A ‘Boundary Looseness’ Account
1of Paranormal Beliefs
2Suzanne Hoogeveen
3 Student number: 11120835 4Supervisor: Dr. Ryan McKay Co-assessor: Dr. Bastiaan Rutjens
5
Royal Holloway University of London University of Amsterdam
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Literature thesis submitted in fulfillment of the
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requirements for the degree of Master of Science in
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Brain and Cognitive Sciences
9
University of Amsterdam
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February 1st, 2018
biases, such as agency detection biases, ontological confusions and the illu-sion of control. This paper proposes that many of the documented biases largely arise from a shared underlying tendency to understand the world in a fluid, lenient, unconstrained and interconnected manner, an inclination re-ferred to as ‘boundary looseness’. Loose boundaries relate to (1) the nature of paranormal beliefs and (2) the evidence believers require to substantiate these beliefs and any knowledge in general. That is, core characteristics of paranormal beliefs rely on this boundary looseness, as it allows for the possibility of unmediated influence between distinct entities, for instance captured by the notion of a porous theory of mind and the blurring of on-tological categories as exemplified in psychokinesis, astrology and mental healings. Furthermore, the proclivity for boundary looseness expands be-yond paranormal phenomena and constitutes a very liberal epistemological style that crystallizes into fantasy proneness, suggestibility, gullibility and a tendency to derive meaning from ambiguous events and information. Signal Detection Theory is applied to create a coherent framework for paranor-mal affinity, focused on the tendency to adopt a loose criterion. Research on personality factors, reasoning style and cognitive biases is discussed and interpreted within this framework. It is suggested that the tendency for boundary looseness is motivation-driven and developed through training in paranormal practices. Finally, potential unacknowledged implications of the loose response style for research into paranormal beliefs are highlighted and possible future directions are mentioned.
Keywords: Paranormal Beliefs, Boundary Looseness, Signal Detection The-ory, Response Style, Illusory Contingencies
Contents
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1 Paranormality and Looseness 4
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1.1 Defining the Subject and Restricting its Looseness . . . 5
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1.2 Theoretical Framework: Signal Detection Theory . . . 7
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1.3 The Not-So-Loose Boundaries of Boundary Looseness . . . 9
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1.4 Summary . . . 12
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2 Boundaries in the Mind 12
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2.1 Conceptualization of the Mind . . . 12
21 2.2 Ontological Categories . . . 14 22 2.3 Bullshit Detection . . . 15 23 2.4 Summary . . . 15 24
3 Loose Evidential Boundaries 16
25
3.1 Intuitive versus Analytical Thinking . . . 16
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3.2 Personality factors related to evidential looseness . . . 17
27 3.2.1 Gullibility . . . 17 28 3.2.2 Suggestibility . . . 18 29 3.2.3 Fantasy Proneness . . . 19 30
3.3 Reasoning Biases Related to Evidential Looseness . . . 20
31 3.3.1 Confirmation Bias . . . 20 32 3.3.2 Jumping to Conclusions . . . 21 33 3.4 Summary . . . 23 34
4 Magic, Illusions and Coincidence 23
35
4.1 The Illusion of Control . . . 24
36
4.2 Illusory Pattern Perception . . . 25
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4.2.1 Probabilistic Reasoning . . . 25
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4.2.2 Experience of Coincidence . . . 26
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4.2.3 Creativity and Meaningfulness . . . 27
40 4.2.4 Intentionality . . . 29 41 4.2.5 Summary . . . 29 42 4.3 Agency Detection . . . 30 43 4.4 Summary . . . 32 44
5 Learning to Stretch the Boundaries 32
6 Potential Neurocognitive Underpinnings 33
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6.1 Predictive Processing: Strong Priors and Reduced Error-Monitoring . . . . 33
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6.2 Neural Structures and Processes . . . 35
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6.3 Summary . . . 36
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7 Conclusion and Open Questions 36
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8 References 38
“I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extra-sensory perception,
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and the meaning of the four items of it, viz. telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition
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and psychokinesis. These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual
sci-54
entific ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the statistical
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evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming.”
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— Alan Turing (1950)
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Apparently, the founding father of computer science and artificial intelligence also expressed
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considerable belief in extra-sensory perception (ESP; Oppy & Dowe, 2016). In fact, the
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human ability for ESP formed one of the core objections Alan Turning formulated for
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why machines cannot truly “think”. His conviction was nourished, the story goes, by the
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card-guessing experiments of J.B. Rhine, which he regarded as providing “statistically
over-62
whelming evidence”1. And Turing was not the only famous scholarly or influential believer
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in paranormal phenomena. Sir Isaac Newton, the founding father of modern physics, was
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a devoted alchemist, who spent abundant time on conducting experiments to discover the
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recipe for the mystical Philosopher’s Stone (Bosveld, 2010); physicist Pierre Curie, husband
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of Nobel laureate Marie Curie, often attended séances of the (in)famous medium Eusapia
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Palladino (Voss, 2014); and First Lady Nancy Reagan employed a personal astrologer who
68
was consulted for assurance of horoscopes and favorable alignment of the planets before
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every presidential appearance (Vyse, 2013). Probably even more relevant, according to a
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national survey among 1,207 individuals, in 2017 approximately 75% of the American public
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reported belief in at least one paranormal phenomena, including psychic powers, haunted
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places, psychokinesis and alien visits (Chapman University Survey, 2017). Considering this
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ubiquity of paranormal belief, it seems quite remarkable that it has received relatively little
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scientific attention and that many questions remain unanswered.
