We're more likely to invoke the supernatural to explain natural events than those with a human cause

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-04-04 01:00

Australia; New Zealand; International

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International, Aussie and New Zealand researchers say supernatural beliefs are often used to try and explain natural events such as storms or disease outbreaks, and people tend to do this far more often for natural events than for social occurrences, such as theft or murder. The team looked at the texts of 114 societies across the planet, from large urban societies to smaller nomadic groups, between the 18th and 20th centuries, and say that 96% of them used supernatural explanations for disease, 92% for food scarcity and 90% for natural hazards. Comparatively, only 67% of societies used supernatural explanations for warfare, 82% for murder and 26% for theft. The findings suggest we are more likely to invoke the supernatural when there is no clear human cause for a phenomenon, the authors say.

News release

From: Springer Nature

Anthropology: Societies use supernatural explanations for natural phenomena

Supernatural beliefs are more commonly used to explain natural events, such as storms or disease outbreaks, than social phenomena, according to analyses of historical ethnographic texts from 114 human societies published in Nature Human Behaviour. The findings provide further insight into the origins of supernatural beliefs.

It has been suggested that supernatural beliefs emerged to fill a gap in our understanding of the world. One prevalent theory suggests that such beliefs emerge when there is no clear causal agent for a phenomenon and societies may suggest a supernatural agent or supernatural force is responsible for an earthly event.

Joshua Jackson, Danica Wilbanks and colleagues analysed ethnographic texts spanning the 18th through 20th centuries, detailing 114 societies from around the world, which ranged in social complexity from large urban societies to smaller kin-based nomadic groups. They defined a supernatural explanation as any attribution of an event to a supernatural agent (such as a god or witch) or a supernatural force (such as karma or the evil eye). The authors found that all but one of the societies they included in their analysis had documented supernatural explanations, and that these were more prevalent for natural phenomena (such as storms or earthquakes) than social phenomena (such as theft or murder). They identified no evidence that this could be related to the frequency of these events. They report that 96% of sampled societies used supernatural explanations for disease, 92% for food scarcity and 90% for natural hazards. By contrast, only 67% of societies used supernatural explanations for warfare, 82% for murder and 26% for theft. The authors also found evidence to suggest that supernatural explanations of social phenomena were more common in societies with larger populations, money, land transport and technological specialization.

Jackson, Wilbanks and co-authors argue that their findings suggest humans are more likely to use supernatural explanations when there is no clear human cause for a phenomenon. They suggest that future research should examine evidence for associations between supernatural explanations and types of human cooperation, punishment and social cohesion.

Journal/
conference: Nature Human Behaviour

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Funder: This study was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation and the Issachar Fund to J.C.J., B.B., J.W. and K.G. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. We are grateful for the research assistance of M. Doucette, H. LaGarde, V. Easwar and S. Webb.

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