Национальный психологический журнал (Sep 2024)
Relationship Between Attitude to Global Risks, Belief in the Paranormal and Self-Efficacy among Students
Abstract
Background. There is a growing concern about global risks, including among young people in the modern world. At the same time, there also appears information about the wide spread of superstitions and other variants of belief in the paranormal among young people. The appeal to the paranormal occurs primarily in situations of instability and is aimed at reducing anxiety and achieving a sense of security. However, there is still an unspecified question about the nature of the relationship between the attitude to global risks and a number of personal characteristics, including belief in the paranormal and self-efficacy, which in terms of active actions can be considered as the opposite of superstition. Objective. The goal is to identify the specifics of the relationship between attitudes to global risks and the belief in the paranormal and self-efficacy among students. Methods. The empirical research was conducted in an online format using psychodiagnostic techniques: “The scale of belief in the paranormal” by J. Tobacyk in the adaptation of D.S. Grigoriev, “The scale of general self-efficacy” by R. Schwarzer and M. Yerusalem in the adaptation of V.G. Romek, the questionnaire “Attitude to global risks” by T.A. Nestik. Statistically significant connections between the structural components of the attitude to global risks with the variants of belief in the paranormal and the personal evaluation of self-efficacy among students were established. Results. It is found that the attitude of students to global risks is associated with various manifestations of belief in the paranormal. The strongest positive links were found in such components of the attitude to global risks as religious authoritarianism and apocalypticism. On the contrary, negative connections are recorded between the readiness to participate in risk prevention, on the one hand, and faith in predictions and the traditional religious belief of students, on the other hand. A positive relationship between self-efficacy and the cognitive components of the attitude to global risks — optimism and religious authoritarianism — was also found. Conclusions. The results obtained indicate the substantial proximity of religious authoritarianism and apocalypticism with a belief in the supernatural among students. At the same time, general self-efficacy is a personal characteristic associated with optimism and religious authoritarianism as a strategy for preventing global risks and threats.
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