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1 Paranormality and Looseness
76
In the current paper, I will attempt to address some of these ‘mysteries’ and sketch a
uni-77
fying framework for understanding the underlying tendencies related to paranormal beliefs.
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Bearing on theoretical work and experimental research, I will discuss various personality
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factors and cognitive biases that have been associated with paranormal beliefs. The
overar-80
ching proposal builds on the idea that paranormal believers are characterized by a tendency
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for ‘boundary looseness’. In the context of the present account, boundary looseness refers
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to a general proclivity to understand the world in a fluent and non-rigid way, reflected
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in an individual’s conceptualization of the mind and thresholds for accepting evidence.
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1For a discussion on psychic experiments from the angle of the concept of statistical evidence, see
These loose evidence thresholds are exemplified by a promiscuous response style in terms
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of perceiving and reporting that stretches beyond paranormal phenomena and also affects
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mundane experiences and behavior in an experimental lab setting. In that regard, findings
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on suggestibility, probabilistic reasoning, the illusion of control and agency detection will
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be examined and interpreted by applying the framework of Signal Detection Theory (Green
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& Swets, 1966).
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To my knowledge, this proposal is the first to look at paranormal beliefs in the light
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of boundary looseness as a general overarching factor. Although comparable ideas related
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to boundaries and cognitive looseness have been proposed (e.g., Thalbourne & Delin, 1994;
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Farias, Claridge, & Lalljee, 2005; Hartmann, 1991; Mohr, Graves, Gianotti, Pizzagalli, &
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Brugger, 2001), or reference to these concepts has been made by researchers (e.g., van Elk,
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2013; Riekki, Lindeman, Aleneff, Halme, & Nuortimo, 2013), none of these have
incorpo-96
rated both the nature of the associated phenomena as well as the epistemological stance
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of the believers. In doing so, the present paper will include literature from psychology,
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cognitive science and anthropology.
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1.1 Defining the Subject and Restricting its Looseness
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First of all, it should be noted that the exact definition and demarcation of paranormal
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liefs is far from unequivocal (Lindeman & Svedholm, 2012); the concept is itself rather ‘loose’
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one might say. Paranormal beliefs are generally used as an umbrella term for a range of
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New Age beliefs, including belief in precognition, Psi, spiritualism, telepathy, psychokinesis,
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channelling, witchcraft and superstition. However, for the purpose of clarity in the present
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paper I will adhere to the following working definition: paranormal beliefs are characterized
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by a violation of scientifically established natural laws of physics, biology and psychological
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phenomena (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2006), and are endorsed by people “who might normally
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be expected by their society to be capable of rational thought and reality testing” (Irwin,
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2009, pp.16-17). In the narrow sense of the term, this definition excludes idiosyncratic false
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beliefs, including those attributed to mental disorders such as schizophrenia (i.e., delusions)
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because those are regarded as manifestations of abnormal cognitive functioning (Miyazono,
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2015). Conspiracy beliefs and belief in pseudoscience such as homeopathy also fall outside
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of the current definition, as they do not violate natural laws in any way2. Notably, although
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conceptually separated, I do acknowledge the substantial co-occurrence of paranormal
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liefs with schizotypy, when this is understood as a personality continuum (Barron, Morgan,
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Towell, Altemeyer, & Swami, 2014; Dagnall, Denovan, Drinkwater, Parker, & Clough, 2016;
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2N.B. Irrespective of the evidence, homeopathy assumes that some physical substance can have a physical
effect, which is in line with natural laws. Mental healings, on the other hand, assume that the mental power of one individual can have a physical effect on another individual, which does conflict with natural laws as we know them.
Darwin, Neave, & Holmes, 2011; Genovese, 2005; Goulding, 2005; Hergovich, Schott, &
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Arendasy, 2008) and with conspiracy and general pseudoscientific beliefs (Bruder, Haffke,
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Neave, Nouripanah, & Imhoff, 2013; Lobato, Mendoza, Sims, & Chin, 2014; Swami et al.,
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2011; van Elk, 2015) and some reference to these phenomena will be made.
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In the literature, a wide variety of cognitive biases and reasoning errors have been
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associated with paranormal beliefs, ranging from agency detection biases (Krummenacher,
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Mohr, Haker, & Brugger, 2010; Riekki et al., 2013; van Elk, 2013), the illusion of control
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(Blanco, Barberia, & Matute, 2015; Brugger, Regard, & Landis, 1991; Blackmore &
Tros-125
cianko, 1985; Irwin, 2009) and the self-attribution bias (van Elk, 2017), to ontological
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fusions (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2006; Lindeman et al., 2008; Lindeman, Svedholm-Hakkinen,
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& Lipsanen, 2015; Lindeman & Svedholm-Häkkinen, 2016; Svedholm, Lindeman, &
Lipsa-128
nen, 2010), illusory pattern perception (Bressan, 2002; Dagnall, Parker, & Munley, 2007;
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Dagnall, Drinkwater, Denovan, Parker, & Rowley, 2016; Riekki, Lindeman, & Raij, 2014)
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and jumping to conclusions (Irwin, Drinkwater, & Dagnall, 2014; Brugger & Graves, 1997;
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Blanco et al., 2015). I propose that many of these biases to a large extent arise from an
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underlying tendency to understand the world in a fluid, lenient, unconstrained and
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nected manner, an inclination which I will call ‘boundary looseness’. More specifically (and
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less loosely), I argue that paranormal believers are characterized by the tendency to adopt
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less rigidly fixed demarcation criteria between various entities and processes that are
scien-136
tifically accepted as being distinct, and adopt less stringent evidential criteria for separating
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‘signal’ from ‘noise’. This tendency relates to the nature of paranormal phenomena, but
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also expands beyond the content of beliefs and defines a kind of personality dimension that
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touches upon many (cognitive) domains. In other words, the proposed account of boundary
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looseness can be identified in two different domains, namely an ‘ontological’ manifestation
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that is related to the boundaries between the individual and the external world (i.e., shifts
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in internal and external attributions), which is exemplified in the intrinsic phenomenology
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of paranormal beliefs (i.e., the blending psychological and physical influences and
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ties), and a manifestation that is related to the epistemological stance of believers (e.g., an
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intuitive thinking style).
