Measures of superstitious beliefs: A meta-analytic review of research

Title

Measures of superstitious beliefs: A meta-analytic review of research

Creator

Chukkali S.; James J.K.; Dey A.M.

Description

Superstition is a term which is widely used across the globe but, is understood differently by people from different cultures. Superstitious beliefs are challenged by emerging scientific knowledge, and they continue to persist even among advanced societies. In recent years, superstitions are viewed as a belief in luck. The instruments that are available to assess this phenomenon are few and have insufficient psychometric properties. There is a need for developing new standardised measures which explore the complex, conceptual nature of superstitions. A meta-analysis of existing literature was done to explore the existing measures of superstitious beliefs and to examine the relationship between reliability of scales and the various attributes of scales. A literature search was conducted in relevant databases. Suitable transformation procedures for coefficient alpha were used. Meta-regression analysis was done to explore the heterogeneity of data. 41 scales measuring superstitions were analysed. Results indicate that reliability coefficients were from heterogeneous samples. Regression analysis revealed that few characteristics of scales predicted reliability. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology.

Source

Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, Vol-44, No. 1, pp. 10-24.

Date

2018-01-01

Publisher

Indian Academy of Applied Psychology

Subject

Beliefs; Luck; Meta-analysis; Meta-regression; Reliability; Superstitions

Coverage

Chukkali S., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560029, India; James J.K., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560029, India; Dey A.M., Centre for Research, Christ University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560029, India

Rights

Restricted Access

Relation

ISSN: 194247

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Article

Identifier

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85045261976&partnerID=40&md5=d99826433b6611dea9cadf8ef299bc62