New research found two diametrically opposing personalities enjoy magic.
New research explored who enjoys magic. Two seemingly opposed personalities enjoy magic performances.Hello from Magic Live! in Vegas. Magic Live! is one of the biggest magic conventions in the world, and this is my first one.
It’s very exciting! As I’m here meeting some of my magic heroes, I am feeling inspired to write about a new study that recently came across my desk. If I asked you to imagine what sort of human creature enjoys magic, what images enter your head? I’m genuinely curious. For me, it’s probably nerds and geeks like me that flash before my imaginary lens. AUsing a diverse sample of American adults, the researchers explored how a wide range of rational, paranormal, supernatural, and superstitious beliefs might predicts attitudes toward magic..First off, what correlates with attitudes toward magic? Here is a graph of how a bunch of variables are associated with aSource: Attitudes and Abracadabra: How Do Skeptical, Superstitious, and Paranormal Beliefs Predict Enjoying Performance Magic?a greater endorsement of many facets of paranormal beliefs . People were more likely to dislike magic if they were older, and men tend to like magic a lot more than women ? The researchers used a fancy statistical technique called “random forest models” to identify the most important unique effects in the overlapping set of predictors . Using this statistical technique here’s what they found: Source: Attitudes and Abracadabra: How Do Skeptical, Superstitious, and Paranormal Beliefs Predict Enjoying Performance Magic? Turns out, the most important predictor of enjoying magic by far was reflective skepticism, which included items such as “I usually check the credibility of the source of information before making judgments” and “I often re-evaluate my experiences so that I can learn from them”). Perhaps one major source of enjoying magic is the fun of solving a puzzle and trying to “figure it out”. Intellectually curious people who love puzzles might be particularly attracted to magic. As you can see in the graph, reflective skepticism was followed by spiritualism, paranormal beliefs in the existence of luck and in one’s personal luckiness, critical, and conspiracist beliefs. Out of the five facets of paranormal beliefs the only one that was uniquely important was spiritualism. This facet involves beliefs about a spirit detaching from the body, such as by traveling while the person is alive . Interestingly, spiritualism is the one facet of paranormal beliefs that most fascinated the great Harry Houdini. In fact, just a few years before his death he published an entire treatise condemning “fake spiritualism”. This is so interesting! It seems like two seemingly opposing personalities enjoy magic performances. On the one hand we have the family of skeptical, rational folk and on the other hand we have the family of superstitious and paranormal folk who enjoy magical performances. As one of my favorite magicians, Joshua Jay, has noted, some audience members really do believe that magicians are doing “real magic”. In research he conducted with Dr. Lisa Grimm and her team, they found that nearly 40% of people think it might be possible to do real magic .Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.
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