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The first domain concerning the nature of beliefs and of those endorsing them
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will be discussed in section 2 of the current paper (Boundaries in the Mind). Specifically,
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I will elaborate on the idea that paranormal believers have a distinct (implicit)
concep-149
tualization of the human mind as being porous rather than rigidly separated from other
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minds and supernatural powers (Hartmann, Harrison, & Zborowski, 2001; Thalbourne &
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Delin, 1994; van Elk, in prep.). For instance, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, precognition,
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telepathy and channelling all assume that external entities can exert unmediated influence
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over one’s mind, and vice versa (Lindeman & Svedholm, 2012). Moreover, the idea of fluid
boundaries between and within the individual nicely assents to documented associations of
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paranormal beliefs with for instance emotional and social hypersensitivity (Hartmann et
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al., 2001; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013), hypnotisability (Atkinson, 1994; Cella, Vellante, &
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Preti, 2012), creativity (Gianotti, Mohr, Pizzagalli, Lehmann, & Brugger, 2001; Mohr et
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al., 2001; Simmonds-Moore, 2014; Thalbourne & Delin, 1994; Weinstein & Graves, 2001),
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and fantasy proneness (Glicksohn, 1990; Glicksohn & Barrett, 2003; Gow, Hutchinson, &
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Chant, 2009; Merckelbach, Horselenberg, & Muris, 2001; Sanchez-Bernardos & Avia, 2006)
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and shifts in the experience of control (Allen & Lester, 1994; Blackmore & Troscianko, 1985;
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Blagrove, French, & Jones, 2006; Blanco et al., 2015; Dag, 1999; Groth-Marnat & Pegden,
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1998; Tobacyk & Milford, 1983). These concepts are further examined in section 3 (Loose
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Evidential Boundaries) and 4 (Magic, Illusions and Coincidence) of the paper.
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The second domain - concerning the evidence that is accepted and required for these
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beliefs, as well as for substantiating any knowledge in general – is reflected in cognitive
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style and attitude, which is subsequently manifested in response patterns in scientific
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tionnaires and experiments. That is, based on a general tendency for loose boundaries and
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promiscuity, paranormal believers have less stringent evidential criteria and thus are more
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likely to endorse many different statements, especially in the face of ambiguous
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tion. I will discuss this evidential looseness in relation to some core correlates of paranormal
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beliefs, namely susceptibility to suggestion (Hergovich, 2003), gullibility (Preece & Baxter,
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2000; Standing & Keays, 1987), and intuitive thinking as the overall dominant thinking
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style (Aarnio & Lindeman, 2005; Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Gray & Gallo, 2016;
Linde-175
man & Aarnio, 2007; Lindeman & Svedholm-Häkkinen, 2016; Pennycook, Cheyne, Koehler,
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& Fugelsang, 2013; Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2012; Ross, Hartig, &
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McKay, 2017; Sadler-Smith, 2011; Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013).
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In short, relative to skeptics, paranormal believers are highly open to accepting a
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wide range of possibilities in the universe that are scientifically rejected. This uncritical
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openness hinges on a general cognitive tendency characterized by looseness or ‘liberality’ in
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the validation process of beliefs, knowledge and information. In other words, paranormal
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believers tend to adhere to lenient evidential criteria and be easily convinced by some
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ambiguous piece of information.
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1.2 Theoretical Framework: Signal Detection Theory
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The proposal of boundary looseness can more concretely be illustrated by drawing on Signal
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Detection Theory (SDT), the influential mathematical model used to describe
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making regarding the presence of some condition under considerable ambiguity (Green &
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Swets, 1966). According to SDT, in the most elementary form, one’s decision about the
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presence of a meaningful ‘signal’ in the face of ambiguous ‘noise’ depends on discriminability
of signal and noise (i.e., sensitivity; d’ ) and strategy or response bias towards preference
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for ‘misses’ or ‘false alarms’ (i.e., criterion; c or β; Macmillan & Creelman, 2004; Wickens,
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2002). For example, detection of a figure in a dark, foggy forest depends on the ability
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to discriminate between an actual agent (i.e., the signal) and the howling wind, rustling
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of leaves or the shadow of trees in the moonlight (i.e., noise), as well as on the bias to
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detect agents that aren’t there (i.e., false alarms) or fail to detect agents that are (i.e.,
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misses). SDT has previously been applied to paranormal beliefs with respect to creativity,
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arguing that high levels of creativity in paranormal believers arise from their loose criterion
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for semantic associations (Gianotti et al., 2001; Krummenacher et al., 2010; Weinstein
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& Graves, 2001). The current loose boundaries account likewise, though more broadly,
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emphasizes that paranormal believers differ from skeptics in terms of the adopted criterion
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rather than the sensitivity to detect meaningful signals in noise, which also roughly maps
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onto a difference in reasoning style rather than ability. That is, as a general trend, believers
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exhibit an increased willingness to perceive signal.
