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Belief in the supernatural is a common part of human life. Although its exact expression varies between individuals and across contexts, some form of belief in spirits, mystic forces, or similar phenomena occurs in nearly every culture.

Researchers have been interested in the reasons behind this widespread, seemingly innate human tendency toward supernaturalism for a long time. The authors of a new study published in Nature Human Behaviour weigh in on this topic with a novel analysis: comparing supernatural thinking in over 100 different societies (Jackson et al., 2023). This data was drawn from the Human Relations Area Files and consisted of detailed, ethnographic documentation of life in a diverse set of places.

Many previous studies have examined the psychological and social dimensions of spiritual belief. However, this study offers the first cross-culturally comparative test focusing on how people use supernatural explanations for the natural and social world. This refers to “the attribution of an event to supernatural processes, such as the actions of a god, ancestor spirit, or human magical practitioners, such as a witch or shaman.”

The researchers examined two competing hypotheses. The first, derived from classical anthropology (Tyler, 1871; Frazer 1890) and modern psychology (for example, Van Der Tempel and Alcock, 2015), centers on the human need to make sense of the natural world around us.

The second approach comes instead from classical sociology (Durkheim, 1912; Weber, 1920). It argues that supernatural thinking is less about the natural world and more about the social one. This research is important because it could help us better understand the nature of supernatural beliefs and their role in human life. It could maybe even shed some light on the origin of religious thinking.

Dealing With the Unknown or Dealing With Each Other?

According to anthropological and psychological traditions, our species has always strived to understand nature and its complexities. Why does rain fall from the sky? What causes the seasons to change? We want to know why things happen and how to predict their future occurrence.

Unfortunately, many events don’t have known causes. Rather than accept that we just don’t know what’s going on in these situations, people often adopt a "God of the gaps approach." We reach for supernatural possibilities to explain things when we otherwise lack an empirically grounded understanding of them.

The sun sails across the sky because it’s Apollo’s chariot. The ground shook and buildings collapsed because the earth was angry. Supernatural beliefs, including those endorsed by organized religions, promise explanations for otherwise baffling events and experiences and therefore might provide some relief from the discomfort of not knowing.

From this perspective then, supernatural beliefs exist because they reflect an attempt to explain the world. If this is true, the authors argue, supernatural explanations should occur most frequently for natural phenomena. This is because these events are mysterious since no intelligent actor is obviously present who might have caused them. Moreover, these explanations should be common cross-culturally if they reflect a general human way of thinking and not just a local tradition or custom.

Focus on the Social World for the Supernatural

The alternative, sociological argument predicts that supernatural explanations should focus more on the social world, rather than the natural one. By focusing on social life, they can help regulate interpersonal relationships and maintain social cohesion. For example, shared beliefs can cultivate a sense of group identity and encourage cooperation, which is especially important for a species that needs to live together to survive.

Supernatural explanations can serve a variety of other, similar functions as well, like justifying social arrangements and activities. For instance, they can provide spiritual legitimacy to explain why the king gets to be in charge, why a crusade against the nation’s enemies is righteous and holy, or why certain behaviors are forbidden and therefore criminal.

From this sociological perspective, supernatural explanations should be more common for social phenomena than for natural ones, demonstrating a different origin of supernatural thinking in human evolution. Moreover, societies that feature more of these socially oriented supernatural explanations should exhibit more observable solidarity and cooperation as a function of their shared supernatural beliefs and identity.

The Need for Explanation Transcends Culture

To determine which hypothesis was supported, the researchers coded their qualitative, descriptive data to identify key indicators and analyzed the results to pinpoint statistically significant correlations. This included coding any supernatural explanations that were present in the societies represented.

Overall, they found these explanations for baffling phenomena were common across the entire sample. However, they occurred much more frequently for natural phenomena than for social ones. For example, 92 percent of the cultures had supernatural understandings of what causes diseases. Conversely, only 49 percent commonly explained warfare through supernatural mechanisms. While the latter figure is still impressive, it pales in comparison to the former.

Further findings were logically consistent with these results. The researchers did not find more cohesion in cultures featuring more supernatural explanations for social phenomena than those with fewer. Interestingly, they did find that these social explanations only occurred in societies that also featured a supernatural understanding of at least one natural event as well.

This suggests but does not prove that supernatural thinking about the natural world could be a prerequisite for socially oriented supernatural thought.

Of course, there are many other possible explanations for these results. For example, perhaps warfare simply doesn’t occur often in some societies and is therefore underrepresented in the data. Fortunately, the study also examined a number of alternate possibilities like this. These included the frequency of each phenomenon, as well as considerations like cultural transmission between societies, geographic locations, subsistence strategies (farming versus foraging), and other potentially conflating factors.

While this correlational study does not definitively prove how supernatural thinking originated, overall the results most strongly support the psychological perspective. However, it doesn’t rule out the social significance of supernatural beliefs entirely, which is also well-represented in the results.

The way we think about the social world might just have its roots in how we think about the natural world. While supernatural tendencies can be put to good, social use, their primacy in our thinking seems to reflect a deep-rooted human need to understand this mysterious world around us.