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Magical thinking in communication: Are
suggestibility and magical thinking psychologically
close relatives?
ISSBD, July 11-15, 2004, Ghent, Belgium
Eugene Subbotsky
Lancaster University, UK
Background
• Usually, the concept of magical thinking refers to the “consciousness over matter” magic -- the belief that mental processes (like wishing or casting a magic spell) can affect external physical events, like weather or crops (see Frazer, 1923; Woolley, 2000; Vise, 1997).
• Some authors, however, believe that magical causality can also affect mental, imaginary reality (i.e., “consciousness over consciousness” magic, or “communication magic”).
For instance
• When a medicine man uses his power for healing, he manipulates with the patient’s mind, making the patient believe that healing rituals performed on the magician’s own body could work on the patient’s body (Frazer, 1923).
• Lévy-Bruhl (1966) cited a case of black witchcraft “by effigy”, when a person who believed that he had been cursed to die “had fretted so much about it that he died” (p.343).
History
• A number of studies targeted the tendency of children and adults to entertain beliefs in “consciousness over matter” magic (Johnson & Harris, 1994; Phelps & Woolley, 1994; Rosengren et al.,1994; Rozin, Markwith & Ross, 1990; Rozin, Markwith & Nemeroff, 1992; Subbotsky, 1985; 1993, 1997, 2000, 2001; 2004a; Woolley, 1997)
What’s new about this study
• Yet, little is known to which extent magical manipulations can affect mental, rather then physical, objects and processes (“communicative magic”).
• Some researchers claimed that such magical practices could have desired practical effects, via the mechanisms of suggestion and autosuggestion (Boyer, 1994, 1997; Freska and Kulscar, 1989; Nemeroff & Rozin, 2000).
Aims
• In order to examine this claim, this study addressed two related issues:
• Effects that magical suggestion has on imaginary reality and
• Psychological mechanisms of communicative magic
Tambiah (1990)
• Distinguished between two fundamental psychological mechanisms of human communication: Causality and Participation.
• Causality is described as “Ego against the world. Science and experimentation. Explanation”
• Participation has features like “Ego with the world, a product of the world. The language of solidarity, unity, holism… the telling of myths and the enactment of rituals…” (p.109).
If applied to human communication,
• Causality is the mechanism of communication based on rational logical explanation, and
• Participation is the mechanism of communication based on sympathetic unity and emotional identification between a message and a recipient
According to some theorists,
• Participation is the basic psychological mechanism of magical thinking (Lévy-Bruhl, 1966; Nemeroff and Rozin, 2000).
• In the domain of communication, Participation means that if a certain idea is suggested to a person, the person uncritically and without conscious control embraces the idea as his or her own and tends to act in accord with the idea even if this means acting against the person’s own interests.
On the ground of these theoretical distinctions
• One can assume that effects of magical suggestion and rational persuasion are based on different psychological mechanisms.
• Magical suggestion (like magical healing or cursing) is based on Participation,
• Rational persuasion is based on Causality.
For example
• When a medicine man performs his rituals, the healing effect is achieved due to the patient’s belief that a supernatural link exists between the rituals and the patient’s illness
• On the contrary, a medical doctor today is supposed to rationally explain to the patient of why taking certain drugs would result in a positive healing effect
The question arises
• What mechanism -- Causality or Participation -- is the effect of ordinary suggestion based on?
In developmental psychology
• Suggestibility is defined as “...the degree to which children’s encoding, storage, retrieval, and reporting of events can be influenced by a range of social and psychological factors” (Ceci and Bruck, 1993, p.404).
• This definition leaves open the question about the mechanism of this influence
It can be based
• On Causality (children are led to make wrong conclusions about a display)
• Or on Participation (children believe the wrong message they are told about the display)
The importance of this question
• is evident from the fact that suggestion, along with deception, is a major mechanism of manipulation with mass consciousness
• Suggestibility is positively related to compliance, hypnotisability, and beliefs in paranormal phenomena (Hergovitch, 2003: Kirsh and Braffman, 2001: Richardson and Kelly, 2004).
Moreover
• In their APA report on deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control, Singer et al. (1986) argue that much of persuasion practices used in religion, politics and psychotherapy rely on compliance tactics and hypnosis; such techniques aim to induce authoritarian messages of various “gurus” into the minds of clients or followers by reducing their capacities of conscious critical control
• Suggestibility was proven to affect eye witness testimony (Ceci and Bruck, 1993)
Hypothesis
• Ordinary suggestion, like magical suggestion, is based on the psychological mechanism of Participation
• One of the empirically verifiable implications of this hypothesis is that magical and ordinary types of suggestion should be equally effective in their attempts to affect human mental reality
In Experiment 1
• Participants (6 and 9 year old children and university undergraduates) were individually asked to imagine various objects and the experimenter attempted to alter those objects in the participants’ minds by suggesting that the objects may change into other objects,
• At the same time, participants were explicitly encouraged to stick to the original objects.
There were two kinds of suggestion:
• magical (a magic spell was cast to change the imagined objects)
• ordinary (participants were told that the objects in their minds could change against their will)
• imagined objects to be affected were artificially induced visual representations of objects: physical (an imagined pencil) and fantastic (a flying dog).
Scoring
• Objects changed against the participant’s will -- 2
• Object changed because participants did this on purpose -- 1
• Objects did not change -- 0
The “a priori” assumption
• Magical suggestion is based on Participation
Question under test
• What mechanism -- Causality or Participation -- is Ordinary suggestion based on?