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Broadly, a SDT framework of paranormal beliefs is characterized by a boundary shift
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in perception of ambiguous sensory events (i.e., noise) towards extracting a meaningful
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signal. The nature of this signal can range from detection of visual agents and bodily
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sations to ritual efficacy and personal memories. The boundary shift results in a relatively
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high level of ‘hits’, but as a consequence, also a high level of ‘false alarms’. This shift will
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be especially noticeable and consequential in the case of an ambiguous context, reflected
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by a high degree of overlap of the ‘signal’ and ‘noise’ distributions. Since it conceptualizes
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decision making in a general framework, the SDT is especially appropriate for explaining
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the epistemological manifestation of boundary looseness, i.e., evidential looseness, which
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indeed maps onto a general decision making style. Nevertheless, the framework can also be
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applied to the attribution-related boundary looseness regarding the mind, in the form of
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causal attribution shifts of action outcomes, either towards one’s internal mental capacities
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or external powers. This means that, roughly, three different manifestations of a
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ary shift can be identified; an increase in the probability of labeling and interpreting some
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event or experience as ‘signal’ stemming from (1) internal mental sources, from (2) external
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intentional sources and (3), more broadly, a shift towards ‘signal’ in the sense of patterns
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or contingencies experienced in one’s personal life (often displayed on survey responses)
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and in various reasoning experiments (see Figure 1 on page 10). More concretely, shift (1)
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can account for instances of internal attribution exemplified in clairvoyance, precognition,
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mental healing, magic spells and rituals, telepathy, as well as the illusion of control. Shift
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(2) might explain external attribution of sensory events characteristic of beliefs in spirit or
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afterlife communication, omens, astrology, tarot cards, palm reading as well as an external
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locus of control. Additionally, shift (3) can explain a substantial part of findings from the
experimental studies on cognitive biases in paranormal believers3. Notably, the overall
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tion of boundary looseness can be applied to a wide range of phenomena and is manifested
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across various domains of cognition, attitudes, affect, beliefs and interpersonal behavior
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logically since it is proposed as a personality dimension and thus broadly influences one’s
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general dispositions. However, as the present paper is mainly focused on the cognitive
corre-232
lates of paranormal beliefs, I will elaborate only on the evidential looseness from a cognitive
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perspective and no further assess affective and social aspects. Although very speculatively,
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in section 6, I will attempt to shed some light on the neurocognitive mechanisms that may
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underlie the tendency for loose boundaries among paranormal believers.
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1.3 The Not-So-Loose Boundaries of Boundary Looseness
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As often encountered in psychology, there seem to be as many theories as there are
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searchers, and in this case, as many terms and concepts as there are studies. So before
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diving into the literature, some clarification of terminology appears appropriate. For the
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sake of clarity, I will refer to the overarching idea of these non-rigid boundaries as
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ary looseness and to the epistemological tendency for loose evidential criteria exhibited on
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questionnaires and experiments as evidential boundary looseness. The latter thus concerns
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the general response style exhibited in research that is marked by a tendency to respond
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affirmatively on many items, largely irrespective of the content. This has been referred to as
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‘liberal response criterion’ or ‘liberal bias’, ‘acquiescence’ (i.e, tacit acceptance), ‘affirmative
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bias’ and ‘low evidential threshold’. In the remainder of the paper, I will stick to the term
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‘evidential looseness’ to denote these biased response patterns.
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Importantly, I do not wish to argue that boundary looseness explains everything,
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or that it is entirely independent of context. Plausible required conditions of the account
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include a context that is sufficiently ambiguous, yet not completely random, and
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imately in line with one’s prior beliefs and worldview. First, with regard to the level of
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ambiguity, some early studies reported that paranormal believers have a lower tolerance
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for ambiguity compared to skeptics (Keinan, 1994; Houran & Williams, 1998). This lower
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tolerance for ambiguity might appear paradoxical to the essence of boundary looseness.
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However, adopting loose boundaries does not imply that one leaves objects undefined, in
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contrast, it allows one to interpret and attribute somewhat ambiguous events or stimuli
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to a meaningful source that would have been invalid within a context of rigidly delineated
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3
Importantly, rather than arguing that all these studies that report specific effects for paranormal believers are invalid, I would like to raise awareness of the potential higher-order factor of evidential boundary looseness that might ultimately account for the findings. That is, low evidential thresholds presumably crystallize into a liberal response bias on surveys and experimental tasks that might mistakenly be interpreted as a particular sensitivity for agency detection or pattern perception yet reflect a general cognitive inclination (see also section 4).
