{"id":8540,"date":"2025-02-13T17:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T16:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/?p=8540"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T17:06:12","slug":"belief-in-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/belief-in-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Belief in magic: how long-term unemployment changes our psychological state?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Work gives you control<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A sense of control, or the belief that we have influence over the course of our own lives, is a fundamental part of mental health. People who feel that they can shape their own future are more likely to take on challenges, pursue goals, and cope with difficulties. However, unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, seriously threatens this sense of control. A team of researchers from Polish universities, including Dr. Wiktor Soral of the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Warsaw, studied the impact of prolonged unemployment on control deprivation. Published in the Journal of Personality, the study showed that the longer a person remains unemployed, the more their sense of control diminishes. Unemployed people gradually stop believing that their efforts to find work will yield any results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have observed not only a decline in the belief that the job search will be successful, but also a generalization of this feeling to other areas of life. Such individuals begin to believe that nothing good awaits them in life, as it is over. They stop thinking about their future, which begins to look gloomy,\u201d says Dr. Soral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Narcissism as a defense mechanism<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Although prolonged unemployment leads to a general decline in mental well-being, unemployed individuals often exhibit higher levels of individual narcissism. Defense mechanisms such as increased self-esteem may partially compensate for deficits resulting from a perceived loss of control over one\u2019s life. However, this form of narcissism brings no real improvement to the situation, merely masking deeper problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe need for high self-esteem and the need for control are fundamental, interrelated human motivations. When faced with a threat to these, people use a variety of strategies to help them maintain their self-esteem,\u201d emphasizes Dr. Soral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During research on a group of unemployed people, scientists from the University of Warsaw observed an increased tendency to seek sources of failure outside oneself (this means the development of a so-called defensive personality \u2013 i.e., one focused not on achieving future goals, but on maintaining the current state of affairs), as well as individual and collective narcissism, understood as a belief in the own or group\u2019s uniqueness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using such strategies \u2013 which, of course, goes on unconsciously \u2013 allows the person to keep up a high sense of self-esteem by blaming their failures on outside factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor example, a person may start saying to themselves: Everything is OK with me, but all these companies fail to recognize my uniqueness<\/em> or My skills are too high, which is why people are afraid to hire me, so as not to look average compared to me<\/em> or Polish candidates are underestimated because international corporations prefer to hire people from across the eastern border, who can be paid less <\/em>(an example of collective narcissism),\u201d explains Dr. Soral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prolonged unemployment affects not only the individual, but also their relationships with those around them. People who remain unemployed for a long time often experience social disengagement. Over time, their identification with their national group diminishes, leading to a feeling of isolation. Instead, collective narcissism increases, i.e., the defensive belief that your own group is unique but underappreciated by others. It can lead to increased hostility toward other social groups and foster the development of prejudice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magic and God<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Participants in the study were asked to what extent they agreed with statements such as \u201cThere are real cases of witchcraft\u201d or \u201cI believe that God actively intervenes in human life and world events,\u201d using a 5-item Likert scale (from 1 – strongly disagree to 5 – strongly agree). An increase in belief in magic was observed after the third month of unemployment. The increase stabilized only after a year of unemployment. In their final conclusions, Dr. Soral\u2019s team pointed out that these are insignificant changes bordering on statistical error. The same is true for belief in \u201cdivine intervention,\u201d which declined during the first year of unemployment, only to begin to rise slightly after that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, researchers concluded that prolonged unemployment was not associated with attempts to regain control over one’s life through increased belief in an intervening God or magic. According to the responses given in the surveys, however, other \u201cculprits\u201d were found to be responsible for the problems of the respondents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not me, it\u2019s them<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The long-term unemployed are more likely to blame external factors, such as government policy or the actions of large corporations, for their situation, while denying their own responsibility for it. According to Dr. Soral, this defense mechanism can lead to even greater alienation and deepening negative attitudes toward society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have noticed that the unemployed feel less connected to their national group than those who are employed. Therefore, we can assume that prolonged unemployment promotes social disengagement,\u201d explains Dr. Soral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unemployed may cease to care about participating in social life. They may be less willing to vote in elections, get involved in their neighborhood or other communities (e.g., parishes), participate in local development programs, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSocial engagement is generally relatively low in Poland, and alienation, which stems from a sense of lack of personal control, may be one of the causes or may contribute to this problem,\u201d adds Dr. Soral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-term unemployed are more likely to hold anti-democratic beliefs, and their support for radical ideologies grows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe unemployed may be more susceptible to the demagogic narratives of radical and\/or populist politicians. Thus, widespread unemployment may result in a shift away from liberal democracy and toward an authoritarian system,\u201d concludes the researcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research findings provide evidence that people who have been unemployed for a long time are more withdrawn than those who are employed. They are more apathetic, less willing to make efforts to regain control and actively shape their own future, and do not entrust their fate to paranormal phenomena in order to regain control over their own lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The text was originally published in Polish on the Serwis Naukowy UW website on January 21, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unemployment is a problem that affects not only your wallet, but also your mind. Long-term unemployment can lead to changes in the way we perceive ourselves and our surroundings. One of the first mechanisms to be disrupted is the sense of control over one\u2019s own life. Until now, scientists believed that as months of unemployment turned into years, unemployed people lost faith in their ability to shape their own destiny and began to believe in magic and superstition, divine intervention, and conspiracy theories. However, the latest research by Dr. Wiktor Soral of the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Warsaw shows completely new trends among the long-term unemployed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[1365,1391,1390,1387],"class_list":{"0":"post-8540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-psychology","8":"tag-faculty-of-psychology","9":"tag-society","10":"tag-unemployment","11":"tag-university-of-warsaw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8543,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8540\/revisions\/8543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serwisnaukowy.uw.edu.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}