Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1419–1426

www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Magical thinking and paranormal beliefs among secondary

and university students in South Africa
Karl Peltzer*
Health Behaviour Research Unit, University of the North, Private Bag X1106, Sovenga 0727, South Africa

Received 29 January 2002; received in revised form 2 September 2002; accepted 10 November 2002

Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate relationships between magical thinking and paranormal beliefs
in an African population, and to test whether similar relationships are found as those previously reported
in previous studies with American students. The sample included 504 black African students: 260 Grade 11
and 244 first year social science university students. Results indicate that generally university students were
greater disbelievers in magical ideation than secondary school students. For the full sample, the Magical
Ideation Scale showed significant Pearson correlations with the Paranormal Belief Scale total score
(r=0.50) and with five of the seven Paranormal Belief subscales: Superstition, Witchcraft, extraordinary
powers, spiritualism and traditional religious belief. Only precognition and psi beliefs were not significant.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Magical ideation; Paranormal beliefs; School grade differences; Secondary and university students; Black
South Africans

1. Introduction

This investigation concerns a replication of relationships between magical thinking and para-
normal beliefs in an African population. The term ‘paranormal’ is used to describe phenomena
which, if authentic, violate basic limiting principles of science. These basic limiting principles
(e.g., a mental event cannot directly affect a physical event, except for one in the experient’s own
brain) are overwhelmingly supported by evidence from human experience and from scientific
observation (Tobacyk & Pirttilä-Backman, 1992). Magical thinking has been defined as ‘‘belief
and reported experiences in forms of causation that by conventional standards are invalid’’

* Tel.: +27-15-268-2316; fax: +27-15-268-2320.

E-mail address: peltzerk@unin.unorth.ac.za (K. Peltzer).

0191-8869/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0191-8869(02)00359-8
1420 K. Peltzer / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1419–1426

(Eckblad & Chapman, 1983). Magical thinking appears characteristic of those paranormal beliefs
that emphasize forms of causality that violate basic limiting principles of science, for example,
psi, witchcraft, superstition, spiritualism, and precognition (Tobacyk & Wilkinson, 1990). Irwin
(1993) states that women are stronger believers than men and that most paranormal beliefs seem
to be more concentrated in young adults rather than the elderly, with the exception of traditional
religious beliefs. Yet more recent findings by Houran (1997) and Vitulli and Luper (1998) con-
tradict the earlier data on sex. The former study found that men reported significantly more
paranormal experiences than women and claimed significantly more paranormal abilities than
women.
In a study using the Magical Ideation Scale and Paranormal Belief Scale Tobacyk and Wilk-
inson (1990) found among American College students that Magical Ideation Scale scores showed
significant direct correlations with scores indicating greater reported belief in psi, witchcraft,
superstition, spiritualism, and precognition. Tobacyk and Wilkinson (1990) replicated and
extended Thalbourne’s (1984) report of a significant relationship between scores on Eckblad and
Chapman’s Magical Ideation Scale and psi belief, and found significant direct relationships
between magical thinking and beliefs in spiritualism, psi, precognition, superstition, and witch-
craft. Religious belief showed a significant inverse relationship with magical thinking for males
only.
Among the most widely used instruments to assess belief in the paranormal is Tobacyk’s (1988)
Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS), which is an amended version of a scale originally
developed by Tobacyk and Milford, 1983). Based on factor analysis, Tobacyk (1988) and Toba-
cyk and Milford (1983) proposed that the 26-item scale represents seven distinct types of beliefs,
namely, traditional religious belief, psi, witchcraft, superstition, spiritualism, extraordinary life
forms, and precognition. However, there is considerable debate concerning the construct validity
of the RPBS such that the components of the RPBS are not orthogonal as originally proposed
(Lange, Irwin, & Houran, 2000), and consequently a ‘‘mixed model’’ of both orthogonal and
oblique interrelationships has been proposed (Tobacyk & Thomas, 1997).
The aim of this study was to investigate relationships between magical thinking and para-
normal beliefs in an African population, and to test whether similar relationships are found as
those previously reported in earlier studies with American students.

