Queensland researchers found a statistical link between manifestation beliefs and crypto ownership
A study by three researchers at the University of Queensland found that stronger belief in “manifestation” was associated with a higher likelihood of owning cryptocurrency, being a scam victim, and having experienced bankruptcy. Using a sample of 1,023 respondents, the paper introduced a Manifestation Scale and reported that each one-unit increase in the scale was associated with 1.33x higher odds of holding crypto, 1.28x higher odds of having given personal information or money to a scammer within the past five years, and 1.42x higher odds of having been bankrupt.
The same relationship did not appear in traditional stock ownership, which showed no significant change.
The paper used an 11-item questionnaire scored from 1 to 7
The study was written by Lucas J. Dixon, Matthew J. Hornsey and Nicole Hartley. It was published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Volume 51, Issue 1, under the title “The Secret” to Success? The Psychology of Belief in Manifestation.
Researchers surveyed 1,023 people with an 11-question scale. Respondents rated themselves from 1 to 7. One prompt stated, “Simply thinking about success makes success more likely to happen.” Another said, “I ask the universe or a higher power to bring success.” More than one-third of respondents agreed with these ideas to some degree.
The authors then compared those scores with respondents’ financial records.
What the headline numbers mean
The paper’s three main financial findings were framed as changes in odds for each one-unit increase in the Manifestation Scale. That means 1.33x does not mean a 133% increase. It means the odds were 33% higher for each additional point on the scale. The authors were not comparing one fixed group of “believers” against another fixed group of “non-believers.” They were describing a continuous statistical slope.
Crypto showed a significant relationship; stocks did not
The study intentionally used stock ownership as a comparison point. Participants were asked two separate questions: whether they currently held any cryptocurrency, and whether they had personally bought stocks outside retirement accounts.
The answers split. Crypto ownership had a significant association with manifestation scores; stock ownership did not. In the paper, cryptocurrency was treated as a high-volatility financial investment, while stocks served as a conventional benchmark. The authors said the difference was not about whether these respondents liked investing in general, but about a tilt toward the more volatile option.
Stronger overlap with intuitive decision-making
The same research also measured several psychological variables. The Manifestation Scale had a correlation of 0.36 with intuitive decision-making style and 0.25 with core self-evaluations. On the other side, it had a correlation of 0.02 with rational decision-making style and -0.04 with delay of gratification, both effectively showing no relationship in the data.
In the paper’s framing, belief in manifestation overlapped much more with intuition-driven decisions than with rational analysis.
People with higher scores saw themselves as more successful, but did not earn more
One of the more striking findings in the study was how respondents viewed themselves. People with higher manifestation scores were more likely to see themselves as successful, to report stronger ambitions for success, and to believe they were more likely to succeed in the future.
Yet in the first study, those same respondents did not have higher income or higher education levels than others. The researchers wrote plainly in their conclusion that manifestation beliefs appeared self-enhancing, while there was little evidence that they improved objective levels of success.
A third study tested expectations around unlikely achievements
In a third study, respondents were asked how long they thought it would take them to reach difficult goals such as earning $300,000 a year or building a social media following of 100,000 people. Participants with higher manifestation scores gave noticeably shorter timelines.
The paper said this kind of overconfidence could make people more likely to accept unrealistic or dishonest claims promoted in what it called the “success spirituality” space.
The survey also referenced four well-known manifestation promoters
The questionnaire included four public figures associated with manifestation-related ideas: The Secret author Rhonda Byrne, Think and Grow Rich author Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, and Oprah Winfrey. Each entry included a photo and a description of their work, and respondents were asked whether they had consumed their products.
The overlap between scale scores and consumption of those products was used as one way to validate the scale.
The scale was divided into “personal power” and “cosmic collaboration”
The paper also traced the broader lineage of these beliefs, linking them to prosperity theology in Pentecostal Christianity, then to Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking, The Secret in 2006, and manifestation coaches appearing on TikTok from 2022.
The Manifestation Scale itself was split into two subscales. “Personal power” covered six items focused on using positive self-talk and visualization to bring success closer. “Cosmic collaboration” covered five items focused on working with the universe or a higher power. Together they explained 73% of the variance, and the correlation between the two subscales was 0.71.
The score distribution also differed across the two parts. Average scores for the six personal power items ranged from 4.26 to 5.12, while the five cosmic collaboration items ranged from 3.25 to 3.94. The paper said this suggested that more people were willing to accept the idea that attitude can affect outcomes than the idea that the universe actively helps them.
The authors said the financial-risk effects were weak
The researchers were explicit that the associations in the financial-risk section were weak and should not be overstated. The paper reported serial correlations of 0.14 for crypto ownership, 0.13 for bankruptcy, and 0.09 for scam victimhood. By social science standards, these were small effect sizes.
So while the relationships were statistically significant, the study did not support a sweeping claim that believing in manifestation leads directly to bankruptcy. The authors also wrote that manifestation belief systems encourage positive attribution patterns, which may distort how believers explain their own wins and losses. The paper closed by inviting more research into manifestation beliefs and pseudoscience in the success industry, especially in related areas that deserve closer study.