Supernatural Sociology: Americans’ Beliefs by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Education. Tony Silva, Ashley Woody. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, March 10, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231221084775
Abstract: The authors analyze the 2020–2021 Chapman University Survey of American Fears (n = 1,035), the most recent nationally representative survey to examine fears of and beliefs about supernatural and paranormal phenomena, including ghosts, hauntings, zombies, psychics, telekinesis, Bigfoot or Sasquatch, Atlantis, and extraterrestrial visitation. This research examines how supernatural beliefs vary by race/ethnicity, gender, and education after adjustment for other demographic characteristics and religiosity. There were five gender differences, such that women were more likely than men to believe in or fear all nonmaterial or spiritual supernatural phenomena, as well as Atlantis. People with a bachelor’s degree or higher were less likely to believe in extraterrestrial visitation, hauntings, Bigfoot or Sasquatch, and Atlantis. There were also six beliefs and fears for which racial/ethnic differences emerged. The results highlight how gender, education, and race/ethnicity are strongly related to complex belief systems, including supernatural phenomena.
Keywords: supernatural, paranormal, gender, race, education, ghost, haunting, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, extraterrestrial, psychic, telekinesis, Atlantis
Discussion
We used nationally representative data collected in 2021 to examine how fears of and beliefs about supernatural phenomena vary by key social axes: race/ethnicity, education, and gender. Our research makes several key contributions to the literature. First, we used the most recent data available to examine the relationship between supernatural phenomena and social axes. Second, this study contributes to the large body of research showing that social axes are strongly related to attitudes and religiosity (e.g., Schnabel 2018, 2020). Third, we analyzed several supernatural beliefs individually, rather than combining them into an index, to detect patterns of significance or lack of significance on the basis of particular beliefs or types of beliefs. Empirically, this study shows that gender, race/ethnicity, and education are strongly related to supernatural beliefs and fears. Theoretically, the results suggest that beliefs about supernatural phenomena are shaped by gendered, racialized, and classed social processes.
It is notable that there are large gender differences in some beliefs but not others. One explanation could be the perceived role of spirituality in supernatural phenomena. Ghosts, hauntings, zombies, and psychics all involve the influence of spiritual forces, and telekinesis similarly involves a nonmaterial energy. In contrast, Bigfoot or Sasquatch and extraterrestrial visitation (for the most part) indicate concrete but unexplained issues such as undiscovered animals and contact with advanced nonhuman species. As Bader et al. (2017) argued, gendered differences in belief reflect how women are more likely to be interested in supernatural phenomena that provide a greater understanding of the world, even if the processes cannot be scientifically documented. In contrast, men may be more interested in phenomena that can be scientifically established with the correct evidence, although we did not find that men were more likely than women to believe in any phenomena.
It is unclear why women had a higher PP to believe in Atlantis and other advanced ancient civilizations than men, although it is possible that people differently interpreted the question. For instance, some people may have interpreted the question to mean lost but discoverable ancient civilizations. Others may have interpreted “advanced” to mean technological capabilities more sophisticated than today’s. Still others may have considered the purported link between ancient civilizations and metaphysical energy (e.g., some people believe that residents of advanced ancient civilizations used crystal energies). Thus, the implications of the finding about advanced ancient civilizations are unclear.
The fact that most configurations of American masculinity are characterized by notions of rationality (Connell 2005) could explain men’s lower probability of belief in supernatural phenomena linked to spiritual and nonmaterial forces (see also Thomson et al. 2020; Ward and King 2020). Indeed, American men are socially rewarded for displaying traits such as detached rationality (Bain 2009) and may be socially sanctioned for relying on intuition and spiritual beliefs. Men are also socialized to demonstrate stoicism. Femininity, in contrast, is often associated with the emotional and spiritual realms.17 Women are less likely to be sanctioned for using intuition and expressing fear. This pattern could explain women’s higher levels of belief in hauntings and supernatural human abilities (foretelling the future and telekinesis), and to fear ghosts and zombies. Similarly, a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center showed that 20 percent of adult men in the United States believed in astrology, 27 percent believed in reincarnation, 34 percent believed in psychics, and 37 percent believed that “spiritual energy can be located in physical things” (Gecewicz 2018). In contrast, equivalent figures for women were 37 percent, 39 percent, 47 percent, and 46 percent, respectively (Gecewicz 2018). Thus, gendered social expectations likely shape supernatural beliefs.
