Belief and Belongingness: Are Supernatural Agents and Forces Social Surrogates?

Abstract

Motivational approaches to the study of supernatural beliefs propose that such beliefs serve psychological functions. I tested the proposal that supernatural agents and forces are sought out as social surrogates to fulfill the need to belong. First, I present preliminary data consistent with the claim that the belongingness motive and deficits in belongingness (i.e., loneliness) are related to supernatural beliefs. Next, I report an experiment testing the supernatural social surrogate proposal. I hypothesized that affirming belongingness would reduce supernatural beliefs and that the relationship between the predictors and supernatural beliefs would weaken if one’s belonging is affirmed. If supernatural beliefs are motivated by belongingness concerns, then meeting people’s belongingness needs should reduce their inclination to turn to supernatural social surrogates. I further predicted these effects would remain significant when controlling for known cognitive correlates of supernatural beliefs. Results did not support the social surrogate hypothesis.