Why do people seemingly find it easy to believe in psychic phenomena?
According to the cognitive differences’ hypothesis, individual differences in the way people process information about the world can contribute to the creation of psychic beliefs, such as variations in memory accuracy (e.g., selectively remembering a fortune teller’s correct predictions) or analytical thinking (e.g., relying on intuition rather than scrutinising evidence) Gray & Gallo, (2016).
With this assertion in mind, is it possible that people find it easy to believe psychic phenomena exists as a way of hoping that there is more to life than what they are currently experiencing; monotony, living on autopilot or dealing with grief, loss and solitude?
The memory distortion hypothesis (Blackmore, 1992) indicates that individuals are likely to selectively recall information that supports their psychic beliefs. For example, creating a reality that correlates with a clairvoyant reading almost as a way of attempting to make it “fit” with reading.
Whilst there are limitations to studies connected to memory distortion and belief in psychic phenomena, McNally et al., (2002) examined false memory creation in people who reported having memories of traumatic events that are unlikely to have occurred for instance, abduction by space aliens. The participants who recovered and repressed memories of alien abduction were more susceptible than control participants to exhibit false recall and recognition.
The memory distortion hypothesis findings may provide an explanation as to why some people are likely to believe in psychic phenomena than others.
McNally et al., (2002) denotes participants with depressive symptoms were significant predictors of false recall and recognition, which can direct us to explore this further as a way of understanding why some people are more likely than others to believe in psychic phenomena.
There may be occasions where an individual feels a sense of despair and desperately seeks to find something “to believe in”. The Barnum Effect (1949) also known as the Forer Effect, is the psychological phenomenon that explains why individuals believe in generalised personality descriptions as if they are accurate descriptions of their unique personality.
Perhaps those found with depressive symptoms as McNally et al., (2002) highlights are willing to focus on constructive descriptions of themselves as a form of positive reinforcement and as a coping mechanism towards combating their depression.
The misattribution hypothesis (Wiseman and Watt, 2006) discusses the idea that people who believe in psychic ability are more likely to have specific psychological traits that would cause them to misconstrue an otherwise “regular” event to have paranormal causes. The hypothesis concludes mostly that misattributing valid explanations to an event is due to poor cognitive abilities. However, the research has limitations due to general information used in the study such as participants’ IQ scores which do not directly test the hypothesis that believers are less able than disbelievers to evaluate evidence of supposed psychic ability.
Though we can ascertain some plausible explanation for why some may be more inclined to believe in psychic phenomena than others, having outlined some thought-provoking perspectives, future research of interest could explore whether belief in psychic phenomena provides greater life satisfaction for some.
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References
Fichten, C. S., & Sunerton, B., (1983) Popular Horoscopes and the “Barnum Effect”, The Journal of Psychology, 114:1, 123-134, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.1983.9915405
Gray, S.J., Gallo, D.A. Paranormal psychic believers and skeptics: a large-scale test of the cognitive differences hypothesis. Mem Cogn 44, 242–261 (2016). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-015-0563-x