Education is related to supernatural beliefs in a straightforward way. People with a bachelor’s or more had lower marginal estimates or PPs of belief in extraterrestrial visitation, hauntings, Bigfoot or Sasquatch, and Atlantis. Notably, there were no educational differences for other supernatural beliefs/fears. Although higher levels of education are associated with lower levels of belief in several supernatural phenomena, there are others in which there are no significant educational beliefs. These findings are similar to those of Bader et al. (2017) and unlike those of Rice (2003). It is possible that today, unlike in prior decades, higher levels of education have become associated with disbelief in most supernatural phenomena.
It is notable that several racial/ethnic differences emerged. Asian Americans had higher PPs of belief in Atlantis and fear of zombies than most other groups, and white people had the lowest PP of fearing ghosts than all other groups. Black people had higher levels of belief than white people regarding extraterrestrial visitation and hauntings and higher marginal estimates of belief in supernatural human abilities than both white and Latinx people. Similarly, the Pew research cited above showed that Black and Latinx people had higher levels of belief than white people regarding astrology, reincarnation, psychics, and spiritual energy in physical things (Asian Americans were not analyzed) (Gecewicz 2018).
There are several different possible explanations for these racial/ethnic differences in supernatural beliefs. First, it is possible that trust in science may be related to belief in supernatural phenomena. According to a 2020 Pew survey, 88 percent of white people and 87 percent of Latinx people have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence in scientists, compared with 79 percent of Black people (Asian Americans were not analyzed) (Funk, Kennedy, and Johnson 2020). Thus, trust in science may be one of many factors that shape racialized belief systems.
Second, cultural traditions may also explain racial differences in paranormal beliefs. For instance, Black Americans historically had a tradition of intergenerational oral culture that can be traced back to enslavement (Gorn 1984). Historically, superstitions and stories of ghostly visitations were prominent within African American folklore (Gorn 1984), which may shape the belief systems of some Black Americans today (see also Bellot 2021). Similarly, the idea of ancestral spirits visiting the living is deeply embedded in some racial/ethnic cultural traditions such as Lunar New Year, which is widely observed throughout the East Asian and Southeast Asian American diasporas (Wen 2021). On the eve of the new year, special meals are prepared to honor the spirits of deceased ancestors (Wen 2021). Even outside of prominent holidays, ancestor worship is a daily spiritual practice for groups such as Vietnamese Buddhists (Jellema 2007). Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which has its origins in both European Catholicism and Indigenous traditions, is widely celebrated throughout Mexico and in the Mexican American diaspora to honor the spirits of deceased relatives and friends (Lopez 2021). These cultural traditions may explain why Black, Latinx, and Asian Americans are more likely than white people to believe in certain paranormal phenomena.
It is intriguing that this study revealed numerous racial/ethnic differences in supernatural beliefs, whereas most other studies have not. In contrast, findings for gender and education largely mirrored those of other recent research. Differences in findings regarding racial/ethnic differences in supernatural beliefs may exist for variety of reasons. First is random sampling variation. To confirm these results, more research needs to be done, ideally with larger samples. Research findings are robust when they are confirmed by studies using multiple samples. Replication is particularly important when the sample size of certain subgroups is small, as with Black and Asian Americans in this sample. Thus, results regarding race/ethnicity should be evaluated with caution until further studies are conducted. Second, and relatedly, no prior research about the supernatural included Asian Americans except, possibly, in a combined “other” category. Several of the differences in this study were between Asian Americans and other groups; no prior research could have documented these differences when it did not examine Asian Americans specifically. And third, rapid social changes over the past several years may have shaped belief systems such that group differences emerged or became larger. In addition to the decline in church, synagogue, and mosque membership previously discussed (Jones 2021), the past several years have brought multiple social changes: the coronavirus pandemic, sharp political polarization, and increased attention paid to structural racial inequities, among others. These changes, combined, may have affected belief systems in varied ways depending on racial/ethnic identity. Future research will need to examine this possibility.