Signal Noise β criterion / boundary “YES” “NO” β criterion / boundary “YES” “NO” External intentional influence Noise β criterion / boundary “YES” “NO” Internal intentional influence Noise β criterion / boundary “YES” “NO” Meaning-fully true or present Noise a b c d
Figure 1 . The signal and noise distributions with the criterion (β) shift reflecting boundary loose-ness (i.e., a liberal response criterion) characteristic of paranormal believers. The upper panel (a) represents the general account according to Signal Detection Theory. The middle left panel (b) represents boundary looseness with respect to attributing ambiguous events or stimuli to internal mental sources. The middle right panel (c) represents boundary looseness with respect to attributing ambiguous events or stimuli to external agents. The lower panel (d) represents evidential boundary looseness in terms of affirmative responses as exemplified on surveys and behavioral measures.
boundaries and categories. Boundary looseness thus offers an opportunity to ascribe
mean-259
ing to ambiguity and hence erase ambiguity. Additionally, the two studies that examined
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the influence of different levels of ambiguity with regard to response biases in pattern
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tection among paranormal believes, both found significant effects only under intermediate
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ambiguity of stimuli (van Elk, 2013; Blackmore & Moore, 1994). Notably, these effects
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selectively occurred on the misidentification of objects (i.e., false alarms) rather than
cor-264
rect identification (i.e., hits), supporting the idea of a relation between paranormal beliefs
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and response criterion, not sensitivity. The condition of an intermediate level of ambiguity
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presumably reflects that paranormal believers are more likely to perceive meaningful signal
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in noise, but only for stimuli that could in principle convey meaning (i.e., that are not
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too noisy). This further supports the notion that it is not low-level perceptual deficits or
hallucination-like sensations, but a combination of bottom-up and top-down processes that
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characterize boundary looseness among paranormal believers (van Elk, 2013).
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Moreover, believers may exert a certain degree of flexibility over the application of
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loose boundaries. This property could form an important distinction between the boundary
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looseness as currently proposed for paranormal beliefs and the “loss of boundaries” as a
clus-274
ter of psychiatric symptoms most typically associated with schizophrenia. In this category
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of symptoms, also known as Schneiderian first-rank symptoms, the boundaries separating
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the self from other are blurred to the extent that self-generated phenomena (e.g., actions,
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thoughts, intentions) are perceived as externally-produced, resulting in vivid and persistent
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experiences of voice hallucinations, thought insertion and broadcasting (Franck, O’Leary,
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Flaum, Hichwa, & Andreasen, 2002). This is similar to the idea of a porous conception of
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the mind (see below), however, whereas these psychiatric symptoms are related to deficits
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in self-monitoring resulting in reflexive experiences that are beyond control and therefore
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usually distressing (Stephan, Friston, & Frith, 2009), in paranormal believers, the blurring
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of boundaries between internal and external events seems more voluntary, motivation-driven
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and positively experienced (Peters, 2001; Peters, Joseph, & Garety, 1999).
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In other words, for paranormal believers, the adoption of loose boundaries can be
re-286
garded as an intuitive cognitive style that allows for the possibility of extensive bidirectional
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influence of the self and the external world, in a motivation-driven fashion (i.e., aligning
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with explicit beliefs and worldview) and without cognitive dissonance, rather than a
pas-289
sive, involuntary submission to externally-experienced powers. This flexible style does to
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some degree expand to areas beyond paranormal phenomena, but not in an absolute
man-291
ner (i.e., not so pervasively that it interferes with normal daily functioning). The ubiquity
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of paranormal beliefs, and the obvious fact that most believers are can function normally
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in society, emphasizes that the stamp ‘cognitive deficits’ seems too strong and that even
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pinpointing specific cognitive biases may be unjustified. A more nuanced view,
character-295
ized by a shift toward cognitive looseness that is nonetheless within the realm of normal
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cognitive functioning, appears more realistic and valid. Clearly, instances of absolute
un-297
differentiated evidential looseness and acquiescence would result in a tendency to endorse
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any statement, whether in line with one’s worldview or not. Besides being intuitively
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surd, this absolute acquiescence would result in adherence to all statements and theories,
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however contradicting they are. Naturally, this is not the case, and I do not argue that
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paranormal believers, compared to skeptics, are more likely to agree with scientific theories
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for example, or acquiesce to all personality statements. Nevertheless, the point is that,
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within the constraints of having intuitive appeal - either based on personal beliefs or raised
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expectations - and sufficient ambiguity, paranormal believers are more loose and fluent in
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terms of perceiving, experiencing, believing and reporting.
1.4 Summary
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As an overarching framework for paranormal affinity, it is argued that paranormal believers
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are characterized by a loose application of ontological boundaries between different
pro-309
cesses and entities. Epistemologically, the tendency for boundary looseness results in low
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thresholds for considering evidence for some proposition sufficiently convincing (i.e.,
eviden-311
tial looseness). Following SDT, paranormal believers can be said to adopt a loose criterion
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and be biased towards deriving signal (meaning) from noise, resulting in high ‘false alarm’
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rates. Important nuances of boundary looseness among paranormal believers relate to the
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fact that it mostly emerges in contexts of intermediate ambiguity, applies to intuitively
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appealing appraisals and is relatively flexible and motivation-driven.
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2 Boundaries in the Mind
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2.1 Conceptualization of the Mind
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Firstly, as mentioned, the idea of boundary looseness appears to be intrinsically related to
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many paranormal phenomena in which various entities or processes can mutually influence
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each other in an unmediated way, e.g., exemplified in telepathy, psychokinesis, mental
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healings. These phenomena might ultimately arise from - or rely on - individual differences
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in the implicit understanding of the human mind and the extent to which the mind is
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accessible. Typically, in modern Western societies, the view of the human mind can be
324
captured by the metaphor of the ‘mind as a container’, which conceptualizes the mind as a
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secluded box with private thoughts and feelings that are only accessible to oneself (Lakoff
326
& Johnson, 1980). In contrast, a ‘porous’ conception of the mind is characterized by fluent
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and permeable boundaries between the self and other individuals or agents (Taylor, 2007).
