The Coexistence of Different Explanatory Models of Misfortune: A Case from Serbia

• Authors: Danijela Jerotijević
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper discusses two concepts of supernatural explanations of misfortune and how they co-exist in a particular socio-cultural environment. The author argues that these two concepts are used differently depending on the position of the person evaluating them. While the concept of supernatural harm is usually used in “first person” narratives, the concept of God’s punishment is used by community members as a warning to all wrongdoers and cheats. Searching for the external source of problems is important for personal self-esteem, while identifying an internal cause and its consequence (God’s punishment as the consequence of someone’s “sins”) is part of “immanent justice” narratives. The central claim is based on attribution theory, but the study also looks at cognitive theories of supernatural beliefs.

Keywords

EN

supernatural harm; supernatural punishment; attribution theory; immanent justice; explanatory framework.

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 261-275

Dates

published

2015-07-01

online

2015-07-01

Contributors

author

Danijela Jerotijević

• Institute of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynské luhy 4, 821 05 Bratislava, Slovakia

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/humaff-2015-0022