Once, as a teenager, I saw my mother in the morning, reading, as it seemed to me, a prayer. She had a crumpled piece of paper in her hand. Coming closer, I heard strange words: «Dibibi, dibebe, kazazhazh …». “We have arrived,” I thought with horror. It was the end of the 80s — the beginning of the 90s, the time when a significant part of the information space was filled with mystical delirium.
Mom read a «prayer» that aliens gave to humanity in the taiga near Perm. It’s funny to you, but newspapers with millions of copies were seriously writing about this. How could one not believe that the words «dibibi-dibebe» would bring good luck and prosperity.
Elements of so-called magical thinking are ubiquitous in our lives and in a less grotesque form. Sit on the path, look in the mirror if you returned, do not take out the garbage in the evening … I think each of you can continue this list. Why is magical thinking so tenacious? German scientists conducted a study where they showed that under certain circumstances it can be useful. The subjects were asked to play mini golf and at the same time periodically called one of the balls “lucky” (“It brought good luck to everyone before you”). The number of hits doubled!1 As the scientists found, the subjects in this situation increased faith in their own abilities and decreased fear of failure. Does this mean that we need magical thinking today? Once it helped our ancestors overcome the feeling of helplessness before the forces of nature and gave the illusion of control in a situation of uncertainty. If you have not heard anything about viruses and bacteria, it is easier to explain the disease with a curse and try to remove the damage. Even if it does not help, the illusion remains that you did everything you could.
- It’s not magic. This is the neurosis of fate
But for us now magical thinking is rather harmful. First, we may make the wrong choice, such as giving up something because of a «bad feeling» or omen. Secondly, it often leads to the fact that we make less real effort to achieve a result. If you do not prepare for the exam in the hope of a «lucky» shirt, the result will be deplorable. Thirdly, we become more anxious. If we forgot to sit on the path or didn’t look in the mirror when we returned for the keys, then we will worry much more if we believe in these signs. No wonder magical thinking is an important factor in the development of anxiety disorders.2.
Taking responsibility for your future can be very difficult. To do this, we must accept the bitter truth: we cannot control the future completely. But if we do not try to influence it, then there will be no future. Dibibi dibebe kazazhazh ao kaiya divaka…
1 L. Damisch, B. Stoberock, T. Mussweiler «Keep your fingers crossed!: how superstition improves performance», Psychological Science, 2010, № 21.
2 B. West, P. Willner «Magical thinking in obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder», Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 2011, № 39.