Witchcraft beliefs are widespread, highly variable around the world, study finds
PLOS
A newly compiled dataset quantitatively captures witchcraft beliefs in countries around the world, enabling investigation of key factors associated with such beliefs. Boris Gershman of American University in Washington, D.C., presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on November 23, 2022.
Numerous prior studies conducted around the world have
documented people's beliefs in witchcraft -- the idea that certain individuals
have supernatural abilities to inflict harm. Understanding people's witchcraft
beliefs can be important for policymaking and other community engagement
efforts. However, due to a lack of data, global-scale statistical analyses of
witchcraft beliefs have been lacking.
To deepen understanding of witchcraft beliefs, Gershman compiled a new dataset that captures such beliefs among more than 140,000 people from 95 countries and territories. The data come from face-to-face and telephone surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and professional survey organizations between 2008 and 2017, which included questions about religious beliefs and belief in witchcraft.
According to the dataset, over 40 percent of survey participants
said they believe that "certain people can cast curses or spells that cause
bad things to happen to someone." Witchcraft beliefs appear to exist around
the world but vary substantially between countries and within world regions.
For instance, 9 percent of participants in Sweden reported belief in
witchcraft, compared to 90 percent in Tunisia.
Using this dataset, Gershman then conducted an investigation of
various individual-level factors associated with witchcraft beliefs. This
analysis suggests that, while beliefs cut across socio-demographic groups,
people with higher levels of education and economic security are less likely to
believe in witchcraft.
Gershman also combined this dataset with other country-level
data, finding that witchcraft beliefs differ between countries according to
various cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic factors. For
instance, witchcraft beliefs are linked to weak institutions, low levels of
social trust, and low innovation, as well as conformist culture and higher
levels of in-group bias -- the tendency for people to favor others who are
similar to them"
These findings, as well as future research using the new
dataset, could be applied to help optimize policies and development projects by
accounting for local witchcraft beliefs.
The author adds: "The study documents that witchcraft beliefs are still widespread around the world. Moreover, their prevalence is systematically related to a number of cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic characteristics."