Who believes in the giant skeleton myth? An examination of individual difference correlates

Autor(en)

Viren Swami, Ulrich Tran, Stefan Stieger, Jakob Pietschnig, Martin Voracek

Abstrakt

This study examined individual difference correlates of belief in a narrative about the discovery of giant skeletal remains that contravenes mainstream scientific explanations. A total of 364 participants from Central Europe completed a survey that asked them to rate their agreement with a short excerpt describing the giant skeleton myth. Participants also completed measures of the Big Five personality factors, New Age orientation, anti-scientific attitudes, superstitious beliefs, and religiosity. Results showed that women, as compared with men, and respondents with lower educational qualifications were significantly more likely to believe in the giant skeleton myth, although effect sizes were small. Correlational analysis showed that stronger belief in the giant skeleton myth was significantly associated with greater anti-scientific attitudes, stronger New Age orientation, greater religiosity, stronger superstitious beliefs, lower Openness to Experience scores, and higher Neuroticism scores. However, a multiple regression showed that the only significant predictors of belief in myth were Openness, New Age orientation, and anti-scientific attitudes. These results are discussed in relation to the potential negative consequences of belief in myths.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Psychologie der Kognition, Emotion und Methoden, Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Westminster

Journal

Sage Open

Band

6

Anzahl der Seiten

7

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015623592

Publikationsdatum

2016

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501010 Klinische Psychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Kunst und Geisteswissenschaften, Allgemeine Sozialwissenschaften

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/0208c07a-3250-4194-b6b8-c7d8f999d3ba