Magic and the Supernatural - Lancaster University

Eugene Subbotsky
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involves a high cost), rational adults will retreat to magical
behavior and explicitly admit that they believe in magic;
Rationale: in adults beliefs in magic do not disappear but are
subconscious. As follows from psychoanalysis, when defenses
are overcome, subconscious thoughts and beliefs ascend to
the surface of consciousness.
2. Summary of Empirical Evidence
A. Effect 1: Young Children Believe in Magic
Children aged 4, 5 and 6 years were asked if toy figures of animals can turn
into real live ones. Only a few four-year-olds said yes (Fig.1). Yet, when the
children saw that a small plastic lion started moving by itself on the table (through
the use of magnets), only a few of the children behaved in a rational manner
(looked for the mechanism, searched for the wires). The rest of the children either
ran away fearing that the lion was coming to life, or applied a magic wand they had
been given in order to stop the lion moving. 1
Harris, Brown, Marriot, Whittal, & Harmer asked children aged 4 and 6 years
to pretend that there was a creature (a rabbit or a monster) in an empty box. 2 When
left alone, some children behaved as if the pretend creature was really in the box.
B. Effect 2. Children’s Magical Thinking Facilitates Their Ability to be Creative
at Problem Solving
Children aged 4 and 6 years were divided into experimental and control
conditions. In both conditions children were shown fragments from the Harry
Potter movie. In the experimental condition, the movie was full of magical effects.
In the control condition, the movie showed the same characters, but no magical
effects. The children were then tested on identical sets of creativity tests (TCAM
and drawing of non-existing objects). Results (Fig. 2) indicated that children in the
experimental conditions scored significantly higher than controls on the majority of
subsequent creativity tests. 3
C. Effect 3. Adults Deny Magic Even when Repeatedly Confronted with Events
They Cannot Rationally Explain
University undergraduates were subjected to 3 trials in which a postage stamp
appeared or disappeared in an apparently empty box after the experimenter cast a
magic spell on the box, and one trial when the box stayed empty after the magic
spell was not cast. 4
Altogether, each participant witnessed 4 subsequent events in which a change
(or no change) in the empty box was observed as a possible result of casting (or not
casting) the magic spell.
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