Study finds: Those who subscribe to ‘manifesting’ trend at higher risk of bankruptcy

It’s the increasingly popular idea that we can “cosmically attract” success to ourselves.

But those who believe in the practice of “manifesting” are at greater risk of bankruptcy, a study suggests.

The researchers also found that they were more likely to be attracted to risky investments and believe they could achieve an unlikely level of success more quickly.

‘In our studies we define manifestation as the belief that if you send your desires to the universe through positive thoughts, visualization, or acting as if your goals have already come true – like writing a pretend check to yourself – the universe will deliver to you. what you want. desire,” said study author Lucas Dixon of the University of Queensland, Australia.

‘Protesters appear to be overly optimistic, believing that they are more likely to succeed in the future, in shorter time frames, which means they may overestimate the chances of success.

“Focusing on the positive aspects of one’s life, as manifestors often do, helps people feel good and be more resilient. “However, it can lead to downplaying negative but important signs of corporate fragility, for example rising debt.”

Believers “are more likely to feel like they have control over fairly uncontrollable aspects of their life, whether they are getting rich quick or becoming famous,” he added.

‘In business, this could lead to opportunity cost, where time is spent focusing on more uncontrollable long-term goals rather than controllable short-term goals in your business.

‘Or perhaps focus on more symbolic actions (e.g. visualizing success) rather than instrumental actions (e.g. managing finances, getting new clients, etc.’).

For the study, researchers measured the manifestation of beliefs of 375 people. They were asked to rate on a seven-point scale the extent to which they agreed with statements such as “I attract success into my life with the help of the universe or a higher power”; ‘my soul, spirit or higher self helps me attract success’; and “the universe or a higher power sends me people and events to help me achieve success.”

Their responses were then analyzed along with their finances.

“For every point that people scored higher on the manifestation scale, they were about 40% more likely to have experienced a bankruptcy and about 30% more likely to have investments in cryptocurrencies, although not more likely. having invested in stocks,” Dixon said.

“Given that the value of cryptocurrencies has a history of massive gains in short periods of time, we imagine this finding is related to the fact that protesters have a stronger belief in getting rich quick.”

Dixon said he was surprised by some of the findings, which are published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

“I think we expected to see an excess of optimism, given that this seems to be part of the belief system,” he said.

‘But some of the less obvious results, such as bankruptcy and the belief in getting rich quick, were surprising.

“While it is possible that a higher manifestation belief leads to these results, another possibility is that people develop a stronger belief in manifestation after having had experiences with get-rich-quick schemes or having been bankrupt.

“This is something we don’t know yet.”

Dixon said he was also surprised by how widespread belief in the rally seems to be. One in three of those surveyed had some degree of belief.

“This may be due to the growing popularity of books such as The Secret and Think and Grow Rich, but also the rise of influencers on social media,” he said.

“As of today, videos with the hashtag ‘demonstration’ have been viewed 42.8 billion times on TikTok.”