Universität zu Köln

Stavrova, Olga ORCID: 0000-0002-6079-4151 and Meckel, Andrea (2017). The role of magical thinking in forecasting the future. Br. J. Psychol., 108 (1). S. 148 - 169. HOBOKEN: WILEY. ISSN 2044-8295

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This article explores the role of magical thinking in the subjective probabilities of future chance events. In five experiments, we show that individuals tend to predict a more lucky future (reflected in probability judgements of lucky and unfortunate chance events) for someone who happened to purchase a product associated with a highly moral person than for someone who unknowingly purchased a product associated with a highly immoral person. In the former case, positive events were considered more likely than negative events, whereas in the latter case, the difference in the likelihood judgement of positive and negative events disappeared or even reversed. Our results indicate that this effect is unlikely to be driven by participants' immanent justice beliefs, the availability heuristic, or experimenter demand. Finally, we show that individuals rely more heavily on magical thinking when their need for control is threatened, thus suggesting that lack of control represents a factor in driving magical thinking in making predictions about the future.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Stavrova, Olga UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-6079-4151 UNSPECIFIED Meckel, Andrea UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-240673
DOI:	10.1111/bjop.12187
Journal or Publication Title:	Br. J. Psychol.
Volume:	108
Number:	1
Page Range:	S. 148 - 169
Date:	2017
Publisher:	WILEY
Place of Publication:	HOBOKEN
ISSN:	2044-8295
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language COMPENSATORY CONTROL; PARANORMAL BELIEFS; RELIGIOUS BELIEF; PHYSICAL CONTACT; UNITED-STATES; CONTAGION; AVAILABILITY; STRESS; TRANSPLANTS; TOLERANCE Multiple languages Psychology, Multidisciplinary Multiple languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/24067