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Abstract
The widely spread view on magical beliefs in modern industrial cultures contends that magical beliefs are a bunch of curious phenomena that persist today as an unnecessary addition to a much more important set of rational beliefs. Contrary to this view, in this article, the view is presented, which suggests that the belief in magic is a fundamental property of the human mind. Individuals can consciously consider themselves to be completely rational people and deny that they believe in magic or God despite harboring a subconscious belief in the supernatural. Research also shows how engagement in magical thinking can enhance cognitive functioning, such as creative thinking, perception and memory. Moreover, this article suggests that certain forms of social compliance and obedience to authority historically evolved from magical practices of mind control and are still powered by the implicit belief in magic. Finally, the article outlines areas of life, such as education, religion, political influence, commerce, military and political terror, and entertainment, in which magical thinking and beliefs of modern people can find practical applications.
Highlights
The idea to explore the relationships between magical thinking and learning has its root in the previous research, which investigated the role of fantasy in learning
The results indicated that after, but not before, exposure to the film clips, children in the experimental condition scored significantly higher than controls on the majority of tasks, supporting the expectation that engagement in magical thinking enhances the creativity of realistic thinking
Research reviewed in this article suggest that magical thinking and the belief in magic are not just a group of special phenomena that, though widely spread in modern industrial cultures, do not go beyond an unnecessary addition to rational thinking and rational beliefs
Summary
The idea to explore the relationships between magical thinking and learning has its root in the previous research, which investigated the role of fantasy in learning. Some evidence suggests that framing cognitive tasks within a fantasy context facilitates thinking. Facilitative effect of fantasy contexts on children’s performance on cognitive tasks has been shown in other research as well (Hawkins, Pea, Glick, & Scribner, 1984; Leevers & Harris, 1999; Lillard, 1996; Lillard & Sobel, 1999; Principe & Smith, 2008; Richards & Sanderson, 1999; Sobel & Lillard, 2001). Using the analogical problem-solving paradigm, Richert, Shawber, Hoffman, and Taylor (2009) reported that 31⁄2- to 6-year-old children were less likely to transfer solutions from the stories about fantasy characters to real life tasks than from the stories about real people to real life tasks. Richert and Smith (2011) found that 31⁄2 to 51⁄2 -year-old children were less likely to transfer problem solutions from stories about fantasy characters compared with stories about real people. The reviewed experiments suggest that benefits of children’s engagement in magical thinking are more likely to show up in the domain of creative thinking, perception, and memory, rather than in the domain of common problem solving
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