The study by the University of Texas contradicts the common assumption that supernatural beliefs dissipate with age and knowledge.
"As children assimilate cultural concepts into their intuitive belief systems - from God to atoms to evolution - they engage in coexistence thinking," said Cristine Legare, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas.
"When they merge supernatural and scientific explanations, they integrate them in a variety of predictable and universal ways," said Legare, who led the study.
Legare and her colleagues reviewed more than 30 studies on how people aged five to 75 years from various countries reason with three major existential questions: the origin of life, illness and death.
They also conducted a study with 366 respondents in South Africa, where medical and traditional healing practices are both widely available, the journal "Child Development" reported.
Legare presented the respondents with a variety of stories about people who had AIDS. They were then asked to endorse or reject several biological and supernatural explanations for why the characters in the stories contracted the virus, a University statement said.
According to the findings, participants of all age groups agreed with biological explanations for at least one event. Yet supernatural explanations such as witchcraft were also frequently supported among children aged five and above and universally among adults.
Among adults, only 26 per cent believed that illness could be caused by either biology or witchcraft, and 38 per cent combined biological and scientific explanations into one theory.
However, 57 per cent combined both witchcraft and biological explanations.
"The findings show that supernatural explanations for topics of core concern to humans are pervasive across cultures," Legare said.
