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januari 23, 2007
Magiskt tänkande
New York Times-artikeln Do You Believe in Magic? handlar om "magisk tänkande", såsom att tro att saker/händelser hör ihop som inte hör ihop, t.ex. vidskepelse och övertolkning av sammanträffanden.
Psychologists and anthropologists have typically turned to faith healers, tribal cultures or New Age spiritualists to study the underpinnings of belief in superstition or magical powers. Yet they could just as well have examined their own neighbors, lab assistants or even some fellow scientists. New research demonstrates that habits of so-called magical thinking — the belief, for instance, that wishing harm on a loathed colleague or relative might make him sick — are far more common than people acknowledge.These habits have little to do with religious faith, which is much more complex because it involves large questions of morality, community and history. But magical thinking underlies a vast, often unseen universe of small rituals that accompany people through every waking hour of a day.
Vidare i artikeln.
“The question is why do people create this illusion of magical power?” said the lead author, Emily Pronin, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. “I think in part it’s because we are constantly exposed to our own thoughts, they are most salient to us” — and thus we are likely to overestimate their connection to outside events.
Via Mind Hacks, som även länkar till The Psychologist-artikeln The Psychologist">Magical thinking - Reality or illusion? (är sönder i skrivande stund).
Se även
Wikipedia-artikeln Magical Thinking.
Emily Pronin och dennes publikationer
Recension: Stuart Vyse 'Believing in Magic - The Psychology of Superstition'
Posted by hakank at januari 23, 2007 09:55 EM Posted to Sammanträffanden | Skepticism, parapsykologi etc