Relationships between magical thinking,obsessive‐compulsiveness and other forms of anxiety in a sample of non‐clinical children |
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| Authors: | Laura M. Simonds James D. Demetre Cristina Read |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK;2. Department of Psychology and Counselling, University of Greenwich, London, UK;3. Centre for Applied Social and Psychological Development, Salomons: Canterbury Christ Church University, Southborough, Kent, UK |
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| Abstract: | Despite the obvious phenomenological similarities between magical thinking and obsessive‐compulsiveness, the relationship between them has been the subject of few empirical investigations in samples of children. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between a general epistemic stance towards magical causation and tendencies towards obsessive‐compulsiveness in a non‐clinical sample of schoolchildren. One‐hundred and two children, aged between 5 and 10 years (48 boys and 54 girls), completed questionnaire measures designed to assess magical thinking, obsessive‐compulsiveness, and other forms of anxiety. School teachers completed a measure of strengths and difficulties for each child. General belief in magical causation was correlated with all types of anxiety, not just obsessive‐compulsiveness, with significant correlations shown for boys in the sample, but not girls. General belief in magical causation contributed little to the prediction of obsessive‐compulsiveness beyond general anxiety. In this study, a general epistemic stance towards magical causation did not differentiate obsessive‐compulsiveness from other anxiety dimensions. The findings are considered in the context of developmental theories of magical and scientific causal reasoning. |
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