The present paper investigated the nature and structure of extra-terrestrial beliefs. Respondents completed a booklet containing items measuring belief in extra-terrestrial life, alien visitation, and paranormal belief (Revised Paranormal Belief Scale, R-PBS; and the Australian Sheep Goat Scale, ASGS). Responses were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA), and a three-factor structure emerged: alien visitation, belief in extra-terrestrial life, and the search for extra-terrestrials. Further analysis revealed that males scored higher than females on belief in extra-terrestrial life and the search for (...) extra-terrestrial life. No difference was observed for alien visitation. Correlational analysis found significant positive associations between each of the extra-terrestrial life factors and alien visitation. In addition to this, the extra-terrestrial life factors and alien visitation were found to correlate with overall paranormal belief (ASGS), and the two factors of the R-PBS (Traditional Paranormal Belief and New Age Philosophy). Alien Visitation was more strongly correlated with the paranormal belief measures than the extra-terrestrial belief factors; these were found to be negatively correlated with the paranormal belief measures when Alien Visitation was controlled for. These findings indicate that only more extreme Alien Visitation beliefs were associated with belief in the paranormal. Keywords: alien visitation—belief in extra-terrestrial life—search for extra-terrestrial life—paranormal belief. (shrink)

Rituals are able to transform ordinary objects into extraordinary objects. And while rituals typically do not cause physical changes, they may imbue objects with a particular specialness – a simple gold band may become a wedding ring, while an ordinary dessert may become a birthday cake. To treat such objects as if they were ordinary then becomes inappropriate. How does this transformation take place in the minds of observers, and how do we recognize it when we see it? Here, we (...) suggest that two under-examined elements of ritual need deeper consideration within the context of ritual cognition. We propose a fully integrated operational definition in which these two critical ritual elements – causal opacity and goal demotion – are included. In a pre-registered experiment one-hundred and one adults, in a 2 × 2 mixed-within participants design observed actions performed upon profane objects. These actions were either ordinary or ritualized, and were described as a blessing, a curse, or were not described at all. Contrary to established findings and pre-registered predictions, we found that ritualized actions alone are not enough to influence perceptions of, and attributions towards, objects, and that positive goal information are more behaviorally persuasive than negative information. However, we found that participants recalled ritualized action in greater detail and with more specificity than ordinary actions. In effect, we demonstrate that causal opacity and goal information interact to allow us to recognize a ritual as a ritual. (shrink)

This study assessed the extent to which within-individual variation in schizotypy and paranormal belief influenced performance on probabilistic reasoning tasks. A convenience sample of 725 non-clinical adults completed measures assessing schizotypy (Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences; O-Life brief), belief in the paranormal (Revised Paranormal Belief Scale; RPBS) and probabilistic reasoning (perception of randomness, conjunction fallacy, paranormal perception of randomness, and paranormal conjunction fallacy). Latent profile analysis (LPA) identified four distinct groups: class 1, low schizotypy and low paranormal belief (43.9% (...) of sample); class 2, moderate schizotypy and moderate paranormal belief (18.2%); class 3, moderate schizotypy (high cognitive disorganization) and low paranormal belief (29%); and class 4, moderate schizotypy and high paranormal belief (8.9%). Identification of homogeneous classes provided a nuanced understanding of the relative contribution of schizotypy and paranormal belief to differences in probabilistic reasoning performance. Multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that groups with lower levels of paranormal belief (classes 1 and 3) performed significantly better on perception of randomness, but not conjunction problems. Schizotypy had only a negligible effect on performance. Further analysis indicated that framing perception of randomness and conjunction problems in a paranormal context facilitated performance for all groups but class 4. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists have revealed systematic errors in human reasoning. There is disagreement about what these errors indicate about human rationality, but one upshot seems clear: human reasoning does not seem to fit traditional views of human rationality. This concern about rationality has made its way through various fields and has recently caught the attention of philosophers. The concern is that if philosophers are prone to systematic errors in reasoning, then the integrity of philosophy would be threatened. In this paper, I (...) present some of the more famous work in cognitive science that has marshaled this concern. Then I present reasons to think that those with training in philosophy will be less prone to certain systematic errors in reasoning. The suggestion is that if philosophers could be shown to be less prone to such errors, then the worries about the integrity of philosophy could be constrained. Then I present evidence that, according to performance on the CRT (Frederick 2005), those who have benefited from training and selection in philosophy are indeed less prone to one kind of systematic error: irrationally arbitrating between intuitive and reflective responses. Nonetheless, philosophers are not entirely immune to this systematic error, and their proclivity for this error is statistically related to their responses to a variety of philosophical questions. So, while the evidence herein puts constraints on the worries about the integrity of philosophy, it by no means eliminates these worries. The conclusion, then, is that the present evidence offers prima facie reasons to ascribe a mitigated privilege to philosophers' ability to rationally arbitrate between intuitive and reflective responses. (shrink)

