Washington, September 8 (ANI): Contrary to common wisdom, older people are more likely than adolescents to turn to supernatural explanations for difficult events in their lives, from aging to dying, an international study from scholars at four major universities.
According to psychologist Cristine H. Legare of the University of Texas, Austin, the finding suggests that science has not supplanted religion, and the two coexist for billions of people around the world because while science can explain many things, it "really isn't very good" at supplying answers to some of life's most difficult questions.
Legare, lead author of the study, went to South Africa to see if people there still turn to witchcraft to explain the disease that has devastated much of that country.
Based on interviews with 366 participants who live in some of the hardest-hit areas, the answer she found was yes - especially among older adults.
She said that it's not just because of ignorance. The people there are very much aware of the biomedical basis for AIDS, but with more than 40 percent of the people in some areas of South Africa infected with the disease, a clinical explanation is an incomplete answer.
"What became clear is people had different kinds of explanations to explain different aspects of the disease," ABC News quoted her as saying.
"Unprotected sex is seen as a reason for contracting the virus, but that doesn't explain the larger question of why me, and not somebody else. People would often give a supernatural explanation, including witchcraft," she said.
The participants in the study were read a series of statements and asked to reject or endorse medical or supernatural (witchcraft) explanations for the disease.
The participants, whether young or old, clearly understood the medical explanation for how AIDS is transmitted, but children from 5 to 15 years old cited witchcraft as part of the explanation only about half the time. In contrast, all the adults thought witchcraft played a role.
"Importantly, bewitchment explanations were not the result of ignorance of biological causes. Thus, they existed alongside and were not replaced by biological explanations," the study concluded.
The study has been published in Child Development. (ANI)
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