What Is Magical Thinking?

The field of psychology uses many technical terms that the general public might not be familiar with. A term you might occasionally hear mentioned in the news media is, "magical thinking." When someone engages in magical thinking they believe irrational things. Furthermore, for the person and their irrational beliefs, reality doesn't apply.

For example, a 16-year-old who backs the car over his dog and kills it might convince himself later that he didn't actually hit the dog and think that maybe the dog is okay. Perhaps a 10-year-old child whose mother dies tells herself weeks later that Mom isn't really dead and that she will return home soon. This is another illustration of magical thinking. So even though reality indicated to the child that her mother is dead, the magical thinking takes over when it comes to that single situation: her mother's death.

Magical Thinking and Mental Illness

Magical thinking is known to occur in a variety of mental disorders including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia (About.com). Also, magical thinking can occur in anyone who's experiencing a psychosis, which is a lack of contact with reality. Psychosis can be present as a symptom in a variety of mental disturbances, including those listed previously.

At any rate, although you won't necessarily have a significant mental health diagnosis because you experience magical thinking, you might engage in magical thinking along with particular diagnoses involving psychosis. Interestingly, another whole side to magical thinking exists.

Magical Thinking as it Relates to Positivity

Here's a story: have you heard about the golfer who always wears his lucky undershorts because they bring him luck? He wore them on the day 10 years ago that he got his first hole-in-one. At that time, they were deemed his "lucky undershorts." In a sense, the golfer in this story engages in magical thinking. The golfer may at no other time or situation actually believe in "magic." But in this situation, he firmly believes his lucky undershorts will help him win the golf game.

Maybe your brother carries his rabbit's foot or your friend has that special trinket on her keychain that a loved one gave her. They both believe these charms bring them luck or wealth or keep them safe. Perhaps 25 is your lucky number and when you go to Las Vegas, you place your roulette chip on that number over and over again because, after all, it's your lucky number. So, most of you have been somehow or in some way exposed to magical thinking or even utilized it yourself.

Scientific American describes some recent research in their article, Why Magical Thinking Works for Some People. In the study, subjects were split into two groups, those who got to keep their lucky charms with them while they performed a task and those who had to leave their lucky charms in another room while they completed the assigned exercise. Results showed that those who got to keep their charms set higher goals for performance and also tried harder and longer at the task than those who didn't get to keep their lucky charms with them.

Summary

Magical thinking, although a symptom of mental illness, is also used by people who do not appear to be experiencing any mental distress. When the magical thinking works to promote positive thinking and goal achievement, it can actually be beneficial to the person applying such thinking. Further studies examining magical thinking in mental illness and in those experiencing positive results must be completed in order to learn more.

Read Pearl Grace's article entitled, What Does Good Mental Health Look Like at this link. For an interesting summation of pathological lying, look here. Finally, check out this link for an article called, Understanding Delusional Disorder, also by Pearl Grace.

Sources

About.com website

Scientific American website