We report the results of an empirical investigation of the extent to which supernatural believers endorse a porous conception of the mind, i.e., the belief that one’s thoughts can be directly perceived by others. We developed a porous theory of mind scale, tested its factor structure by using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and showed its relation with supernatural beliefs in three studies in the Netherlands and one study with North-American participants. We found that endorsement of a PToM is (...) positively related to paranormal beliefs. We also showed that the endorsement of a porous view of the mind differs in meaningful ways between people from different religious backgrounds. The finding that supernatural believers endorse a porous conception of the mind fits well with recent work in the field of the anthropology of religion and the psychology of paranormal beliefs. We propose that our PToM scale provides a parsimonious measurement tool that circumvents socially desirable responding, while providing direct insight in the endorsement of paranormal beliefs. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo analiza el experimento de A. Pennycook et al., a fin de ampliar el alcance de sus hipótesis y las estrategias para contrastarlas, de modo que contemplen no solo factores cognitivos, sino también aspectos pragmáticos y contextuales implicados en la receptividad al bullshit. Se utiliza el experimento como ejemplo de las asunciones normativas implícitas en las investigaciones descriptivas de psicología y filosofía experimental, ya que, al contrastar hipótesis sobre las intuiciones filosóficas de sentido común, los investigadores parten de (...) supuestos axiológicos sobre la corrección de las respuestas y la fiabilidad de los procesos cognitivos implicados. ABSTRACT The article analyzes the experiment carried out by A. Pennycook et al., in order to expand the scope of its hypotheses and the strategies to contrast them, in such a way that, beyond cognitive contexts, they also take into account the pragmatic and contextual aspects involved in bullshit receptivity. The experiment is used as an example of the normative assumptions implicit in the descriptive research projects of experimental psychology and philosophy, given that when researchers contrast hypotheses regarding common sense philosophical intuitions, they start out from axiological assumptions with respect to the correction of answers and the reliability of the cognitive process involved. (shrink)

Haunted People Syndrome denotes individuals who recurrently report various “supernatural” encounters in everyday settings ostensibly due to heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities to dis-ease states, which are contextualized by paranormal beliefs and reinforced by perceptual contagion effects. This view helps to explain why these anomalous experiences often appear to be idioms of stress or trauma. We tested the validity and practical utility of the HP-S concept in an empirical study of an active and reportedly intense ghostly episode that was a clinical referral. (...) The case centered on the life story of the primary percipient, a retired female healthcare worker. Secondary percipients included her husband and adult daughter, all of whom reported an array of benign and threatening anomalies across five successive residences. Guided by prior research, we administered the family online measures of transliminality, sensory-processing sensitivity, paranormal belief, locus of control, desirability for control, and a standardized checklist of haunt-type phenomena. The primary percipient also completed a measure of adverse childhood events and supplied an event diary of her anomalous experiences. We found reasonably consistent support for HP-S from a set of quantitative observations that compared five proposed syndrome features against the family members’ psychometric profiles and the structure and contents of their anomalous experiences. Specifically, the reported anomalies both correlated with the family’s scores on transliminality and paranormal belief, as well as elicited attributions and reaction patterns aligned with threat detection. There was also some evidence of perceptual congruency among the family members’ anomalous experiences. Putative psi cannot be ruled out, but we conclude that the family’s ordeal fundamentally involved the symptoms and manifestations of thin mental boundary functioning in the face of unfavorable circumstances or overstimulating environments and subsequently acerbated by poor emotion regulation, histrionic and catastrophizing reactions, and active confirmation biases. (shrink)

A consistent finding reported in the literature is that epistemically suspect beliefs are less frequently endorsed by individuals with a greater tendency to think analytically. However, these results have been observed predominantly in Western participants. In the present work, we explore various individual differences known to predict epistemically suspect beliefs across both Western and Eastern cultures. Across four studies with Japanese and Western individuals, we find that the association between thinking style and beliefs varied as a function of culture. Specifically, (...) while Westerners who scored higher on measures of Type-2 analytic thinking tended to endorse epistemically suspect beliefs less, this association was not observed in Japanese samples, suggesting that the often-observed negative association between analytic thinking and epistemically suspect beliefs may be exclusive to Western individuals. Additionally, we demonstrate that a tendency to think holistically is positively associated with the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs within both samples. Overall, we discuss how various individual differences predict the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs across cultures. (shrink)

