Factors Underlying Anomalous Experience
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- Created on: 24-10-13 20:39
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- Factors Underlying Anomalous Experience
- Cognitive
- Wiseman and Watt (2006) listed cognitive processes underlying paranormal beliefs.
- General cognitive ability
- lower intelligence more likely to be believers.
- Not always confirmed in all studies, e.g. Jones et al. (1977) found complete opposite.
- lower intelligence more likely to be believers.
- Finding links between distantly related materials.
- May underlie creativity (Thalbourne, 1998)
- Probability misjudgement
- underestimating probability that events happen by chance.
- May be linked to low cognitive ability.
- Fantasy proneness
- Becoming so deeply absorbed in fantasy to believe it real.
- Personality
- Russell and Jones (1980) - paranormal beliefs may satisfy psychological need, including neuroticism, schizotypy and extraversion.
- Belief in paranormal linked to narcissism, but link not found with other disorders.
- Auton et al. (2003) - found link between self-actualisation and paranormal belief.
- locus of control - depends on type of paranormal belief, some correlate positively with externality, others negatively.
- Biological
- Right hemisphere over-activation (Pizzagalli et al., 2000)
- Right hemisphere dominance association requires intuitive leap.
- High levels of dopamine - demonstrated in Brugger et al. (2000) study.
- link with dopamine levels has not been replicated.
- Belief in paranormal may be inherited (e.g. Koenig et al., 2005).
- Right hemisphere over-activation (Pizzagalli et al., 2000)
- Paranormal beliefs
- Belief in paranormal is adaptive because less questioning > more productivity > more reproductive success.
- Paranormal beliefs related to psychological needs.
- Defence mechanism
- Anxious individuals can reduce uncertainty.
- Childhood experiences create need for greater sense of control provided by paranormal beliefs.
- Abuse in childhood may lead to fantasy proneness.
- Support for 'need for control' explanation obtained during Gulf war.
- Evolutionary approach ignores possibility that paranormal abilities may confer advantages on those who possess them.
- Anomalous experiences are more likely to be reported as negative than positive.
- Related beliefs
- Religiosity related to paranormal beliefs.
- Religion is response to emotional conflicts, rituals allow control over unconscious conflicts.
- Religion provides answers to many questions that science cannot explain.
- Dawkins (1997) - science is not a matter of faith, it requires evidence and replication of that evidence.
- Some studies have found no correlation between religiosity and paranormal belief.
- Religion not adaptive, but by-product of other mental faculties.
- Credulity - adaptive among ancestors to accept explanations in order to avoid dangerous situations.
- Spiritual healing relies on the 'placebo effect'.
- Religiosity related to paranormal beliefs.
- Deception
- Function of paranormal different for those who believe and those in power.
- Ability to manipulate others through deception has adaptive advantage.
- Some examples of deception are harmless, others are not (Wiseman, 1997).
- Ability to deceive someone else is necessary for 'Theory of Mind'.
- Deception detection greater on radio than TV (Wiseman, 1995).
- Self-deception
- Denying or rationalising away opposing evidence and argument.
- May occur because of emotional attachment to beliefs. Difficult to hold contradictory results so one conscious other unconscious.
- Selective advantage of self-deception is that makes individual better at deceiving others.
- Self-deception can explain why some researchers are able to believe their own lies.
- Some evidence for belief in paranormal being linked to repressed thoughts, but evidence not consistent.
- Positive aspect of human behaviour as such beliefs cheer people up.
- Superstition
- Skinner (1947) - superstitions develop when accidental stimulus-response link is learned.
- Staddon and Simmelhag (1971) - repeated Skinner's experiment and found 'superstitious' behaviours unrelated to food reward.
- Causal thinking evolved because helps individuals understand, predict and control their environments.
- Type 1 errors of causal thinking tolerated in order to avoid Type 2 errors.
- Some superstitions are culture wide, adopted because of perceived sense of control.
- Skinner (1947) - superstitions develop when accidental stimulus-response link is learned.
- Coincidence
- If two things happen at the same time, one is assumed to have caused the other.
- Those underestimating statistical likelihood on probability judgement tasks have increased desire for causal explanations for coincidences.
- Explanations for coincidence give sense of order in world and increase feelings of control.
- Whitson and Galinsky (2008) - reduced sense of control did lead people to form illusory correlations.
- Probability misjudgements can alternatively be explained in terms of failing to understand heuristics such as representativeness.
- Cultural significance
- Imagination - development of 'transcendental social', which unites social groups.
- Religion important because increases social bonding and group behaviour.
- Religion important in maintaining moral behaviour.
- Recent views suggest natural selection takes place at individual and group levels.
- Marx (1843) - religion is a social institution to maintain culture.
- Cognitive
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