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Sociocultural Antecedents of Magical Thinking in a Modernizing African Society

Despite the consensual adherence to a magico-mythical orientation in Africa, it was hypothesized that a deeper fear of bewitchment is likely to exist among persons with low as opposed to those who enjoy high levels of social functioning. A community survey involving 771 adult respondents in an urban and a rural area in Western Nigeria was under-taken. Socioeconomic background data and indices of the social functioning level of the respondents were collected. The index for level of social functioning was derived on the basis of recognized Yoruba normative patterns. Stepwise regression analysis was used to investigate the predictive factors of the fear of bewitchment. A deeper fear of bewitchment appears to exist in the urban but not in the rural subgroup. Some of the items which constitute the social functioning index also appear to predict the fear of bewitchment.