Correlates of Superstitious Belief among Young Adults in India

Abstract

The objective of the present research is to understand whether superstitious beliefs vary across gender and religious beliefs; to understand whether there exists any relationship between superstitious beliefs, anxiety, and rational-experiential processing. To achieve this objective ex-post-facto design was adopted. The Indian Superstitious Scale, Rational-Experiential Inventory, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Scale for Adults (STAI-Y2) are used in this study. The data is analysed using IBM SPSS to test the probability of the hypotheses. The results indicated that there is no significant impact of trait anxiety and rational experiential processing on the attitude toward superstition. Superstitious beliefs do not vary significantly across gender. However, there was a significant variance in the degree of superstitious belief across religions in the selected sample. The Hindu participants were found to have the maximum number of superstitious beliefs and the atheists had the minimum numbers.