Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition

by Stuart A. Vyse

Although we live in a technologically advanced society, superstition is as widespread as it has ever been. Far from limited to athletes and actors, superstitious beliefs are common among people of all occupations and every educational and income level. Here, Stuart Vyse investigates our
proclivity towards these irrational beliefs. Superstitions, he writes, are the natural result of several well-understood psychological processes, including our human sensitivity to coincidence, a penchant for developing rituals to fill time (to battle nerves, impatience, or both), our efforts to
cope with uncertainty, the need for control, and more. Vyse examines current behavioral research to demonstrate how complex and paradoxical human behavior can be understood through scientific investigation, while he addresses the personality features associated with superstition and the roles of
superstitious beliefs in actions. Although superstition is a normal part of human culture, Vyse argues that we must provide alternative methods of coping with life's uncertainties by teaching decision analysis, promoting science education, and challenging ourselves to critically evaluate the sources
of our beliefs.

Genres: Psychology, Science, Skepticism, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Cultural

272 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 1997

About the author

Stuart Vyse is a behavioral scientist, teacher, and writer. He writes the monthly “Behavior & Belief” column for Skeptical Inquirer and personal essays in a variety of places—lately for the Observer, Medium, The Atlantic, The Good Men Project, and Tablet. He also blogs very sporadically for Psychology Today.

Vyse's book Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition won the William James Book Award of the American Psychological Association and has been or will be translated into four languages. His book Going Broke: Why Americans Can’t Hold On To Their Money is an analysis of the current epidemic of personal debt and has been translated into Chinese.

As an expert on irrational behavior, Vyse has been quoted in many news outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and have appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, CNN International, the PBS NewsHour, and NPR”s Science Friday.

Vyse holds a PhD in psychology and BA and MA degrees in English literature and is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. The majority of his teaching career was spent at Connecticut College in New London, CT, where I was the Joanne Toor ’50 Professor of Psychology. His academic interests are in decision making, behavioral economics, philosophy, behavior analysis, and belief in the paranormal.

Reviews

[Cav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy Believing in Magic as much as I'd hoped to. With such a catchy title, and such rich subject material - I was hoping for an interesting read. While some good data is provided here, the opportunity to tell a proper story is notably absent...

Author Stuart Vyse is a behavioral scientist, teacher, and writer. He writes the monthly “Behavior & Belief” column for Skeptical Inquirer and personal essays in a variety of places—lately for the Observer, Medium, The Atlantic, The Good Men Project, and Tablet. He also blogs very sporadically for Psychology Today.

Stuart Vyse:


Sadly, I found most of the writing and overall presentation of this book to be dry, long-winded, and (often) tedious. This book is the epitome of dry academic prose. It reads more like a scholarly textbook, than a traditional nonfiction book.
I also found the formatting lacking. The narrative jumps all over the place, with little attention placed on continuity or flow.

Vyse steers into the weeds early on; spending more time than is worth trying to define and differentiate between the terms "magical thinking" and "superstitious." I started getting frustrated.

This is my main criticism of the book: There are too many tables and data sets. Too many statistical breakdowns and blow-by-blow minutia. This style of writing effectively loses the forest for the trees...

To be fair to the author; he does introduce the hypothesized framework(s) thought responsible for mankind's magical thinking, and examines these workings in great detail. He also drops this quote, which speaks to the role that uncertainty plays in this mindset:

"Uncertainty is an inescapable feature of the human experience, and people approach it in different ways. Some seem to crave it. Drawn to the thrill of taking chances, they gamble, drive fast, skydive, or take drugs.
Others are crippled by uncertainty. Our failure to accommodate the random happenings of life can lead to a variety of psychological problems, including substance abuse, phobia, and depression. But most of us fall somewhere between these two extremes. We manage to survive the unpredictable and uncontrollable aspects of our lives by avoiding those risks we can avoid and finding ways to cope with those we cannot. Some achieve this feat with relative ease. These rationalists and fatalists seem constitutionally equipped to prevail over the indeterminacy of daily events. They neither seek external support for life’s slings and arrows nor show visible signs of wounding. Still others find explanations in religious faith or personal philosophy. But some people, many of whom are quite sensible about other aspects of their lives, respond to uncertainty with superstitious beliefs or actions."

Some more of the material covered here includes:
• Superstition and cultures; groups more prone to magical thinking - actors, college students, athletes.
• Magic as a Product of the “Primitive” Mind.
• Magical thinking in children.
• Placebos and the efficacy of nonscientific medical "treatments"; homeopathy
• Conditioning; B.F. Skinner.
• Conformity; The experiments of Soloman Asche and Stanley Milgram.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
• Schizophrenia.

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Believing in Magic did not resonate with me as well as I'd hoped... There was some interesting information covered here, but I feel that the overall presentation of that material could have been improved.
2.5 stars.

[Geoffrey Sutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vyse presents research about superstitious beliefs and behaviour as if he were telling a story. It’s a highly readable and informative look at how we develop and maintain beliefs and behaviour patterns that have no measurable effect on outcomes.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense, technical, and exhaustive examination of the psychology of superstition by a behavioral scientist. If you wan the overview without all the backup and scientific examples, read his primer Superstition: A Very Short Introduction.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Psychology of Superstition really should have been the title rather than the subtitle. It is an academic treatment. This literature has always been hard for me to read. The author tends to state the same things over and over in different ways. As I was not really needing convincing on the basic premise, it did bog down somewhat for me. Some of the evolutionary hand-waving arguments supposedly supporting the author's assertions were a bit annoying to me-they are common from this profession and I swear they have no idea what an hypothesis is or how to tell the difference between inference and conclusion.

The final chapter was the most interesting, but again, I needed no convincing that critical thinking skills are much needed at all levels in North American society.

[Beatrix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly entertaining, yet professional and objective.

[Gerardo B. Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! This book helped me reformulate my position on superstitious beliefs and magical thinking. I used to think that people who held these ideas were mentally sick or just plain dumb. This book showed me I have been wrong this whole time. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding the intricacies of superstitious beliefs.

[Anne Fabing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book describes the history of magic as precursor to science and a companion to religion when many things could not be explained. It explains how common coincidence is with the little know "Law of Truly Large Numbers." I was not aware of the interesting background of superstition and how likely you are to be one based on your personality. And unless you really understand math and statistics, much of random or natural events like earthquakes, getting cancer or even meeting your soul mate are events that still seem unique to most in the modern world. I`m adding this to one of my top 10 favorite books.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

To an extent, these books can merge into one, there is only so much information to cover, even if different books will cover different aspects. This one, though slim was pretty information dense. "Believing in magi" is probably a bit of a deceptive title, the subtitle "the Psychology of Superstition" more accurately describes the book. As is usually the case, I was familiar with some of the examples, but other examples were new to me, and I did gain some insight into such beliefs and how they may link to each other

[Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book about the psychology of superstition. I have read a couple of other books on this topic and this is by far the better book. The critical analysis and history of psychological studies related to superstition make it a fun and thought provoking book.

[Sabio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vyse explores how humans think magically -- about EVERYTHING, not just religion. This, and works like it, help undercut our normal perceptions of who we are -- so be careful !
Smile,
Sabio

[Curtis Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is it. It is way better than Why People Believe Weird Things. Anyone remotely interested in critical thinking should read this.

[Science For The People]

Recommended on Skeptically Speaking show #90 on December 17, 2010. http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/episode...

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt like the author was just rambling on about nothing. The last half of the book could have been removed. Most of it had nothing to do with superstitions. The first half was better.

[Becky Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book and great examples of superstition!

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. A little dated in parts, though.