2. Method

2.1. Sample

The sample included 504 students: 260 Grade 11, Secondary School students chosen at random
from three rural schools in the central region of the Northern Province and 244 first year social
science university students from the University of the North chosen at convenience in a class room
setting. The Secondary School students were 116 (44.6%) males and 144 (55.4%) females in the age
range of 15 to 26 years (M age 19.2 years, S.D.=2.0) and the university students were 74 (30.1%)
males and 172 (69.9%) females in the age range of 16–36 years (M age 21.9 years, S.D.=3.9). The
wide age range among the students is typical for South Africa since a few secondary and university
students are much older than the average due to various reasons. Distribution by ethnicity showed
 K. Peltzer / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1419–1426 1421

423 (84%) Northern Sotho, 50 (10%) Tsonga and 30 (6%) other. Religious denomination was
distributed as follows: 165 (32.7%) Zion Christian Church, followed by 110 (21.8%) Protestant
Christians, 88 (17.5%) Born again Christians, 48 (9.5%) Apostolics, 45 (8.9%) Roman Catholics,
37 (7.3%) African or traditional religion and 8 (1.6%) no religion. Most students (374, 74.2%)
came from a rural back ground while 130 (25.8%) had grown up in an urban area.

2.2. Measures

A 25-item Paranormal Belief Scale consisting of seven subscales: traditional religious belief (4
items), psi belief (4 items), witchcraft (4 items), superstition (3 items), spiritualism (4 items),
extraordinary life forms (3 items), and precognition (3 items). The points on this rating scale
ranged from 1(‘‘strongly disagree with this item’’) through 3 (‘‘undecided or don’t know’’), to 5
(‘‘strongly agree’’) with that item (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983).
Following pilot work, item changes were made in this South African version of the Paranormal
Belief Scale to improve the cultural adaptation, as follows: on the witchcraft subscale: ‘‘Voodoo’’,
‘‘juju/muti’’ (object or herb used as black medicine) were added; ‘‘Voodoo death’’ here witchcraft
was added; superstition subscale: ‘‘Black cats’’ were replaced by ‘‘Owls (seen next to home)’’; ‘‘If
you break a mirror’’ was replaced ‘‘If an adult falls down in your presence’’ and ‘‘The number
‘130 is unlucky’’ was changed to ‘‘To see one dove/pigeon flying means bad luck’’; spiritualism
subscale: ‘‘your mind or soul can leave your body and travel’’ ancestral spirit was added here;
extraordinary life forms subscale: ‘‘The abominable snowman of Tibet’’ was replaced by ‘‘Toko-
loshi’’ (apelike creature used by witches as familiar); ‘‘Big Foot’’ was replaced by ‘‘Zombies’’,
‘‘The Loch Ness monster of Scotland exists’’ was replaced by ‘‘A monster (sahuwe) exists in the
forest which can make people disappear’’. Factor analysis resulted in almost the same seven fac-
tors, namely: superstition (4 items) (Cronbach alpha: 0.71), witchcraft (5 items) (0.71), traditional
religious beliefs (4 items) (0.69), extraordinary powers (3 items) (0.51), spiritualism (2 items)
(0.48), precognition (3 items) (0.53), and psi belief (3 items) (Cronbach alpha: 0.59) (Peltzer, in
preparation). Considering the item changes and factor analysis results regarding the original
‘‘extraordinary life forms’’ subscale—as shown earlier—the latter was changed to ‘‘extraordinary
powers’’ to better reflect the contents. Further, it should be noted that the items under traditional
religious beliefs ‘‘The soul continues to exist though the body may die’’, ‘‘There is a devil’’, ‘‘I
believe in God’’, and ‘‘There is a heaven and a hell’’ reflect more traditional Christian beliefs
rather than traditional African religious beliefs. However, forthcoming the term ‘‘traditional
religious belief’’ (in accordance with previous studies) was used although ‘‘traditional Christian
beliefs’’ would have been more appropriate for this African population. Cronbach alpha as well
as split-half reliability coefficients for the Paranormal Belief Scale were 0.72 and 0.75 for this
sample.
A 30-item Magical Ideation Scale with a true or false response set, can range from 0 to 30, with
higher scores presumably indicating greater magical thinking (Eckblad & Chapman 1983). The
Magical Ideation Scale was used because it had shown a high coefficient alpha of 0.82 and had
provided evidence for validity in a previous study (ibid.). Some items of the scale were adapted to
the cultural context: Item 11: ‘‘I have felt that there were messages for me in the way things were
arranged, like in a store window.’’ was changed to ‘‘I have felt that I had visions giving messages
to me.’’ Item 3: ‘‘I have sometimes been fearful of stepping on sidewalk cracks’’ was changed to
1422 K. Peltzer / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1419–1426

‘‘I have sometimes been fearful of stepping on muti (witchcraft traps)’’, and item 7: ‘‘Numbers
like 13 and 7 have no special powers’’ was replaced by ‘‘To see two doves/pigeons flying does not
bring happiness.’’ Cronbach alpha as well as split-half reliability coefficients for the Magical
Ideation Scale were 0.82 and 0.79 for this sample.

