocodile teeth are curved (like bananas) and grow back if they fall out, the Azande observe this similarity and want to impart this capacity of regeneration to their bananas. To them, the rubbing constitutes a means of transference.
Sir James Frazer later elaborated upon this principle by dividing magic into the categories of sympathetic and contagious magic. The latter is based upon the law of contagion or contact, in which two things that were once connected retain this link and have the ability to affect their supposedly related objects, such as harming a person by harming a lock of his hair. Sympathetic magic and homeopathy operate upon the premise that "like affects like", or that one can impart characteristics of one object to a similar object. Frazer believed that these individuals think the entire world functions according to these mimetic, or homeopathic, principles.
In How Natives Think (1925), Lucien Lévy-Bruhl describes a similar notion of mystical, "collective representations". He too sees magical thinking as fundamentally different from a Western style of thought. He asserts that in these representations, 'primitive' people's "mental activity is too little differentiated for it to be possible to consider ideas or images of objects by themselves apart from the emotions and passions which evoke those ideas or are evoked by them." Lévy-Bruhl explains that natives commit the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, in which people observe that x is followed by y, therefore y has been caused by x. He believes that this fallacy is institutionalized in native culture and is committed regularly and repeatedly.
Despite the view that magic is less than rational and entails an inferior concept of causality, in The Savage Mind (1966), Claude Lévi-Strauss suggested that magical procedures are relatively effective in exerting control over the environment. This outlook has generated alternative theories of magical thinking, such as the symbolic and psychological approaches, and softened the contrast between "educated" and "primitive" thinking: "Magical thinking is no less characteristic of our own mundane intellectual activity than it is of Zande curing practices."[n 1]
Bronisław Malinowski's Magic, Science and Religion (1954) discusses another type of magical thinking, in which words and sounds are thought to have the ability to directly affect the world. This type of wish fulfillment thinking can result in the avoidance of talking about certain subjects ("speak of the devil and he'll appear"), the use of euphemisms instead of certain words, or the belief that to know the "true name" of something gives one power over it, or that certain chants, prayers, or mystical phrases will bring about physical changes in the world. More generally, it is magical thinking to take a symbol to be its referent or an analogy to represent an identity.
Sigmund Freud believed that magical thinking was produced by cognitive developmental factors. He described practitioners of magic as projecting their mental states onto the world around them, similar to a common phase in child development. From toddlerhood to early school age, children will often link the outside world with their internal consciousness, e.g. "It is raining because I am sad."
Symbolic approach to magic
Another theory of magical thinking is the symbolic approach. Leading thinkers of this category, including Stanley J. Tambiah, believe that magic is meant to be expressive, rather than instrumental. As opposed to the direct, mimetic thinking of Frazer, Tambiah asserts that magic utilizes abstract analogies to express a desired state, along the lines of metonymy or metaphor.
An important question raised by this interpretation is how mere symbols could exert material effects. One possible answer lies in John L. Austin's concept of "performativity," in which the act of saying something makes it true, such as in an inaugural or marital rite. Other theories propose that magic is effective because symbols are able to change internal psycho-physical states. They claim that the act of expressing a certain anxiety or desire is reparative in itself.
Psychological functions of magic
Some scholars believe that magic is effective psychologically. They cite the placebo effect, psychosomatic disease, etc., as prime examples of how our mental functions exert power over our bodies. Similarly, Robin Horton suggests that engaging in magical practices surrounding healing can relieve anxiety, which could have a significant positive physical impact. In the absence of advanced health care, such impacts would play a relatively major role, thereby helping to explain the persistence and popularity of such practices.
According to theories of anxiety relief and control, people turn to magical beliefs when there exists a sense of uncertainty and potential danger and little to do about it. Magic is used to restore a sense of control. In support of this theory, research indicates that superstitious behavior is invoked more often in high stress situations, especially by people with a greater desire for control.
Another potential reason for the persistence of magic rituals is that the rituals prompt their own use by creating a feeling of insecurity and then proposing themselves as precautions. Boyer and Liénard propose that in obsessive-compulsive rituals — a possible clinical model for magical thinking — focus shifts to the lowest level of gestures, resulting in goal demotion. For example, an obsessive-compulsive cleaning ritual may overemphasize the order, direction, and number of wipes used to clean the surface. The goal becomes less important than the actions used to achieve the goal, with the implication that magic rituals can persist without efficacy because the intent is lost within the act.