Blackmore and Rose reported an experiment designed to examine the operation of psi when reality and imagination were confused. The original experiment used a situation in which participants were encouraged to generate false memories of common household objects. The topic of false memory is highly relevant to parapsychologists and psychical researchers in two ways. First, it may be the case that psi lurks in this borderline between reality and imagination. There are abundant examples of phenomena that appear to utilise such (...) a confusion: spontaneous cases, which often involve “realistic dreams,” lucid dreams, false awakenings, hypnagogic images, waking imagery, and sleep paralysis; and states in which reality and imagination are often confused. The occult traditions, for example, shamanistic traditions that entail the use of drugs and sensory deprivation to induce altered states of consciousness in which imagery is enhanced, and experienced journeys are interpreted as real excursions. Finally, laboratory psi techniques, for example, the use of hypnosis or encouraging imagery to arise unbidden, can also be thought of as utilising this kind of confusion. Alternatively, confusions between reality and imagination can represent a serious problem for parapsychologists and psychical researchers who often have to rely on eyewitness reports of spontaneous, ostensibly psychic, or paranormal events. The fact that the investigation of. (shrink)

Paranormal beliefs (PBs), such as the belief in the soul, or in extrasensory perception, are common in the general population. While there is information regarding what these beliefs correlate with (e.g., cognitive biases, personality styles), there is little information regarding the causal direction between these beliefs and their correlates. To investigate the formation of beliefs, we use an experimental design, in which PBs and belief-associated cognitive biases are assessed before and after a central event: a magic performance (see also Mohr (...) et al., 2018 ). In the current paper, we report a series of studies investigating the “paranormal potential” of magic performances (Study 1, N = 49; Study 2, N = 89; Study 3, N = 123). We investigated (i) which magic performances resulted in paranormal explanations, and (ii) whether PBs and a belief-associated cognitive bias (i.e., repetition avoidance) became enhanced after the performance. Repetition avoidance was assessed using a random number generation task. After the performance, participants rated to what extent the magic performance could be explained in psychic (paranormal), conjuring, or religious terms. We found that conjuring explanations were negatively associated with religious and psychic explanations, whereas religious and psychic explanations were positively associated. Enhanced repetition avoidance correlated with higher PBs ahead of the performance. We also observed a significant increase in psychic explanations and a drop in conjuring explanations when performances involved powerful psychic routines (e.g., the performer contacted the dead). While the experimentally induced enhancement of psychic explanations is promising, future studies should account for potential variables that might explain absent framing and before–after effects (e.g., emotion, attention). Such effects are essential to understand the formation and manipulation of belief. (shrink)

Previous empirical studies concerned with the association between paranormal beliefs and conventional religiosity have produced conflicting evidence. Drawing on Rice's distinction between classic paranormal beliefs and religious paranormal beliefs, the present study proposed a modified form of the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale to produce separate scores for these two forms of paranormal belief, styled ‘religious paranormal beliefs’ and ‘classic paranormal beliefs’. Data provided by a sample of 143 undergraduate students in Northern Ireland and Wales, who completed the Francis Scale (...) of Attitude toward Christianity alongside the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Belief Scale, demonstrated that conventional religiosity is positively correlated with religious paranormal beliefs, but independent of classic paranormal beliefs. These findings provide a clear framework within which previous conflicting evidence can be interpreted. It is recommended that future research should distinguish clearly between these two forms of paranormal beliefs and that the Tobacyk Revised Paranormal Beliefs Scale should be routinely modified to detach the four religious paranormal belief items from the total scale score. (shrink)

This study investigated relationships between inter-class variations in paranormal experience and executive functions. A sample of 516 adults completed self-report measures assessing personal encounter-based paranormal occurrences, executive functions together with Emotion Regulation and Belief in the Paranormal. Paranormal belief served as a measure of convergent validity for experience-based phenomena. Latent profile analysis combined experience-based indices into four classes based on sample subpopulation scores. Multivariate analysis of variance then examined interclass differences. Results revealed that breadth of paranormal experience was associated with (...) higher levels of executive functioning difficulties for General Executive Function, Working Memory, Decision Making, and Belief in the Paranormal. On the Everyday Memory Questionnaire, scores differed on Attention Tracking and Factor 3, but not Retrieval. In the case of the Emotion Regulation Scale, class scores varied on Expressive Suppression, however, no difference was evident on Cognitive Reappraisal. Overall, inter-class comparisons identified subtle differences in executive functions related to experience. Since the present study was exploratory, sampled only a limited subset of executive functions, and used subjective, self-report measures, further research is necessary to confirm these outcomes. This should employ objective tests and include a broader range of executive functions. (shrink)