2.3. Procedure

The questionnaires changed from American to British English were administered to the stu-
dents by trained postgraduate research assistants. Students filled in the questionnaires voluntarily
after informed informal consent in the presence of the research assistants and were free to ask
questions for clarification. Anonymity and confidentiality were assured. No time limit was given,
but on average students took 15 min to answer all the questions. Permission was obtained from
the relevant authorities.

3. Results

Table 1 indicates descriptive statistics for the Magical Ideation Scale and Paranormal Belief
Scale/subscales for the full sample and by gender. There were no significant gender differences
regarding the two full scales and most subscales, only traditional religious belief recorded a sig-
nificant correlation.
Table 2 indicates descriptive statistics for the Magical Ideation Scale and Paranormal Belief
Scale/subscales by school grade. Secondary school students reported higher magical ideation than
university students, while there was no significant difference regarding the full Paranormal Belief
Scale. Concerning the paranormal belief subscales secondary school students showed higher
scores on the superstition subscale and indicated a higher belief in precognition than university
students, while university students reported higher belief in psi, spiritualism and traditional reli-
gious belief than secondary school students.

Table 1
Descriptive statistics for magical ideation and paranormal beliefs by gender

Scale Full sample Males Females t

Total Magical Ideation Scale score 10.1 (3.2) 9.9 (3.1) 10.5 (3.4) 1.83
Total Paranormal Belief Scale score 76.4 (12.9) 75.5 (12.8) 77.0 (13.0) 1.10
Paranormal belief subscales
Superstition 2.8 (1.0) 2.8 (1.0) 2.8 (1.1) 0.23
Witchcraft 3.2 (0.9) 3.2 (1.0) 3.2 (0.9) 0.73
Christian religious beliefs 3.9 (0.9) 3.8 (1.0) 4.0 (0.9) 2.24*
Extraordinary powers 2.3 (0.9) 2.2 (1.0) 2.3 (0.9) 1.64
Spiritualism 2.5 (1.2) 2.4 (1.1) 2.5 (1.3) 1.21
Precognition 3.7 (1.0) 3.7 (0.9) 3.7 (1.0) 0.03
Psi 2.7 (1.0) 2.6 (1.1) 2.8 (1.0) 1.30
Total Magical Ideation Scale score 10.1 (3.2) 9.85 (3.1) 10.5 (3.4) 1.83

* P< 0.05.
 K. Peltzer / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1419–1426 1423

Table 2
Descriptive statistics for magical ideation and paranormal beliefs by school grade

Scale Secondary school M (S.D.) University M (S.D.) t

Total Magical Ideation Scale score 10.7 (2.9) 9.3 (3.5) 4.53***
Total Paranormal Belief Scale score 76.1 (13.0) 76.8 (12.8) 0.55
Paranormal belief subscales
Superstition 3.1 (1.0) 2.5 (1.0) 6.39***
Witchcraft 3.3 (0.9) 3.1 (1.0) 1.45
Traditional religious belief 3.8 (1.0) 4.0 (0.9) 2.43*
Extraordinary powers 2.3 (0.9) 2.3 (1.0) 0.20
Spiritualism 2.2 (1.2) 2.7 (1.2) 4.00***
Precognition 3.8 (0.9) 3.6 (1.0) 2.14*
Psi 2.2 (1.0) 3.2 (0.9) 11.20***

* P< 0.05.
*** P< 0.001.

Table 3 provides a listing of Pearson product–moment correlation coefficients between scores

for the Magical Ideation Scale and the Paranormal Belief Scale/subscales.
For the full sample, the Magical Ideation Scale showed significant Pearson correlations with the
Paranormal Belief Scale total score (r=0.50) and with five of the seven Paranormal Belief sub-
scales: superstition, witchcraft, extraordinary powers, spiritualism and traditional religious belief.
Only precognition and psi beliefs were not significant.

4. Discussion

Although in this study female students reported greater total Magical Ideation Scale and
Paranormal Beliefs Scale scores than male students, this difference was not significant, which

Table 3
Pearson intercorrelations between Magical Ideation Scale and Paranormal Belief Scale/subscales

Scale 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

1. Magical Ideation Scale 1.000

2. Paranormal Belief Scale 0.50** 1.000
3. Superstition 0.44** 0.65** 1.000
4. Witchcraft 0.34** 0.72** 0.37*** 1.000
5. Traditional religious belief 0.13* 0.45** 0.10 0.24** 1.000
6. Extraordinary powers 0.34** 0.37** 0.19** 0.08 0.06 1.000
7. Spiritualism 0.24** 0.38** 0.10 0.18** 0.07 0.23** 1.000
8. Precognition 0.11 0.44** 0.25** 0.22** 0.22** 0.11 0.05 1.000
9. Psi 0.09 0.38** 0.00 0.14* 0.03 0.25** 0.21** 0.08

