Recent research examines the relationship between "magical thinking" and the sense (or lack thereof) of feeling "in control." It appears that when humans feel less in control, our brains/minds work harder at making sense of things, imbuing more meaning and significance into random events, and believing that we can influence events by indirect means such as superstition or prayer. In particular, when research subjects are induced to experience feelings of being out of control, they are much more likely to perceive images embedded in random patterns of dots. Those subjects who do not feel out of control are much less likely to perceive any figures or images.
This makes all kinds of intuitive sense, of course. Many of the early beliefs and practices of the first religions appear clearly to be efforts to create a sense of meaning and control in a world that was (and still is!) very unpredictable, apparently senseless, and dangerous for human beings. In such circumstances, it makes sense that humans find ways to manage their anxiety, so as to be able to function, survive, and reproduce. One way to do this is to develop a belief in a powerful deity who actually IS in control of the events that affect our lives, and to believe that this deity can be manipulated and appeased by certain human behaviors. Sacrifice of animals, rituals, and (as the religions became more advanced) ethical behavior all have been used to enhance our sense of control. And of course it is impossible to escape the parallels between established religions, and such phenomena as: everyday superstitious behavior, the rituals and compulsions of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and other forms of outright pathological magical thinking (including paranoia).
An article in Psychology Today (online), by Matthew Hutson, describes some of the research into these phenomena. Here's an excerpt from his article:
One might ask, What does seeing faces in clouds have to do with being in control? Well, according to the embodied theory of mind, we imbue all things with affordances—qualities that describe how we can act on them. The human organism with all its fancy-pants "theories" about the world is just an elaborate iteration of the single-celled action-reaction simpletons we evolved from. Ultimately, thinking serves doing. (Specifically, surviving and reproducing.) So seeing a pattern in the world is useful to us only insofar as it lets us form a plan of action, providing control, or at least a sense thereof.
That last part—"at least a sense therof"—is important. As I describe in my piece on magical thinking, the illusion of control is healthy (within reason), as it inspires confidence and pushes us to go out on a limb and sometimes accomplish great things. On that note, Whitson brought to my attention an anecdote from Miroslav Holub (often attributed to Karl Weick): Lost in the snowy Alps and despondent, a party of troops found a map in their belongings, a discovery that revitalized them and got them home. Back at camp they learned that the map they used was actually of the Pyrenees, not the Alps. Just the sense of control—gained from spotting (arbitrary) correlations between the map and the mountains—saved their lives.
In their paper, Whitson and Galinsky also remark on the utility of increasing security and self-esteem through "psychotherapy, which attempts to give clients a sense of control over their lives to reduce the obsessive compulsive tendencies or sinister attributions engendered by seeing too much meaning and intentions in others' innocuous behaviors." As Whitson told me, she sometimes knocks on wood, and "sometimes there'll be a day when something jarring has happened and I'll walk into a room and people will be laughing, and I think, Oh wait, was that about me?"
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