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Paranormal Beliefs Mediate External Locus of Control and Religiosity
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Emergence of religion is as old as human history marked by behaviours such as prayer(Kuhl et al., 2016). This behaviour inherently portrays the belief in the unseen, and with uncanny events that may be deemed as paranormal. Religious beliefs and ideas like these are underpinnings of intuitive mental systems that were harboured from paranormal beliefs and spirituality(Kelemen, 2004). Paranormal beliefs are extraordinary beliefs on spirits, ghosts, demons, jiin and are culturally universal(Pyysiainen, 2008), and play an important role in religious concepts(Atran and Norenzayan, 2004). These investigators described them as events that violate basic values of common sense and science. Growing attention towards paranormal beliefs in popular media and journalism has influenced cognitive, affective, motivational and demographic factors(Teesdale, 2011).
Present study aims at associating external locus of control(Beck and Miller, 2001; Orenstein, 2002), with religiosity(Wilsona, Bulbulia and Sibley, 2014) through paranormal beliefs.
External locus of control is cognitive style of attributing life events to external factors(Kozhevnikov, 2007), where people with its higher levels believe that an event is the product of luck, chance or the influence of other people(Ross and Mirowsky, 2002). Such external locus of control brews paranormal beliefs like premonitions, luck, and black magic etc. where people judge events externally(Norris and Epstein, 2011), and believe in high levels of superstitious beliefs(Bisht, Sardar and Pandey, 2016). Some studies suggest, external locus of control are the reasons paranormal beliefs, which leads to religiosity, for example Teesdale(2011) claimed that such beliefs increased religiosity(also see Czech, Wrisberg, Fisher, Thompson, and Hayes, 2004; Ofori and Lavallee 2017).
Likewise, Farooq and Kiyani(2012) suggested that people with stronger beliefs on external forces may develop paranormal beliefs such as breaking mirror or itching palms can bring bad luck which can further increase their becoming religious; and in order to diminish the effect of superstitions they perform more religious...