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Luhrmann (2011), for instance, quotes this notion of a ‘porous theory of mind’ in relation to
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paranormal beliefs, in the sense that considering oneself to have a porous mind leaves room
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for spirits, mental powers or other forces to have a direct influence on one’s mind. A newly
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developed Porous Theory of Mind scale (PToM), consisting of four items metaphorically
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describing the mind as transparent, accessible and as a medium for transmission, indeed
333
consistently predicted belief in paranormal phenomena (van Elk, in prep.).
334
Similar ideas have been formulated under different names, for instance by means of
335
the concept of boundary-thickness (Hartmann, 1991). This construct, presented as a
per-336
sonality trait, emphasizes the dimension of mental boundaries by appraising the solidity on
337
a continuum from ‘thick’ to ‘thin’. Although predominantly focused on the boundaries of
338
sleep and dreaming, the theory also pertains to emotional sensitivity, the strength of
in-339
terpersonal relationships and group identification, as well as cognitive boundaries between
340
thoughts, feelings and perception. In a literature review, Hartmann et al. (2001) showed
that thin boundaries are related to suggestibility, openness to experience, the diagnosis
342
of borderline and schizotypal personality disorder, and to having paranormal experiences.
343
Moreover, one of the thirteen factors of the Boundary Questionnaire (Hartmann, 1989),
344
directly relates to belief in one’s clairvoyant abilities, assessing sensitivity towards other
345
people’s unexpressed feelings and thoughts, and having premonitory dreams. Using this
346
Boundary Questionnaire, Rabeyron and Watt (2010) also found a significant - albeit not
347
very strong - relation (rs = .31) between boundary thinness and paranormal beliefs (as
348
well as paranormal experiences). Furthermore, Farias et al. (2005) examined multiple
po-349
tential variables associated with the paranormal New Age movement and showed that thin
350
boundaries, together with magical ideation, best predicted New Age practices and beliefs.
351
Notably, with the inclusion of paranormal practices specifically, the authors nicely provided
352
empirical support underlying the conceptual relation between the boundaries construct,
353
New Age beliefs emphasizing a sense of connectedness and holism, and New Age practices
354
focusing on techniques to promote this ‘holistic self-awareness’, such as visualization and
355
free association (Farias et al., 2005).
356
The concept of ‘transliminality’ (Thalbourne & Delin, 1994) also provides a theoretical
357
account explaining paranormal experiences from the interpretation of mental “ungatedness”.
358
This transliminality scale was found to be highly correlated (r = .75) with the Hartmann’s
359
Boundary Questionnaire (Thalbourne & Maltby, 2008). Moreover, the combination of the
360
cognitive-perceptual factor of schizotypy and transliminality was found to account for a
361
substantial proportion (27%) of the variance in paranormal belief, possibly related to the
362
fact that all three phenomena involve aberrant reality-testing (Dagnall, Munley, Parker, &
363
Drinkwater, 2010), in the sense that self-developed causal explanations of the world are
364
readily accepted without rigorous validation (Irwin, 2009). This epistemological notion of
365
loose evidential boundaries will later be addressed in more detail.
366
It should be noted that Thalbourne’s (a parapsychologist himself) transliminality
367
and Hartmann’s boundary-thickness seem to assume - or at least allow for the possibility
368
- that people’s minds do indeed differ in boundary looseness or thickness, constituting
369
individual differences in the “tendency for psychological material to cross (trans) thresholds
370
(limines) into or out of consciousness” (Thalbourne & Houran, 2000, p.853). My point,
371
however, does not necessarily concern the nature of the believer’s mind, but rather the
372
general conceptualization of the human mind that is endorsed by the believer. In other
373
words, in line with the PToM, it is the (implicit) understanding of the mind as being
374
permeable and porous that characterizes paranormal believers. Whether the relationship
375
between paranormal experiences and loose mental boundaries is on a metaphysical level
376
in any way defined by extraordinary sensitivity and detection of sub- or suprathreshold
377
sensory information is another question, that is beyond the scope of this paper.
2.2 Ontological Categories
379
Less metaphysically, but related to the idea of loose mental boundaries, Lindeman et al.
380
(2008, 2015) argued that a looseness in the application of ontological categories is what
381
underlies paranormal beliefs. Specifically, paranormal believers are more susceptible to
382
“category mistakes where the distinctive properties of the superordinate categories of
men-383
tal and physical, animate and inanimate, and living and lifeless are inappropriately mixed”
384
(Lindeman et al., 2015, p.65). This elementary form of categorization does not rely on
385
intricate scientific knowledge, but rather on intuitive ‘core knowledge’ concerning
physi-386
cal, biological and psychological entities and associated processes, that is learned without
387
instruction and usually developed before preschool age. Indeed, paranormal believers are
388
consistently found to be prone to these category mistakes (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2006, 2007;
389
Lindeman et al., 2008; Lobato et al., 2014; Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013; Svedholm et al.,
390
2010), and ontological confusions might be one of the strongest predictors of paranormal
391
belief (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007; Lindeman et al., 2015).
392
In terms of SDT, there appears to be a shift regarding sensitivity to detect ontological
393
violations, as well as regarding the criterion for a violation. That is, a lack of understanding
394
of the physical world, mapping onto sensitivity, was found to account for part of the variance
395
in paranormal beliefs, although the contribution of physical world related capabilities (i.e.,
396
mechanical ability, knowledge of intuitive physics and systemizing) was remarkably small
397
(R2 = .02). Interestingly, intuitive thinking, reflecting a cognitive style and related to
398
the loose response bias, had substantially more explanatory power (R2 = .16) (Lindeman
399
& Svedholm-Häkkinen, 2016), which suggests again that the category confusions arise to
400
some extent from endorsement of looser category distinctions as opposed to, or at least
401
in addition to, lack of intellectual ability or knowledge. This possibility also seems to be
402
acknowledged by the authors, as they state that “the confusion between core properties of
403
ontological categories implies a notion of a common essence between the categories and thus
404
leads to thinking in terms of connections and undivided totalities.” (Lindeman & Aarnio,
405
2007, p.741).
