Talk:Magical thinking

  1. Home
  2. Wiki

Framing of the lede

[edit]

Should the first two paragraphs of the lede be framed? The lede currently reads:

"Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects.
Examples include the idea that personal thoughts can influence the external world without acting on them, or that objects must be causally connected if they resemble each other or have come into contact with each other in the past. Magical thinking is a type of fallacious thinking and is a common source of invalid causal inferences. Unlike the confusion of correlation with causation, magical thinking does not require the events to be correlated.
The precise definition of magical thinking may vary subtly when used by different theorists or among different fields of study. In anthropology, the posited causality is between religious ritual, prayer, sacrifice, or the observance of a taboo, and an expected benefit or recompense.
In psychology, magical thinking is the belief that one's thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it. These beliefs can cause a person to experience an irrational fear of performing certain acts or having certain thoughts because of an assumed correlation between doing so and threatening calamities.
In psychiatry, magical thinking defines false beliefs about the capability of thoughts, actions or words to cause or prevent undesirable events. It is a commonly observed symptom in thought disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder"

See the article for refs and the below arguments. Alexanderkowal (talk) 14:45, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What question is this RfC asking? If you're asking if the introduction of the clause "in the context of building propositional knowledge," to the first sentence would be an improvement, I say it would be over-technical and unhelpful. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:50, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please see my argument below Alexanderkowal (talk) 14:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My argument is that the lede includes three definitions, the final two being framed, whilst the first is not. Note that the sources don't explicitly establish the framing and it is their nature that is used to establish the framing. The sources used in the first two paragraphs are academic sources whose purpose is to build propositional knowledge. I think either the first paragraph or the second should include:
"...in the context of building propositional knowledge"
The page linked to discusses the difference between propositional knowledge and perceptual knowledge which is very relevant here. Note that magical thinking has been used as a synonym for religious thinking, although there some differentiate between the two, and religion is considered to be doctrinal magic that has developed by academics. [1] Alexanderkowal (talk) 14:52, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be fine with dropping the propositional if that is what people take issue with Alexanderkowal (talk) 14:58, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this article suffers tremendously from New atheist and secular fundamentalist bias and that this violates WP:NPOV. Alexanderkowal (talk) 15:08, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the lede absolutely violates WP:NPOV as it contains zero sources from academics of magic. Also why is the Bennett reference even included as it is a blog? There are a ton of academic sources that should be used instead. Likewise the skeptics' dictionary. It isn't peer reviewed, why are we citing it?
"...unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them" in the lede is inherently biased. There is academic work on this that can be cited. This could just as well be a definition of quantum entanglement. We don't know why it happens but it does. Something like "Magical thinking is the belief that apparently unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any obvious causal link between them, possibly as a result of supernatural effects." would be more neutral.
While there are sections in the article from many perspectives e.g. psychology, anthropology and philosophy, there is very little at all from scholars of magic or religion. Tambiah is there, which is great, but so are Freud and Malinowski, can you say obsolete sources? So much work has been done on this in the last 20 years that the only place for Freud and Malinowski would be a section on the history of thinking about magical thinking.
To establish NPOV this article needs, at the least, a section on the work of academics of magic and religion and needs some sources from academics of magic and religion in the lede.
Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:33, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be okay editing this article? I’m really unfamiliar with the topic however I’m happy to help. I’ve got too much stuff on my to do list atm Alexanderkowal (talk) 09:46, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I do not have the time to add another page to those I am already actively involved in at this time. Especially one like this which is going to be, shall we say, difficult to achieve meaningful change with as most of the people who write the best stuff about magical thinking from the point of view of magic and/or religion are not going to be allowed to be cited here because they publish in places that are persona non grata here. But I can give you some names of academics who you might be able to get cited.
Graham Harvey
Lynne_Hume
Ronald_Hutton
Sabina_Magliocco
Carole_M._Cusack
Chas_S._Clifton
Good luck. I will follow this page and help as I can. Please feel free to post to my talk page if you have specific questions I might be able to help with. Morgan Leigh | Talk 06:03, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is an "academic of magic"? See WP:FRINGE. WP Ludicer (talk) 16:23, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what you're referring to Kowal2701 (talk) 16:27, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The editor you were speaking with used the term "academics of magic" and said the article is unacceptably biased without their perspective. Unless they (or you) would like to explain why "academics of magic" should be cited, their perspective is not needed because they constitute a fringe perspective. Also, you need to stop re-adding the dispute tag if you're not going to actually edit the article or take part in a discussion to make it better (that is, by pointing out specific things you believe are problematic and suggest ways to correct them). Leaving a tag up forever in the hopes that "someone will come and fix it" is not an acceptable use of the tag. The discussion here has been stale since May, you yourself have not edited the article at all, and by at least one editor's own admission, what they want to add is not permissible due to Wikipedia policy. WP Ludicer (talk) 13:45, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See Catfrost (talk · contribs) comments as well, it's not just me who has has issues with this page's neutrality. There's nothing on that page that says tags can't be used for highlighting a problem in the hope someone can fix it, in fact that's often what they're used for. Morgan Leigh (talk · contribs) has also agreed there are problems with this page. I genuinely have no idea why you're citing WP:Fringe. There are sources from the early 19th century here! Woefully outdated which sums up this article, its reinforcing of colonial narratives is abhorrent. Don't remove the tag until issues are fixed. Kowal2701 (talk) 14:06, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've deleted the anthropology section. We should only really be using recent sources with anthropology. Personally I think 2020s and 2010s but I'm willing to pare it back to 1990s.
  • (Hamerman, 2015) and (Brown, 1986) doesn't mention magical thinking
  • (Evans-Prittchard, 1977), (Frazer, 1915), (Horton, 1967), are outdated
  • (Glucklich, 1997) isn't talking about magical thinking here, although Internet Archive is down so I can't see whether he links "associative thinking" to "magical thinking"
  • (Brown, 1997) is okay, but it is poorly summarised, and "Brown even ironically writes that he is tempted to disclaim the existence of 'magic." reads like bigotry
  • sentence in the lede was uncited
I suggest if we are to have an anthropology section, we only use sources like Schweder, 2022, Greenwood, 2015 (which I can't access), Greenwood, 2009 Stevens, 2001 Cholewa, 2012 (draws comparisons to religious thinking which opens up a new avenue), and Stevens, 2023 (which again I can't access) Kowal2701 (talk) 15:35, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why should we cite academics whose area of expertise is magic? Because their area of expertise is magic. All the people I mentioned above have peer reviewed work published in reputable journals and books. Morgan Leigh | Talk 05:14, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Anthropology section is heavily biased to colonial/western perspective

