Witchcraft Beliefs, Social Relations, and Development

Gershman, Boris

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3896078

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The fear that others may cause magical harm due to envy has been associated with behaviours that are potentially maladaptive and can cause social and financial issues beyond distrust, such as hiding one's own wealth and good fortune for fear of others' envy driven reprisals or even forgoing opportunities for fear of negative outcomes (Ashforth, 2005;Gershman, 2021;Golooba-Mutebi, 2005;Green, 2005). When people believe witchcraft is the mechanism for envy-based punishment, the tendency to adopt these potentially detrimental behaviours may be amplified.…”

Section: Witchcraft Envy and Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Billions of people alive today believe in witchcraft, sorcery, and other similar types of magic (Gershman, 2021). Though there is a lot of variety within these beliefs, they have been remarkably stable across history, common across a wide variety of cultures (Douglas, 1970;Hutton, 2017), and prevalent in the world today (Ashforth, 2002;Stoop & Verpoorten, 2020) including in the contemporary West (Hutton, 1999;Luhrmann, 1991;White, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 These magical abilities may be seen as positive (helping people, such as protection), negative (harming people, such as curses), or a mixture of both. When these beliefs include the idea that certain people can curse others and cause magical harm, one potential consequence is increased distrust of others within the community (Gershman, 2021). These beliefs are likely also to reflect, shape, and enforce the social norms within the societies that hold them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Witchcraft, Envy, and Norm Enforcement in Mauritius

Willard,

Rosun,

Lesage

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Recent research has shown that an array of religious beliefs can be used to enforce a variety of social norms, but the application of these theories to other supernatural beliefs, including witchcraft, is still nascent. Across two pre-registered studies, we examine how witchcraft can enforce norms around envy and prevent envy in others in Mauritius. All data was collected in-person in Mauritius. In study 1 (N = 445), we found that both practicing witchcraft and being motivated by envy or self-interest increase perceptions of harm. These motivations, but predominantly envy, also increase the rate with which people suggest a person is doing witchcraft. Belief that someone is doing magic increases the negativity with which one views that person and damages their reputation. In study 2 (N = 292), we found that when a person breaks a norm around causing envy in others, a subsequent misfortune is more likely to be believed caused by witchcraft, but not God, whereas when someone acts selfishly towards others a subsequent misfortune is more likely to be caused by God but not witchcraft. This suggests that witchcraft beliefs, but not religious ones, are enforcing norms around preventing envy. Together, these studies suggest that witchcraft beliefs can support locally specific social norms, and that these norms might be different than those supported by religion.

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Section: Witchcraft Envy and Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%