It is possible that other factors shape belief in supernatural phenomena. For instance, a recent study showed that lower levels of self-control were associated with a higher level of belief in supernatural phenomena (Mowen, Heitkamp, and Boman forthcoming). Low self-control is defined by one’s tendency to favor short-term gratification while ignoring long-term consequences (Mowen et al. forthcoming). The authors theorized that low self-control may be related to the adoption of paranormal beliefs, which “reflect a decision-making process whereby scientific evidence is cast aside in lieu of an easy explanation for some of life’s greatest mysteries” (p. 12). This study also showed that women were more likely than men to believe in supernatural phenomena, as were people of “other” races compared with white people (comparisons between white and Black people were not statistically significant) (Mowen et al. forthcoming). Although that study was based on a convenience sample of undergraduate students, the results indicate that researchers should include additional measures in surveys to better understand why individuals report supernatural beliefs.
Future research can build on this study. It would be beneficial to collect a larger sample size of Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous individuals, which would make it possible to produce more reliable estimates of beliefs by race/ethnicity. Although the results related to race/ethnicity are intriguing, future research with larger samples will need to further investigate this topic, particularly with regard to Black and Asian American respondents, as their sample sizes were small (which resulted in large confidence intervals). Future studies might also deploy explanatory frameworks to identify reasons why there is observed variation in paranormal beliefs by race/ethnicity.
Additionally, the CSAF did not query about sexual identification, even though it is one of the strongest predictors of social attitudes (Grollman 2017; Schnabel 2018) and is strongly related to religiosity (Schnabel 2020), which in turn is related to supernatural beliefs (Bader et al. 2012; Baker and Draper 2010; Baker et al. 2016; Mencken et al. 2009). Some scholars have argued that cryptids have become queer symbols in part because “the identification of cryptids as queer both reclaims and challenges a past in which queerness was considered monstrous” and because cryptids challenge conventional ideas about normativity and natural orders (Hord 2018:2). Others have argued that queerness is less stigmatized in online supernatural communities because supernatural communities are built on embracing the unfamiliar, thus making them more appealing to queer people (Wall 2018). Additionally, queer people may find cryptids intriguing because they are often framed as threats, just as queer people were historically and still are today in many contexts, and because the existence of cryptids, like queer people, is often denied or rendered invisible (Wall 2018). In short, there are a variety of reasons why queer people may be more inclined to believe in supernatural phenomena, and future research should include a measure of sexual identification to capture possible group differences on the basis of sexual identity.
In conclusion, we examined how beliefs about, and fears of, supernatural phenomena—including ghosts, hauntings, zombies, psychics, telekinesis, Bigfoot or Sasquatch, Atlantis, and extraterrestrial visitation—vary by race/ethnicity, gender, and education. Specifically, women are more likely to believe in or fear phenomena that relate to nonmaterial or spiritual matters (ghosts, hauntings, zombies, and supernatural human abilities including psychic powers and telekinesis) rather than material phenomena that could potentially be proved through conventional scientific investigation (Bigfoot or Sasquatch and extraterrestrial visitation), although women were also more likely than men to believe in Atlantis. Education is also strongly related to several supernatural phenomena, such that people with a bachelor’s degree or higher are less likely to believe in certain phenomena than people with less than a bachelor’s degree. Race/ethnicity was also strongly related to supernatural beliefs and fears, although in ways that differed on the basis of the belief or fear. The results underscore how gender, education, and race/ethnicity are strongly related to beliefs, including about supernatural phenomena.
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