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Lecture 8: Cognitive Factors Underlying Paranormal Belief

One of every four Americans believes in ghosts. One of every four Americans believe they have had a telepathic experience. One in six Americans have felt that they have been in touch with someone who had died. One in ten claim to have seen or been in the presence of a ghost. More than half believe i

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Lecture 8: Cognitive Factors Underlying Paranormal Belief

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    1. Lecture 8: Cognitive Factors Underlying Paranormal Belief 1. Introduction 2. Review of relevant cognitive factors 3. Conclusion

    2. One of every four Americans believes in ghosts

    3. One of every four Americans believe they have had a telepathic experience

    4. One in six Americans have felt that they have been in touch with someone who had died

    5. One in ten claim to have seen or been in the presence of a ghost

    6. More than half believe in the Devil, and one in ten claimed to have talked to the Devil

    7. One in seven say they have personally seen a UFO

    8. Three in four read their horoscopes in the newspaper, and one in four say they believe in astrology

    9. Opinion Poll Data, Daily Mail, 2/2/98 64% believe that some people have powers that cannot be explained by science 63% believe in God 52% believe in life after death 49% believe in ghosts 49% believe in precognitive dreams 49% believe in heaven (only 28% believe in hell!) 47% believe in thought reading 41% believe in communication with the dead 34% believe in psychokinesis 26% believe in angels 25% believe in reincarnation

    10. Anomalistic Psychology Anomalistic psychology may be defined as the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, including (but not restricted to) those which are often labelled paranormal. It is directed towards understanding bizarre experiences that many people have without assuming a priori that there is anything paranormal involved. It entails attempting to explain paranormal and related beliefs and ostensibly paranormal experiences in terms of known (or knowable) psychological and physical factors.

    11. Illusion of Control (Langer, 1975) a tendency for people to perceive a random process as being potentially under their control, which is increased if the situation seems to incorporate elements of skill. Cf. New Hampshire Lottery (1964) with New Jersey Lottery (1971) ESP: Ayeroff & Abelson (1976) PK: Benassi, Sweeney & Drevno (1979) Coin-tossing: Blackmore & Troscianko (1985) PK: Brugger, Regard & Landis (1991)

    12. Poor Estimation of Probabilities The Birthday Problem: How many people would you need to have at a party to have a 50:50 chance that two of them share the same birthday (ignoring year)? 23

    13. Precognitive Dreams (1) Dreams will come true purely on the basis of coincidental matches between dream events and future events (Paulos, 1988) If we label a dream as apparently precognitive if chances of it coming true are less than 1 in 10,000 and assume each person remembers one dream per night ...

    14. Precognitive Dreams (2) over a full year, 96.42% of the population will not have such a dream BUT around 3.6% of the population WILL! Thats 9 million people in the US alone. In fact, additional non-paranormal factors will lead to even greater numbers

    15. Probability Estimation Blackmore & Troscianko (1985) found some significant differences between believers and non-believers Other studies have failed to do so (e.g., Mathews & Blackmore, 1995; Blackmore, 1997; Blackmore, Galaud & Walker, 1994) Musch & Ehrenberg (2002) did find correlation but claimed it reflected general intelligence (Irwins reviews cast doubt on this)

    16. Poor Concept of Randomness Would lead to a tendency to read significance into random patterns Subjective random number generation tasks (e.g., Wegenaar, 1972) Repetition avoidance in random strings (Brugger, Landis & Regard, 1990)

    17. Reasoning Errors Wierzbicki (1985) produced evidence suggesting that believers were poorer at syllogistic reasoning than non-believers Irwin (1991) unable to replicate suggested results might reflect experimenter/context effects Roberts & Seager (1999) did replicate

    18. Critical Thinking Alcock & Otis (1980) and Gray & Mill (1990) claimed believers were poorer at critical thinking Roe (1995) has criticised these studies on methodological grounds

    19. Confirmatory Bias Believers in astrology ignoring those parts of a reading that do not fit? Psychics ignoring failed predictions? Bias stronger in believers than disbelievers? Alcock & Otis (1980) Russell & Jones (1980) Jones & Russell (1980) French (1992) Roe (1985)

    20. Lack of Knowledge of Conjuring Techniques Singer & Benassi (1981) Wiseman & Morris (1995) Wiseman, Smith & Wiseman (1995; following Besterman, 1932)

    21. Population Sterotypes Marks (2000; after Marks & Kammann, 1980) Lund (1939) star is favourite response using Zener cards Rigby (1989) French (1992)

    22. Perceptual Biases Blackmoore & Moore (1994) Brugger et al. (1993)

    23. Lack of Knowledge of Cold Reading & the Barnum Effect Cold reading a technique that can be used to give complete strangers the impression that you know all about them (Hyman, 1977; Dutton, 1998; Roe, 1995) The Barnum Effect one aspect of cold reading, relying on the fact that people often accept vague, general and ambiguous statements as descriptive of their own unique personalities (Dickson & Kelly, 1985; Furnham & Schofield, 1987; Snyder, Shenkel, & Lowery, 1977)

    24. Subjective Validation This occurs when two unrelated events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectancy, or hypothesis demands or requires a relationship" (Marks, 2000, p. 41).

    25. Electronic Voice Phenomenon It is claimed (e.g., Raudive, 1971) that by leaving a tape-recorder in record mode or by recording from a radio set between stations, messages from the spirit realm can be recorded Interpretation of the vague sounds recorded is often entirely subjective (Smith, 1972; Ellis, 1975)

    26. Examples of EVP (1) The coward Were sorry Get out, get out, get out of my house

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