Ariel Glucklich tries to understand magic from a subjective perspective, attempting to comprehend magic on a phenomenological, experientially based level. Glucklich seeks to describe the attitude that magical practitioners feel which he calls "magical consciousness" or the "magical experience." He explains that it is based upon "the awareness of the interrelatedness of all things in the world by means of simple but refined sense perception,"
Another phenomenological model is Gilbert Lewis's, which is that "habit is unthinking." He believes that those practicing magic do not think of an explanatory theory behind their actions any more than the average person tries to grasp the pharmaceutical workings of aspirin. When the average person takes an aspirin, he does not know how the medicine chemically functions. He takes the pill with the premise that there is proof of efficacy. Similarly, many who avail themselves of magic do so without feeling the need to understand a causal theory behind it.
Robin Horton maintains that the difference between Western and non-Western people's thinking is predominantly "idiomatic." He asserts that both cultures employ the same practical common-sense, and both science and magic are ways in which people delve into theory, into what occurs beyond that basic logic. However, non-western cultures possess the idiom of magic or spiritual figures and would therefore turn to magical practices or an expert in that idiom. Horton sees both western and native cultures as possessing the same logic and common-sense, but simply different ontological idioms, which may contribute to seemingly illogical practices on either part. He explains, "the layman's grounds for accepting the models propounded by the scientist is often no different from the young African villager's ground for accepting the models propounded by one of his elders."
Along similar lines, Michael F. Brown argues that the Aguaruna of Peru see magic as merely a type of technology, no more supernatural than their physical tools. He argues that the Aguaruna utilize magic in a very scientific manner, for example, discarding magical stones which they have observed to be ineffective. It seems, that to Brown, too, magical thinking merely differs in idiom.
These theories tend to blur the lines between magic, science, and religion, asserting the similarities between magical, technical, and spiritual practices. Brown even notes that he is tempted to claim that 'magic' does not exist.
One theory of substantive difference is that of the open versus closed society. Horton describes this as one of the key dissimilarities between traditional thought and Western science. He suggests that the scientific worldview is distinguished from a magical one by the scientific method and by skepticism, requiring the falsifiability of any scientific hypothesis. He notes that for native peoples "there is no developed awareness of alternatives to the established body of theoretical texts." He notes that all further differences between traditional and Western thought can be understood as a result of this factor. Because there are no alternatives in societies based on magical thought a theory does not need to be objectively judged to be valid.
Magical thinking is most dominantly present in children between age 2 to 7 years old. During this age, children strongly believe that their personal thought has a direct effect on the rest of the world. Therefore, if they experience something tragic that they do not understand, e.g., a death, their mind would create a reason to feel responsible. Jean Piaget, a developmental psychologist, came up with a theory of four developmental stages. Children between ages 2 to 7 would be classified under his Preoperational Stage of development. During this stage children are perceived to not be able to use logical thinking. A child's thinking is dominated by perceptions of physical features, meaning that if they are told that a family pet has gone away, then the child will have difficulty comprehending the transformation of the dog not being around anymore. Magical thinking would be evident here, since the child may believe that the family pet being gone is just temporary. Their young minds in this stage do not understand the finality of death and magical thinking bridges the gap.
Children who evidence magical thinking often feel that they are responsible for an event or events occurring, or are capable of reversing an event simply by thinking about it and wishing for a change. Make-believe and fantasy are an integral part of life at this age and are often used to explain the unexplainable.
According to Piaget, children within this age group are often "egocentric", believing that what they feel and experience is the same as everyone else's feelings and experiences. At this age, as well, there is often a lack of understanding that there may be other explanations for events aside from what they have comprehended. What happens outside their understanding needs to be explained using what they already know, because of an inability to fully comprehend abstract concepts.
