title: The role of magical thinking in hallucinations. Comparisons of clinical and non-clinical groups.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Magical thinking consists of accepting the possibility that events that, according to the causal concepts of a culture, cannot have any causal relationship, but might somehow nevertheless have one. Magical thinking has been related to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of magical thinking in hallucinations of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Four groups were recruited for this purpose from a clinical population (hallucinating schizophrenic patients, patients diagnosed with psychoses who had never hallucinated, obsessive-compulsive disorder patients and a clinical control group) and a non-clinical control group, who were given the Magical Ideation Scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results show that magical ideation differentiates the group of schizophrenic patients with auditory hallucinations from the rest of the groups that participated in the design. Items related to "mind reading", to the presence of auditory illusions in response to sound stimuli, and to the sense of sometimes being accompanied by an evil presence are the most closely related to the presence of auditory hallucinations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Magical thinking, understood as beliefs in non-consensual modes of causation, is closely linked to auditory hallucinations in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: José M. García-Montes, Psychology Department. University of Almería , Almería, Andalucía , Spain.
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: García-Montes
authors.forename: Marino
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pérez-Álvarez
authors.forename: Paula
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Odriozola-González
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Vallina-Fernández
authors.forename: Salvador
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Perona-Garcelán
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Hallucinations; Obsessive–compulsive Disorder; Schizophrenia