In this study, we explore the relation between scientific literacy and unwarranted beliefs. The results show heterogeneous interactions between six constructs: conspiracy theories poorly interact with scientific literacy; there are major differences between attitudinal and practical dimensions of critical thinking; paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs show similar associations ; and, only scientific knowledge interacts with other predictor of unwarranted beliefs, such as ontological confusions. These results reveal a limited impact: science educators must take into account the complex interactions between the dimensions (...) of scientific literacy and different types of unwarranted beliefs to improve pedagogical strategies. (shrink)

IntroductionAlthough the topic of consciousness is both mysterious and controversial, psychedelic drugs are popularly believed to provide unique insights into the nature of consciousness despite a lack of empirical evidence.MethodsThis study addresses the question of whether psychedelics change the attribution of consciousness to a range of living and non-living entities. A survey was conducted in 1,606 respondents who endorsed a belief changing psychedelic experience.ResultsParticipants rated their attributions of consciousness to a range of living and non-living entities before and after their (...) psychedelic experience. Superstitious beliefs and belief in freewill were also assessed. From before the experience to after, there were large increases in attribution of consciousness to various entities including non-human primates, quadrupeds, insects, fungi, plants, inanimate natural objects, and inanimate manmade objects. Higher ratings of mystical experience were associated with greater increases in the attribution of consciousness. Moreover, the increased attributions of consciousness did not decrease in those who completed the survey years after the psychedelic experience. In contrast to attributions of consciousness, beliefs in freewill and superstitions did not change. Notably, all findings were similar when restricted to individuals reporting on their first psychedelic experience.DiscussionThis study demonstrates that, among people who reported belief-changing psychedelic experiences, attribution of consciousness to various entities increases. Future prospective psychedelic drug administration studies that control for expectancies are needed. (shrink)

Adults identified as believers and sceptics based on self-reports from a supernatural beliefs scale were assessed on two measures of inhibition; the Stroop Color‐Word Task and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Both groups were of equal educational status and background. However, believers made significantly more errors than sceptics on all subscales of the WCST but were equivalent in performance on the Stroop measure. This finding is consistent with the idea that supernatural beliefs in adults are related to some types of (...) inhibitory control. (shrink)

El marco teórico desde el cual se llevan a cabo investigaciones acerca de la pseudociencia es deficiente, dado que suele incluir otros tipos de creencias carentes de garantía epistémica. En este artículo, se repasarán los mecanismos de explotación de la autoridad científica por parte de la pseudociencia, desarrollando así un marco psicocognitivo más refinado para caracterizar el fenómeno. Se analizará la psicología del engaño pseudocientífico, las raíces cognitivas que posibilitan la epidemiología de este tipo de ideas y sus mecanismos de (...) autolegitimación, como la superioridad dialéctica, el falso apoyo externo o la falsa superioridad ética y/o epistemológica. (shrink)

This study examined variations in well-being as a function of the interaction between paranormal belief and psychopathology-related constructs. A United Kingdom-based, general sample of 4,402 respondents completed self-report measures assessing paranormal belief, psychopathology, and well-being. Latent profile analysis identified four distinct sub-groups: Profile 1, high Paranormal Belief and Psychopathology ; Profile 2, high Paranormal Belief and Unusual Experiences; moderate Psychopathology ; Profile 3, moderate Paranormal Belief and Psychopathology ; and Profile 4, low Paranormal Belief and Psychopathology. Multivariate analysis of variance (...) found that sub-groups with higher psychopathology scores reported lower well-being. Higher Paranormal Belief, however, was not necessarily associated with lower psychological adjustment and reduced well-being. These outcomes indicated that belief in the paranormal is not necessarily non-adaptive, and that further research is required to identify the conditions under which belief in the paranormal is maladaptive. (shrink)

Critical thinking skills are often assessed via student beliefs in non-scientific ways of thinking,. Courses aimed at reducing such beliefs have been studied in the STEM fields with the most successful focusing on skeptical thinking. However, critical thinking is not unique to the sciences; it is crucial in the humanities and to historical thinking and analysis. We investigated the effects of a history course on epistemically unwarranted beliefs in two class sections. Beliefs were measured pre- and post-semester. Beliefs declined for (...) history students compared to a control class and the effect was strongest for the honors section. This study provides evidence that a humanities education engenders critical thinking. Further, there may be individual differences in ability or preparedness in developing such skills, suggesting different foci for critical thinking coursework. (shrink)