[edit]

The anthropology section of this article has serious WP:NPOV/WP:Globalize issues. It looks like someone else pointed this out back in 2018 but unfortunately it still hasn’t been fixed. Specifically this entire section seems to be written from a very western colonial perspective that speaks of what it refers to as “native religions” in very condescending and othering terms.

The other comment on this above states that it pulls primarily from very outdated sources. I’m not an expert on this subject so I can’t judge the quality of the sources or find more up-to-date ones. If someone more well-versed in anthropology could do this, that would be awesome. I have added the appropriate notice to the page to hopefully get the attention of those who can do this.

And even if this section still reflects the current consensus of western anthropologists (again, not an expert, so I don’t know but my guess is it’s fairly outdated), it’s important to specify that this is specifically one cultural viewpoint. And if anthropologists from other parts of the world have written about this subject, find some sources discussing their perspectives to improve the balance of that section. Catfrost (talk) 15:11, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Catfrost I've removed most of the sources that are outdated, and ones that aren't that don't mention "magical thinking". Kowal2701 (talk) 14:48, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Medical context

[edit]

Could I update this article to include the use of this term in a medical/psychiatric context? Wanted to ask first since this topic feels like it might be contentious. ViolanteMD 16:35, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ViolanteMD Yes, the term is widely used in psychology, so long as recent sources are used I think that's welcome Kowal2701 (talk) 14:49, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Associative thinking" redirect

[edit]

At the moment, Associative thinking redirects to Magical thinking. Is it good? At the moment, Magical thinking doesn't discuss Associative thinking at all. It did in the past, but all references to "associative thinking" were removed in 2024.

I don't know if it is right that it was deleted because I'm not a specialist on psychology or anthropology, but my general gut feeling tells me that it's OK that it was deleted and that Associative thinking shouldn't redirect to Magical thinking.

It was already discussed in the past, for example:

There should probably be a whole article about associative thinking, but unfortunately, I'm not qualified to write it. I am quite sure, however, that the current redirect should be deleted. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:39, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Associative thinking" listed at Redirects for discussion

[edit]

The redirect Associative thinking has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 August 24 § Associative thinking until a consensus is reached. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 04:53, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]