title: Relationships between magical thinking, obsessive-compulsiveness and other forms of anxiety in a sample of non-clinical children.
abstract: Despite the obvious phenomenological similarities between magical thinking and obsessive-compulsiveness, the relationship between them has been the subject of few empirical investigations in samples of children. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between a general epistemic stance towards magical causation and tendencies towards obsessive-compulsiveness in a non-clinical sample of schoolchildren. One-hundred and two children, aged between 5 and 10 years (48 boys and 54 girls), completed questionnaire measures designed to assess magical thinking, obsessive-compulsiveness, and other forms of anxiety. School teachers completed a measure of strengths and difficulties for each child. General belief in magical causation was correlated with all types of anxiety, not just obsessive-compulsiveness, with significant correlations shown for boys in the sample, but not girls. General belief in magical causation contributed little to the prediction of obsessive-compulsiveness beyond general anxiety. In this study, a general epistemic stance towards magical causation did not differentiate obsessive-compulsiveness from other anxiety dimensions. The findings are considered in the context of developmental theories of magical and scientific causal reasoning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, UK. l.simonds@surrey.ac.uk
authors.forename: Laura M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Simonds
authors.forename: James D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Demetre
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Read
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003192:Compulsive Behavior / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D010552:Personality Assessment; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D013334:Students; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires