A new psychological study has addressed centuries-old questions about how and why supernatural beings are worshipped.

The «Mickey Mouse problem» commonly referenced in religious psychology refers to the difficulty in predicting which supernatural beings are capable of eliciting belief and religious devotion.

Why, for example, don’t fictional characters such as Mickey Mouse achieve the same belief and devotion as society’s more traditional religious icons?

In research published in the journal PLOS ONE, lead author Dr Thomas Swan has developed a god template that distinguishes such religious and secular supernatural beings by exploring the attributes people associate with each.

The study asked just over three hundred participants to invent a religious or a fictional being and assign them five supernatural abilities.

Participants assigned religious beings a higher proportion of mind-based abilities, such as mindreading or omniscience, that defy typical expectations about what minds can do.

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