Because of the large number of contrasts only the significant levels of 0.01 and 0.001 were considered.
* P< 0.01.
** P< 0.001.
1424 K. Peltzer / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1419–1426

concurs with some studies (e.g., Tobacyk, Miller, & Jones, 1984) but most studies (e.g., Ranndall
& Desrosiers, 1980; Tobacyk & Milford, 1983) recorded significantly higher paranormal belief
among females than among males. Further, this study found that women reported significant
higher traditional religious belief scores than men, which is consistent with many other studies in
other countries (Irwin, 1993).
In this study secondary school students reported higher scores on the total Magical Ideation
Scale, to be more superstitious and indicated a higher belief in precognition than university stu-
dents, while university students reported higher belief in psi, spiritualism and traditional religious
belief than secondary school students. Tobacyk et al. (1984) found among American students that
high school students showed significantly less belief than college students on the total Paranormal
Scale and on the subscales, psi belief, extraordinary life forms, and witchcraft. It is possible that
among the studied university students psi belief, spiritualism and traditional religious belief is
higher than among secondary school students because the former may be more exposed to
information about psi at university, and spiritualism and traditional religious belief may increase
because of the strong influence of born again Christian movements in the university environment.
Moreover, magical ideation, superstition and precognition seem significantly higher among sec-
ondary than university students. This may be explained by the greater influence of the home
environment and traditional culture on secondary school students. Some other studies seem also
to suggest that the younger the subject the greater the paranormal belief (Emmons & Sobal, 1981;
Vitulli, Tipton, & Rowe, 1999).
Vitulli et al. (1999) investigated paranormal beliefs of people grouped by age and sex. They
found the highest ratings on paranormal belief among young men and elderly women, indicating
age and sex differences in the strength of paranormal beliefs. Vitulli et al.’s (1999) conceptual
interpretation of their data is predicted on the assumption that variations of paranormal belief
scores with age and sex signify differences in the strength of endorsement of such beliefs accord-
ing to people’s age and sex (Irwin, 2000). An alternative interpretation in terms of differential
item functioning has been raised by recent research conducted by Lange et al. (2000). They
hypothesize that the inconsistent findings by previous Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS)
researchers are partly the result of differential item functioning (DIF) across age, sex, or both.
For this reason, the finding of DIF provides an opportunity to ‘‘purify’’ the RPBS by developing
DIF-free subscales. A ‘‘top-down purification’’ approach can then integrate factor analysis and
Rasch scaling with statistical tests of differential item functioning and item dimensionality (Bond
& Fox 2001). Lange, Irwin, and Houran (2001) developed a Rasch version of the Paranormal
Belief Scale, but research with this scale suggests that age and sex are neither consistent nor cru-
cial factors mediating paranormal belief. For this reason caution should be exercised in drawing
conceptual implications about the demographic correlates of paranormal belief from the data
reported here.
Among the seven Paranormal Belief subscales, only precognition and psi beliefs showed non-
significant relationships with Magical Ideating Scale scores. Thus, previous findings that of a
significant relationship between Magical Ideation Scale scores and psi belief (Thalbourne, 1984;
Tobacyk & Wilkinson, 1990) were not confirmed in this Africa sample.
This study found a small but significant association between magical thinking and traditional
religious belief. However, greater traditional religious belief is generally characterized by prescrip-
tions condemning magical beliefs and practices (e.g., those associated with witchcraft, spiritualism,
 K. Peltzer / Personality and Individual Differences 35 (2003) 1419–1426 1425

and precognition). Therefore, it appears in this African sample that magical and traditional reli-
gious beliefs coexist.
Further it is clear that Magical Ideation Scale scores are significantly and directly related to
greater belief in five of the seven belief dimensions of the Paranormal Belief Scale. The magnitude
of these correlation coefficients are moderate to small, namely 0.44 for superstition, followed by
0.34 for witchcraft, 0.34 for extraordinary powers, 0.24 for spiritualism and 0.13 for traditional
religious beliefs. It appears that the greater the prevalence of magical thinking in a particular set
of paranormal beliefs, the greater the magnitude of the positive correlation. It could be further
investigated whether a movement from magic to religion to science is correlated with increasing
level of education.

Acknowledgements

The financial assistance of the University of the North towards this research is hereby
acknowledged. Further, the anonymous reviewers are thanked for their useful comments.

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