The psychology of paranormal beliefs
@article{Marks2005ThePO, title={The psychology of paranormal beliefs}, author={David F. Marks}, journal={Experientia}, year={2005}, volume={44}, pages={332-337} }
Investigation of paranormal claims has failed to find any repeatable paranormal phenomena, yet beliefs in such phenomena are extemely prevalent. Some of the psychological mechanisms which support these beliefs are described. Mental imagery, subjective validation, coincidence, hidden causes, and fraud all contributeto the folklore in this field. Magical thinking is as evident today as it ever has been. Recent research suggests that increased skepticism concerning paranormal claims can result…
21 Citations
Cognitive and psychological mediators of anxiety: Evidence from a study of paranormal belief and perceived childhood control.
- Psychology
- 2007
Debunking and the Psychology of Error: A Historical Analysis of Psychological Matters
- Psychology
- 2010
The psychology of the paranormal has always reflected wider themes about the nature and status of psychology. This article, in examining these themes, seeks to show how qualitative research in the…
Extraordinary Beliefs: A Historical Approach to a Psychological Problem
- Philosophy, Psychology
- 2013
1. Introduction 2. The making of the extraordinary 3. The making of mesmeric phenomena 4. The making of spiritualist phenomena 5. The making of psychic phenomena 6. The making of paranormal phenomena…
How convenient! The epistemic rationale of self-validating belief systems
- Psychology, Philosophy
- 2012
This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems and the recurrence of “epistemic defense mechanisms” and “immunizing strategies” across widely different domains of…
Loss of Control Increases Belief in Precognition and Belief in Precognition Increases Control
- PsychologyPloS one
- 2013
It is argued that believing the future is predictable increases one’s own perceived ability to exert control over future events, and belief in precognition should be particularly strong when people most desire control, when they lack it.
Pseudoscientific beliefs and psychopathological risks increase after COVID-19 social quarantine
- PsychologyGlobalization and Health
- 2020
Examination of the psychological effects of social quarantine on the psychotic phenotype and pseudoscientific beliefs-experiences of the general nonclinical population indicates that perceptual disturbances, subclinical psychotic symptoms and beliefs in the pseudoscience have increased.
Belief in the paranormal and modern health worries
- Medicine
- 2014
It has been found, that despite the improvement of the objective health indicators, people's subjective perception of health is that health indicators are getting worse (Barsky A.J., 1988), which is…
Evidence of the psychological effects of pseudoscientific information about COVID-19 on rural and urban populations
- PsychologyPsychiatry Research
- 2021
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 19 REFERENCES
Investigating the paranormal
- PhysicsNature
- 1987
Parascience has so far failed to produce a single repeatable finding and, until it does, will continue to be viewed as an incoherent collection of belief systems steeped in fantasy, illusion and…
Divided Consciousness: Multiple Controls In Human Thought And Action
- Psychology
- 1977
Divided Consciousness and the Concept of Dissociation Possession States, Fugues, and Multiple Personalities Hypnotic Age Regression Amnesia and Repression Dreams, Hallucinations, and Imagination…
ESP and parapsychology: A critical reevaluation
- Psychology
- 1980
It sounds good when knowing the esp and parapsychology a critical re evaluation in this website. This is one of the books that many people looking for. In the past, many people ask about this book as…
Statistical problems in ESP research.
- PsychologyScience
- 1978
In search of repeatable ESP experiments, modern investigators are using more complex targets, richer and freer responses, feedback, and more naturalistic conditions. This makes tractable statistical…
Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology
- Psychology
- 1932
Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of…
The Roots of Coincidence
- Physics
- 1972
' In two precognition experiments, the subjects were faced with four coloured lamps which were lit in random sequence. Their objective was to guess which of the four lamps would light up next and to…
Information transmission under conditions of sensory shielding
- PhilosophyNature
- 1974
WE present results of experiments suggesting the existence of one or more perceptual modalities through which individuals obtain information about their environment, although this information is not…
Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases
- EconomicsScience
- 1974
Three heuristics that are employed in making judgements under uncertainty are described: representativeness, availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development.