Magical thinking is found particularly in children's explanations of experiences about death, whether the death of a family member or pet, or their own illness or impending death. These experiences are often new for a young child, who then has no experience to give understanding of the ramifications of the event. A child may feel that they are responsible for what has happened, simply because they were upset with the person who died, or perhaps played with the pet too roughly. There may also be the idea that if the child wishes it hard enough, or performs just the "right" act, the person or pet may choose to come back, and not be dead any longer. When considering their own illness or impending death, some children may feel that they are being punished for doing something wrong, or not doing something they should have, and therefore have become ill. If a child's ideas about an event are incorrect because of their magical thinking, there is a possibility that the conclusions the child makes could result in long-term beliefs and behaviours that create difficulty for the child as they mature.
- Confirmation bias
- Placebo effect
- Psychology of art
- Quantum Psychology
- The Year of Magical Thinking, an account of how mourning the death of a spouse led to magical thinking.
- Superstitious pigeon
- Wishful thinking, the formation of beliefs and making of decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine rather than with reference to reality, rationality, or evidence.
- Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, especially at higher stages of proficiency experts rely on intuitive decision making rather than an analytical approach, which can lead the unaware into believing it has something to do with magical thinking.
- List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
- The Azande practice of curing epilepsy by eating the burnt skull of a red bush monkey, based on the apparent similarity of epileptic movements and those of the monkeys, was discussed in Evans-Pritchard 1937, p. 487.
- Colman, Andrew M. (2012). A Dictionary of Psychology (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
- Shafir, E.; Tversky, A. (1992). "Thinking through uncertainty: Nonconsequential reasoning and choice". Cognitive Psychology 24 (4): 449–74.
- Nisbet, D.; Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp. 115–8.
- Glucklich, Ariel (1997). The End of Magic. Oxford University Press. pp. 32–3.
- Frazer, James (1915) . The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (3rd ed.). London: Macmillan.
- Lévy-Bruhl 1925, p. 76
- Shweder, Richard A. (1977). "Likeness and likelihood in everyday thought: Magical thinking in judgments about personality". Current Anthropology 18 (4): 637–58 (637).
- Glucklich 1997, pp. 59–61, 205–12
- Glucklich 1997, pp. 53–5
- Brown, Michael F. (1993). Thinking About Magic. Greenwood Press. pp. 5–7.
- Glucklich 1997, pp. 60–2
- Glucklich 1997, pp. 49–53
- Glucklich 1997, pp. 50–68
- Keinan, Giora (2002). "The effects of stress and desire for control on superstitious behavior". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28 (1): 102–108.
- Keinan, Giora (1994). "The effects of stress and tolerance of ambiguity on magical thinking". Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1): 48–55.
- Glucklich 1997, p. 12
- Lewis, Gilbert. The Look of Magic. University of Cambridge.
- Horton 1967b, p. 171
- Brown, Michael F. (1986). Tsewa's Gift: Magic and Meaning in an Amazonian Society.
- Brown 1993, p. 2
- Nielson, D. (2012). "Discussing death with pediatric patients: Implications for nurses". Journal of Pediatric Nursing 27: e59–e64.
- Samide, L.; Stockton, R. (2002). "Letting go of grief: Bereavement groups for children in the school setting". Journal for Specialists in Group Work 27: 192–204.
- Webb, N. (2010). "The Child and Death". In Webb, N.B. Helping Bereaved Children: A Handbook for Practitioners. New York: Guildford. pp. 5–6.
- Biank, N.; Werner-Lin, A. (2011). "Growing up with grief: Revisiting the death of a parent over the life course". Omega 63: 271–90.
- Webb 2010, p. 51
- Schoen, A.; Burgoyen, M.; Schoen, S. (2004). "Are the developmental needs of children in America adequately addressed during the grief process?". Journal of Instructional Psychology 31: 143–8.
- Schonfeld, D. (1993). "Talking with children about death". Journal of Pediatric Health Care 7: 269–74.
- Sossin, K.; Cohen, P. (2011). "Children's play in the wake of loss and trauma". Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy 10: 255–72.
- Hutson, Matthew (2012). The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane.
- Serban, George (1982). The Tyranny of Magical Thinking. New York: This work discusses how and why the magical thinking of childhood can carry into adulthood, causing various maladaptions and psychopathologies.
- Vyse, Stuart (1997). Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition.
- Hutson, Matthew (March 2008). "Magical Thinking".
- Stevens, Phillips, Jr. (November–December 2001). "Magical thinking in complementary and alternative medicine".