Statistics

Social psychology

Magical thinking

Developmental psychology

Lottery

Cognitive science

Alternative medicine

Psychology

Mathematics

Medicine

Intuition

Pathology

Journal of Research in Personality

Four studies explored gender differences in magical beliefs, specifically examining whether reliance on intuition accounts for women's higher magical beliefs (vs. men's). In Studies 1a and 1b (N's = 489, 1119), women's higher magical beliefs were accounted for by measures of reliance on intuition. Study 2 (N = 533) demonstrated that an intuition induction heightened men's magical beliefs (vs. control group), but not women's. In Study 3 (N = 404), women—but not men—exhibited more suboptimal choices in a lottery task after imagining that a dream told them to do so. These studies suggest that reliance on intuition helps account for women's higher magical beliefs.

Examining the roles of intuition and gender in magical beliefs