406
In more general terms, ontological confusions are thus characterized by a difference in
407
sensitivity to detect ontological category mistakes, partly stemming from explicit views on
408
what is regarded as literally true (e.g., belief that evil thoughts are indeed contaminated,
409
flowers indeed have wishes, unstable minds will indeed disintegrate), and by a response
410
bias towards endorsing the literal truth of intuitive statements. This response bias arises
411
from the previously mentioned loose evidential boundaries; the broad tendency to endorse
412
general, ambiguous statements as being true or applicable (Figure 1d). Indeed, because the
413
items assessing susceptibility to ontological confusions are purposely highly intuitive and
414
arguably ambiguous, they provide the perfect layout for boundary looseness to thrive.
2.3 Bullshit Detection
416
The fact that this evidential looseness bias extends beyond paranormal phenomena is
com-417
pellingly illustrated by Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler, and Fugelsang (2015) in their
418
paper on ‘bullshit detection’. In a similar vein as the ontological confusions, the authors
419
investigated individual difference in receptivity to “pseudo-profound bullshit”, i.e., the
judg-420
ment that a random collection of syntactically structured buzzwords that seem to convey
421
a deep meaning, is indeed a profound statement. Examples of pseudo-profound bullshit
422
include statements such as “Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty” and
423
“Imagination is inside exponential space time events” (Pennycook et al., 2015). In line with
424
SDT, the authors identify two mechanisms that explain profoundness judgments of bullshit,
425
namely a reduced sensitivity for conflict detection and a response bias towards having an
426
uncritically open mind, allowing for high profundity ratings on seemingly profound
bull-427
shit, but also on genuinely profound motivational statements (e.g., “A river cuts through a
428
rock, not because of its power but its persistence”) as well as on mundane statements (e.g.,
429
“Most people enjoy some sort of music”). Indeed, both ontological confusions and
para-430
normal beliefs are significantly correlated with bullshit receptivity (r = .45 and r = .35,
431
respectively). The authors conclude that paranormal believers are particularly prone to
432
endorsing pseudo-profound bullshit, because, in contrast with conspiratorial belief or
ac-433
ceptance of alternative medicine, paranormal belief was associated with both sensitivity
434
(operationalized as the difference between profundity ratings of mundane statements and
435
pseudo-profound bullshit) and response bias. That is, paranormal believers endorse more
436
seemingly profound ‘bullshit’ by virtue of their semantic looseness (actually considering the
437
‘bullshit’ to convey deep meaning), as well as their general bias for false positives.
438
2.4 Summary
439
The view of the human mind as permeable rather than rigidly bounded has been proposed
440
as a fundamental aspect of paranormal beliefs. Indeed, scales measuring the Porous
The-441
ory of Mind (van Elk, in prep.), boundary-thickness (Hartmann, 1991) and transliminality
442
(Thalbourne & Delin, 1994) have all been shown to predict paranormal beliefs.
More-443
over, based on studies on ontological categorization (Lindeman et al., 2008) and profundity
444
judgments (Pennycook et al., 2015), it thus appears that paranormal believers are indeed
445
characterized by an increased general susceptibility to accept a wide range of ambiguous
446
statements beyond paranormal phenomena as being true. In the following section, I will
fur-447
ther discuss literature on cognitive style and personality traits corroborating the view that
448
the response bias of evidential boundary looseness is prevalent among paranormal believers.
3 Loose Evidential Boundaries
450
3.1 Intuitive versus Analytical Thinking
451
As an overarching tendency, the idea of loose evidential boundaries can readily be
associ-452
ated with the notion of an intuitive cognitive style. The influential dual-process theory of
453
reasoning postulated that the human mind utilizes two different cognitive systems, often
454
referred to as System 1 and System 2 thinking (Evans & Stanovich, 2013; Evans, 2003;
455
Kahneman, 2011). System 1 involves intuitive processing that is typically fast, automatic,
456
effortless and independent of cognitive ability. System 2, on the other hand, involves
ana-457
lytical processing that is slow, deliberative, effortful and dependent on cognitive ability. By
458
default, System 1 is assumed to provide fast and intuitive responses that guide behavior,
459
unless System 2 analytical reasoning intervenes to offer an alternative response, following
460
the so-called “default-interventionist” principle (Evans, 2007). Importantly, cognitive
per-461
formance as measured on reasoning tasks, is typically dependent on both cognitive ability
462
and cognitive style, which are - albeit correlated - dissociable concepts (Toplak, West, &
463
Stanovich, 2011). Cognitive style, then, refers to the willingness or tendency to critically
464
evaluate intuitive responses and recruit analytical thinking for providing alternatives.
