Magical thinking

For other uses, see Magical thinking (disambiguation).

Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking,[1] is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects.[1][2][3] Examples include the idea that personal thoughts can influence the external world without acting on them, or that objects must be causally connected if they resemble each other or have come into contact with each other in the past.[1][2][4] Magical thinking is a type of fallacious thinking and is a common source of invalid causal inferences.[3][5] Unlike the confusion of correlation with causation, magical thinking does not require the events to be correlated.[3]

The precise definition of magical thinking may vary subtly when used by different theorists or among different fields of study. In psychology, magical thinking is the belief that one's thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it.[6] These beliefs can cause a person to experience an irrational fear of performing certain acts or having certain thoughts because of an assumed correlation between doing so and threatening calamities.[1] In psychiatry, magical thinking defines false beliefs about the capability of thoughts, actions or words to cause or prevent undesirable events.[7] It is a commonly observed symptom in thought disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.[8][9][10]

  1. ^ a b c d Bennett, Bo. "Magical Thinking". Logically Fallacious. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  2. ^ a b Carroll RT (12 Sep 2014). "Magical thinking". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Robert J. Sternberg; Henry L. Roediger III; Diane F. Halpern (2007). Critical Thinking in Psychology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-60834-3.
  4. ^ Vamos, Marina (2010). "Organ transplantation and magical thinking". Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 44 (10): 883–887. doi:10.3109/00048674.2010.498786. ISSN 0004-8674. PMID 20932201. S2CID 25440192.
  5. ^ Carhart-Harris, R. (2013). "Psychedelic drugs, magical thinking and psychosis". Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. 84 (9): e1. doi:10.1136/jnnp-2013-306103.17. ISSN 0022-3050.
  6. ^ Colman, Andrew M. (2012). A Dictionary of Psychology (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
  7. ^ American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing. pp. 655, 824. doi:10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596. ISBN 978-0-89042-554-1.
  8. ^ Sadock, B. J.; Sadock, V. A.; Ruiz, P. (2017). Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry (10th ed.). Wolters Kluwer. ISBN 978-1-4511-0047-1.
  9. ^ Fonseca-Pedrero E, Ortuno J, Debbané M, Chan E, Cicero D, Zhang L, Brenner C, Barkus E, Linscott E, Kwapil T, Barrantes-Vidal N, Cohen A, Raine A, Compton M, Tone E, Suhr J, Inchausti F, Bobes J, Fumero A, Giakoumaki S, Tsaousis I, Preti A, Chmielewski M, Laloyaux J, Mechri A, Lahmar M, Wuthrich V, Laroi F, Badcock J, Jablensky A, Isvoranu A, Epskamp S, Fried E (2018). "The network structure of schizotypal personality traits". Schizophrenia Bulletin. 44 (2): 468–479. doi:10.1093/schbul/sby044. PMC 6188518. PMID 29684178.
  10. ^ Barkataki B (2019). Explaining obsessive-compulsive symptoms? A transcultural exploration of magical thinking and OCD in India and Australia (PhD). Curtin university.