Need for Mystery

Jasmine CareyPsychfest 2009

Need For Mystery

• The need to maintain ambiguity about the universe

• Two Strategies– Anti-Science: rejecting, or being unsatisfied with,

concrete explanations

– Pro-Magic: seeking out the currently unexplained

Anti-Science

• Contains Two Facets– Worldview Rigidity

• There are some things that humans should not try to understand

– Failure of the Imagination• There are things in this world too complicated to

happen on their own

Pro-Magic

• Also has two facets– Animism

• I sometimes think that inanimate things are fighting against me (e.g., computers, cars)

– Romanticism• I sometimes get goose-bumps when I’m really

connecting with people

Structure and Reliability

• Current version– CFA confirmed 2-factor structure

• CFI = .91, RMSEA = .05

• No cross-loadings

• Correlated Factors

– 8 items per sub-scale• Anti-Science: α = .76

• Pro-magic: α = .71

The Quadrants

• Conceptually independent– People could use either strategy, both, or none.

Anti-Science

Pro-Magic

New AgeReligious

Atheists Philosophers

Other Religions

Western Buddhists

UBC Students

UBC Students

Protestants

The Quadrants

Correlations

• Anti-Science & Pro-Magic– r = .34, p < .001

N= 328, * p < .05, ** p <.005

Anti-Science Pro-Magic

Agreeableness .17** -.11*

Conscientious NS -.15*

Awe NS .18

Religiosity .58** -.18**

Attitudes

• I hate when people tell me the “real” story behind songs I like.– Pro-Magic: r = .14

• If someone I admired did something bad I wouldn’t want to know about it – Pro-Magic: r = .17

Beliefs

• Definitely Real to Definitely Not Real– Hypnosis:

• Pro-Magic r = .23

– Extrasensory Perception:• Pro-Magic r = .42; Anti-Science r = .14

– Ghosts:• Pro-Magic r = .28; Anti-Science r = .15

– Vampires:• Pro-Magic r = .14

– Aliens:• Pro-Magic r = .14; Anti-Science r = -.19

Behavior

• Avoiding Science– Given titles of articles and asked if they would

like to see them– “God is a type of brainwave”– “Computers surpass humans in musical

composition”– If they say no they are not given the link– If they say yes they are given a link to an actual

article

God is a Brainwave

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

2.7

2.8

2.9

3

AS PM

YesNo

*

Computers Making Music

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

2.7

2.8

2.9

3

Anti-Science Promagic

Yes

No

*

Conclusions

• Need for Mystery is stable construct with good reliability

• Relates to actual behavioral outcomes

• Future Directions– Validation in community samples– Analyses of data on

• Cognitive Complexity

• Conversion behavior