Believing what we do not believe: acquiescence to superstitious beliefs and other powerful intuitions
Abstract
Traditionally, research on superstition and magical thinking has focused on people's cognitive shortcomings, but superstitions are not limited to individuals with mental deficits. Even smart, educated, emotionally stable adults have superstitions that are not rational. Dual process models--such as the corrective model advocated by Kahneman and Frederick (2002, 2005), which suggests that System 1 generates intuitive answers that may or may not be corrected by System 2--are useful for illustrating why superstitious thinking is widespread, why particular beliefs arise, and why they are maintained even though they are not true. However, to understand why superstitious beliefs are maintained even when people know they are not true requires that the model be refined. It must allow for the possibility that people can recognize--in the moment--that their belief does not make sense, but act on it nevertheless. People can detect an error, but choose not to correct it, a process I refer to as acquiescence. The first part of the article will use a dual process model to understand the psychology underlying magical thinking, highlighting features of System 1 that generate magical intuitions and features of the person or situation that prompt System 2 to correct them. The second part of the article will suggest that we can improve the model by decoupling the detection of errors from their correction and recognizing acquiescence as a possible System 2 response. I suggest that refining the theory will prove useful for understanding phenomena outside of the context of magical thinking.
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Cognitive biases are largely implicit and unconscious and feel quite naturally and self-evident when we are aware of these cognitive inclinations.
“These tendencies are largely implicit and unconscious and feel quite naturally and self/evident when we are aware of these cognitive inclinations (Pronin et al., 2002; Risen, 2015; Korteling et al., 2018b).”
From Human- versus Artificial Intelligence (2021) · cites this paper as Risen, 2015
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Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
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Kaše, V., Hampejs, T., & Pospı́šil, Z. (2018) · Journal of Cognition and Culture · doi:10.1163/15685373-12340041 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Business norm versus norm-nudge as a contract-enforcing mechanism: Evidence from a real marketplace
Bhattacharya, H., & Dugar, S. (2022) · European Economic Review · doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104078 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Can the experimental study of religion be advanced using a Bayesian predictive framework?
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Numerological superstitions and market-wide herding: Evidence from China
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Acquiescing to intuition: Believing what we know isn't so
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A Functional Motivation Framework for Examining Superstitious Behavior
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Karmic forecasts: The role of justice in forecasts about self and others.
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A Quantitative Examination of Half-Belief in Superstition
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Magical thinking and superstitious beliefs in Iranian culture
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The Effect of Superstition on Health: Evidence from the Taiwanese Ghost Month
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“When something like a ladybug lands on you”: Origins and development of the concept of luck.
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A neural network framework for cognitive biasPreprint
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- Authors
- Risen, J. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Corresponding author
- Risen, Jane L.
- ORCID
- Risen, Jane L.
- Venue
- Psychological Review
- Published
- 2016-03
- Volume
- 123
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 182-207
- ISSN
- 0033-295X (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1471
- OpenAlex
- W1774007993
- Cited by
- 221
- References
- 165
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 6
- FWCI
- 27.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Review (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Psychology of Social Influence
- Keywords
- superstition, magical thinking, acquiescence, dual-process models, System 1, System 2, intuitive thinking, error detection, belief maintenance, cognitive biases
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Magic, Models, Psychological, Superstitions, Thinking, Intuition
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