Individual and Group Factors Associated with Superstitious Beliefs

If individuals respond in different ways to superstitions, it begs the question of whether the superstitious can be profiledProfiling of superstitious belief in some way. This chapter explores how certain factors related to individual and group differences can be associated with superstitious beliefs with a focus upon personalityPersonality, genderGender, ageAge andDisciplines and professionseducation educationEducation. Limited scholarly work in this area appears to be available and unfortunately, findings are not always consistent. Some work suggests that spiritual beliefsColour and spiritual/superstitious beliefs are also interrelated with ageAge, sociocultural factors and genderGender (Mayer and Walach in The Palgrave handbook of workplace spirituality and fulfilment. Palgrave Macmillan, Vol. 2, pp.1077–1094, 2018) but it is rather difficult to consider the relevance of such findings in relation to superstition because little consensus appears to exist on what can be regarded as superstitious and/or spiritual. In summation, it seems that there is, as yet, an insufficient body of evidence to support the profilingProfiling of superstitious belief of superstitious individuals or groups with any confidence.