The present paper examined relationships between schizotypy (measured by the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experience; O-LIFE scale brief), belief in the paranormal (assessed via the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale; RPBS) and proneness to statistical bias (i.e., perception of randomness and susceptibility to conjunction fallacy). Participants were 254 volunteers recruited via convenience sampling. Probabilistic reasoning problems appeared framed within both standard and paranormal contexts. Analysis revealed positive correlations between the Unusual Experience (UnExp) subscale of O-LIFE and paranormal belief measures [RPBS (...) full scale, traditional paranormal beliefs (TPB) and new age philosophy]. Performance on standard problems correlated negatively with UnExp and belief in the paranormal (particularly the TPB dimension of the RPBS). Consideration of specific problem types revealed that perception of randomness associated more strongly with belief in the paranormal than conjunction; both problem types related similarly to UnExp. Structural equation modeling specified that belief in the paranormal mediated the indirect relationship between UnExp and statistical bias. For problems presented in a paranormal context a framing effect occurred. Whilst UnExp correlated positively with conjunction proneness (controlling for perception of randomness), there was no association between UnExp and perception of randomness (controlling for conjunction). (shrink)

Belief in astrology remains strong even today, and one of the explanations why some people endorse paranormal explanations is the individual differences in analytical thinking. Therefore, the main aim of this paper was to determine the effects of priming an analytical or intuitive thinking style on the credulity of participants. In two experiments (N= 965), analytic thinking was induced and the source of fake profile (astrological reading vs. psychological testing) was manipulated and participants’ prior paranormal beliefs, anomalous explanation, cognitive reflection, (...) and depression were measured. Although analytic thinking was proved to be hard to induce experimentally, the results showed that analytic thinking predicts credulity and belief in the paranormal was linked with experiencing more anomalous experiences and more paranormal explanations. The more people were able to think analytically, the less credulous they were as reflected in the lower acceptance of fake profile as accurate. (shrink)

The California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory is a commonly used tool for measuring critical thinking dispositions. However, research on the efficacy of the CCTDI in predicting good thinking about students’ own deeply held beliefs is scant. In this paper we report on preliminary results from our ongoing study designed to gauge the usefulness of the CCTDI in this context.

The present pilot study investigates the relationships between scientific ignorance and several individual attitudes, personality traits and cultural behaviors. Starting from well-established practices and standards of psychometric analysis, our work has produced a complex cross-scalar survey of scientific competency between students attending an art and multimedia high school. Data are classified through six scales about self-esteem, scientific attitudes, paranormal beliefs, scientific competency, social desirability and personality traits. The results are considered in relation to three hypotheses: the correlation between positive scientific (...) attitude and lower paranormal beliefs plus higher scientific competencies; the scientific attitude is enhanced by cultural and scientific activities and negatively related to superstition; people who show specific personality traits have higher positive attitude and interest toward science, while other traits are more related to superstitious beliefs. The outcome of our poll confirms our hypotheses and shows additional traits correlations. (shrink)

The current study replicated an Owen & Sparrow (1976) genre séance study to examine the relationships between transliminality, psychokinesis (PK), subjective experiences, contagion effects, and variations in electro-magnetic field activity. Eleven participants in two series of mock séance sessions were observed and recorded for anomalous, subjective and somatic experiences. No verifiable PK occurred, but relationships were found between geo-magnetic and electro-magnetic field activity as well as subjective anomalous experiences. Electro-magnetic fields were found to significantly vary across sessions. Transliminality and related (...) measures were not related to subjective reports of external anomalous phenomena. Implications of electro-magnetic and geomagnetic fields associated with subjective anomalous somatic reports and future research are discussed. (shrink)

Several measures of paranormal belief have been developed and employed by researchers of published work. Despite this, there is considerable debate about the nature and structure of paranormal belief. Particularly, authors remain uncertain about which belief subsets should be included within paranormal scales. The current study extended existing research by exploring shared variance across different paranormal measures. An extensive literature review was undertaken in order to identify measures of paranormal belief. The independent scale items were then combined to produce a (...) 124item composite measure. This was distributed in paper form and electronically via the Internet. Respondents were recruited face to face, by email, and by post. In total, 1,481 respondents completed the measure: 548 the paper version and 933 online. Exploratory factor analysis (principal components analysis) was performed, and a nine-factor structure emerged. This contained item clusters measuring belief in: Hauntings, Other Life, Superstition, Religious Belief, Alien Visitation, Extrasensory Perception (ESP), Psychokinesis (PK), Astrology, and Witchcraft. Keywords: paranormal beliefs—Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS)—R-PBS— Paranormal Short Inventory (PSI) —Australian Sheep–Goat Scale (ASGS)—Anomalous Experiences Inventory (AEI). (shrink)