Supernatural beliefs increase with age and knowledge – Study

As a person gets older by the day, his beliefs in supernatural powers and strange experiences also increase, asserts a recent study conducted by American researchers.

Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin have found out that dependence on paranormal reasoning in important life episodes including life, death and illness escalates with age.

The head author of the study and assistant professor of psychology Cristine Legare said on the research, "As children assimilate cultural concepts into their intuitive belief systems-from God to atoms to evolution-they engage in coexistence thinking,"

Faith increases with both age and knowledger
During the research, Cristine and his team also discovered that an acquired knowledge in scientific explanations merges with an increased fait in supernatural powers with age in human life.

This explanations and beliefs thus give shape to various predictable and universal ways of believing things beyond the human control and power.

Researchers found out that an increased number of adults today attribute the major episodes related to human existence – life, death and illness – to supernatural powers and scientific (or biological ) causes.

The findingsr
For the study Cristine and his team appointed 366 respondents in South Africa, the country where both conventional and alternative healing process are extensively available.

Researchers presented numerous stories on people with AIDS. The respondents were then asked to form a sound judgment by either accepting or rejecting the explanations on why the characters contracted with the HIV virus.

The final findings suggested that about 57 percent of the respondents believed that both supernatural and scientific explanations existed behind the contraction of HIV virus among the characters.

The research data, published on Science Daily 30th August issue, thus contradicts the earlier studies describing how supernatural beliefs among people decline as they grow older.

"The standard assumption that scientific and religious explanations compete should be re-evaluated in light of substantial psychological evidence.

The data, which spans diverse cultural contexts across the lifespan, shows supernatural reasoning is not necessarily replaced with scientific explanations following gains in knowledge, education or technology," Legare explained.