Expectations
• If ordinary suggestion were based on Causality, then it would be significantly less effective then magical suggestion at changing participants’ mental objects
• Reason: if people are in control of their imagination (causality principle), it is more easy for them to reject a suggested idea than if they are are not in control (participation principle)
• If both types of suggestion were based on Participation, then ordinary suggestion would be as effective as magical suggestion
Mean efficacy scores as a function of Age and Condition (Magical versus Ordinary suggestion)
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
6 years 9 years Adults
Magical suggestionOrdinary suggestion
Results and discussion
• Both types of suggestion proved equally effective at changing participants’ imagined objects
• in favour the hypothesis that both magical and ordinary types of suggestion are based on the same psychological mechanism – Participation
Alternative explanation
• The similarity between the effects of magical and ordinary types of suggestion was due to a specific nature of imagined objects used in this experiment
• the objects employed were artificially implanted imagined objects
• participants may have not believed that a magic spell could change these objects, and for participation to work such belief is necessary
• The changes may have occurred not because subjects subconsciously identified themselves with the suggested messages (participation), but because they were not in control of changing or not changing the objects they were imagining
In order to check the alternative explanation
• The imagined objects used should meet the following criteria
• (1) participants do believe that a magic spell could affect these imagined objects,
• (2) in regard to these imagined objects, magical suggestion produces a predictable results’ pattern based on Participation,
• (3) participants are in control of changing or not changing these imagined objects
Personally significant imagined objects (PERSIM objects)
• Individual’s images that exist in the future and have a strong personal meaning to the individual. Such objects can include thoughts about the future lives of our close ones, the future of personally significant environment (a house, a homeland, the planet) and other events that are closely related to our health and wellbeing
Individuals’ thoughts about their future lives, or destiny
• Subbotsky, 2004b: when confronted with the possibility of their future lives be affected in a magical way, adult participants produced reactions based on Participation.
• Personal involvement condition: in regard to the positive outcome (a witch putting a good spell on participants future lives in order to make them rich and happy), participants had mixed feelings and reacted with the “yes, do it” and “no, don’t do it” answers at chance level
• Regarding the negative outcome (a witch putting a bad spell on participants future lives) participants rejected this possibility with the frequency significantly above chance
No Personal involvement condition
• participants were not personally involved and could judge about the good and mean spells in a rational and impartial way (i.e., relying of the principle of causation)
• participants went for “yes” and “no” answers at chance level in regard to both outcomes
To summarise
• (1) Adult participants do believe that their their future lives can be affected by the magic spell,
• (2) Magical suggestion produces a predictable pattern of results
• (3) Participants are in control of either to allow or reject the magic spell on their PERSIM objects
• This makes PERSIM objects suitable in order to either support or reject the Participation based explanation of results of Experiment 1
In Experiment 2
• Adult participants were asked to imagine their future lives and then proposed that
• (a) Magic suggestion condition: a magic spell could be cast on their future lives with the aim to change them, or
• (b) Ordinary suggestion condition: changing a numeric pattern on a laptop screen could change their future lives.
• There were also two Trials: a Desirable and an Undesirable outcomes (a spell or a change on the screen intended to make participants’ future lives either happy or difficult and full of problems).
Expectations
• In the Magic suggestion condition, participants’ reactions would conform to the pattern based on Participation (see Subbotsky, 2004b)
• In response to the good spell, participants would go for “yes” and “no” answers at chance level, and in response to the mean spell, the number of “no” answers would be significantly above chance
If Ordinary suggestion is based on Causality
• participants would give “yes” and “no” answers to the offer of changing a pattern on the screen at chance level in regard to both Desirable and Undesirable outcomes.
• Reason: participants realise that changing the numeric pattern on the computer screen has no a causal relation to their future lives. They would therefore be equally likely to say “yes” and “no” to both outcomes.
If Ordinary suggestion is based on Participation
• Participants would say “no” to the Desirable outcome with the frequency at chance level, and to the Undesirable outcome – significantly above chance level.
• Reason: even if participants realise that changing a pattern on the screen cannot change their lives, emotionally they would embrace this suggestion and believe it (Participation)
To summarise
• Participation based explanation of ordinary suggestion predicts a significant effect of Trial in both conditions
• Causality based explanation -- a significant effect of Trial in the Magic suggestion condition, but not in the Ordinary suggestion condition
Percentage of negative responses in Experiment 2, as a function of Condition (Magical versus Ordinary) and Trial
(Desirable versus Undesirable outcomes)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Magical suggestion Ordinary suggestion
Desirable outcomeUndesirable outcome
Results
• supported the hypothesis that both ordinary and magical suggestion are based on the same psychological mechanism -- Participation.
• Explicitly, none of participants believed that changing the pattern on the screen would affect their future
• Yet, their behavioural responses showed that they believed that this was possible and acted accordingly
General conclusions• Magical and ordinary suggestion are based on the same
psychological mechanism – Participation• Suggestive persuasion techniques used in political rhetoric,
invasive psychotherapies and commercial advertising may therefore be called quasi-magical
• The psychological mechanism of Participation can account for the empirical fact that in many cases these persuasion techniques work
• In the modern world, communicative effects based on magical thinking are still widely functional, but they are stripped of magical context and presented as effects of ordinary suggestibility
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