Thinking Styles and Belief in Superstitions: Moderating Role of Gender in Young Adults

Superstitious beliefs prevail in our society despite current modernization and enlightenment. This research investigated thinking styles and gender in relation to belief in superstitions among young adults. Following hypotheses were proposed: a.) rational or analytical thinking will negatively whereas experiential or intuitive thinking style will positively predict belief in superstitions. Moderating role of gender was also hypothesized. The sample consisted of 260 undergraduate students (i.e., men = 130, women = 130) from private universities in Lahore. Mean age of the participants was 21.4 (1.52) years. Rational Experiential Inventory (Pacini & Epstein, 1999) was administered to measure thinking styles. Belief in Superstitions Scale (Maqsood, 2015) was used to measure belief in superstitions. A self developed demographic information questionnaire was also administered. Hierarchical Regression Analysis was applied to identify predictors of belief in superstitions. The results showed that gender significantly predicted belief in superstitions indicating that women reported significantly more superstitious beliefs than men. Higher tendency of experiential thinking predicted more belief in superstitions; however, higher tendency of rational thinking predicted lesser belief in superstitions. Low levels of rational thinking predicted higher superstitious beliefs in women but not in men.