Systematic Review of Magical Thinking Studies Across Clinical and Non-Clinical Samples

Clare M. Eddy's systematic review synthesizes findings from 191 studies on magical thinking, a cognitive phenomenon linked to obsessive compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. The review, last updated in May 2026, explores predisposing factors, behavioral consequences, and neurobiological underpinnings of magical thinking across diverse cultural contexts. It encompasses studies on magical ideation and thought-action fusion, investigating associations with topics like gambling compulsions and childhood trauma.

Use Cases

• Conducting a meta-analysis on the correlates of magical thinking based on the synthesis of 191 studies.
• Investigating the relationship between magical thinking and social cognition based on the review's identified unexplored relationships.
• Studying the role of magical thinking in psychiatric symptomatology across clinical and non-clinical samples as described.
• Analyzing cultural variations in magical thinking based on the review's inclusion of studies from a range of cultural contexts.

Strengths

• Based on a systematic review of 191 identified studies, providing a broad evidence base.
• Explicitly covers both magical ideation and thought-action fusion, offering conceptual specificity.
• Encompasses both clinical and non-clinical samples, allowing for comparative analysis.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license, facilitating reuse.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 66.8 KB DOCX document, indicating a limited textual scope rather than a structured data corpus.
• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; data structure and variables must be inferred from the review text.
• The description does not specify the exact time range of the included studies, limiting temporal context.

Provenance

Source

Clare M. Eddy via figshare

Collection Method

Systematic literature review

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-20 05:46:12.