Magical Thinking Test

This M.A. thesis deals with the topic of magical thinking in the adult population. The theoretical section of the thesis summarizes the existing findings in regard to the theory and research of magical thinking. The empirical section is dedicated to the development and subsequent validation of the new testing method devised to measure inclinations to magical thinking. Proving the method's validity is firstly aimed at gathering convergent proofs based on the relations towards methods measuring similar constructs, the external criterion being the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS) and the subscale of Esoteric and Personal Superstitious Thinking of the Contrastive Thinking Inventory (CTI). The second part of the research focuses on the validity proofs gathered in relation to the categorical variable - group affiliation - where we test a selective collection of the general public against a selection of technical and natural scientists and a selection of people attending courses with esoteric content. The research results confirm the method's reliability based on the split-half method and they also confirm a high coefficient of inner consistence of Cronbach's alpha. The results of the validation study show a strong correlation between the research inventory and selected scales of the CTI method as..