465
A large body of evidence indicates that paranormal believers are characterized by an
466
intuitive (or low analytical) cognitive style. For instance, a number of studies have
demon-467
strated that paranormal belief is predicted by analytical cognitive style (Gray & Gallo,
468
2016; Lindeman & Svedholm-Häkkinen, 2016; Pennycook et al., 2015; Ross et al., 2016;
469
Sadler-Smith, 2011; Svedholm & Lindeman, 2013), also when controlling for cognitive
abil-470
ity (Pennycook et al., 2012). Moreover, analytical cognitive style was negatively associated
471
with paranormal explanations of anomalous experiences (Ross et al., 2017) and partially
472
accounted for gender differences in paranormal belief (Aarnio & Lindeman, 2005).
Experi-473
mentally, the link with cognitive style was demonstrated by Bouvet and Bonnefon (2015),
474
who reported that a disposition toward analytical thinking reduced the probability that
475
uncanny experiences elicited in the lab that alluded to astrology or ESP, are attributed to
476
a supernatural cause. Notably, this effect persisted irrespective of prior beliefs about
para-477
normal phenomena. In addition, King, Burton, Hicks, and Drigotas (2007) showed that
478
an intuitive or experiential processing style indeed fostered belief in and meaningfulness
479
ratings of paranormal phenomena, in this case with respect to videos supposedly depicting
480
UFOs and ghosts. Moreover, their study provided evidence for an underlying mechanism
481
in which positive affect interacted with faith in intuition as a motivated tendency, together
482
promoting an intuitive cognitive approach. The role of affect regarding paranormal belief,
483
however, is not unequivocal, as another study showed that negative rather than positive
affect enhanced paranormal attributions (R. T. Dudley, 2000)4.
485
Based on the observation that many individuals hold and act on magical beliefs and
486
superstitions that they do not fully endorse, e.g. knocking on wood to prevent misfortune,
487
Risen (2016) proposed an elaboration of the dual process model. Risen argued that magical
488
and superstitious thinking - as a specific category of paranormal belief - is best defined by
489
acquiescence, which she understands as a phenomenon in which intuitive beliefs generated
490
by System 1 are in fact detected as ‘errors’ by System 2, yet deliberately chosen not to be
491
corrected. Although a compelling theory especially with respect to superstitious beliefs, it
492
seems that many other instances of paranormal beliefs are actually thoroughly endorsed by
493
their adherents, e.g., the possibility of telepathy, the existence of a spirit world and afterlife
494
and the efficacy of mental healings and magical spells. In the current paper, I will therefore
495
accept the assumption that paranormal believers truly endorse their magical intuitions and
496
that engagement in analytical reasoning does not cause them to reject the truth of their
497
beliefs.
498
3.2 Personality factors related to evidential looseness
499
In addition to overall cognitive style, several narrower constructs have been associated
500
with paranormal belief. Many of these constructs are rather directly related to evidential
501
boundary looseness; for instance, fantasy proneness, gullibility and suggestibility, including
502
hypnotic susceptibility, all involve a common denominator of an uncritical openness (i.e.,
503
looseness) to accept some statement or proposition. As Pennycook et al. (2015) nicely put
504
it - quoting the idiom: “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall
505
out”. Indeed, it seems that the unconditional openness demonstrated by highly suggestible
506
individuals has the obvious downside of making them relatively susceptible to being ‘fooled’
507
- whether deliberately or not on the part of the provider of the information.
508
3.2.1 Gullibility. In fact, gullibility appears to be intrinsically related to
para-509
normal phenomena, as belief in the accuracy of superstitions and the paranormal is often
510
used as a proxy for the gullibility construct. For instance, Preece and Baxter (2000)
opera-511
tionalized gullibility as high confidence in the truth of statements about astrology, palmistry,
512
ghosts and superstitions such as broken mirrors and Friday the 13th. Likewise, in a study
513
on the pervasiveness of gullibility to popular psychological myths, part of the statements
514
4On a critical note, though, this study manipulated negative affect as measured on the PANAS (Positive
And Negative Affect Scale; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) and subsequently paranormal belief as mea-sured on Tobacyk’s (1988) Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS) by means of differently colored questionnaire booklets. That is, participants that received the questionnaires printed on blue paper reported significantly more negative affect and stronger paranormal belief compared to participants receiving white and red ques-tionnaires (i.e., for the PBS M = 4.50, SD = 0.82 for blue and M = 3.38, SD = 0.84 for red paper). Considering the fact that profound beliefs such as those associated with religion and supernatural beings are rather difficult to experimentally manipulate (e.g., Yonker, Edman, Cresswell, & Barrett, 2016; van Elk & Lodder, submitted), some caution with regard to these findings seems warranted.
concerned paranormal phenomena such as clairvoyance, lunar effects and psychokinesis
515
(Standing & Huber, 2003). Hence, based on these measures, high correlations between
516
paranormal belief and gullibility are not very surprising. Still, in earlier work Standing and
517
Keays (1987) measured gullibility by means of statements about paranormal phenomena,
518
but also from nine other different subject areas (geography, science, local events, news
sto-519
ries, psychology, politics, history, scientific method and general trivia) that were presented
520
as a test of general knowledge, but were purposefully too difficult to be known by students
521
(e.g., “The war of 1812 lasted only six weeks” and “Kingston is on the Rideau river”). Half
522
of the statements were true and half false, and the degree of bias toward positive
respond-523
ing was taken as an indicator of gullibility. Paranormal belief was significantly correlated
524
with general gullibility (i.e., the sum of the non-paranormal-related items; r = .56). In this
525
sense, the construct gullibility also appears to be rather directly related to the proposed
526
loose evidential boundaries, crystallizing into an enhanced inclination to accept statements
527
that ‘sound like they could be true’ - comparable to the ontological items and bullshit
528
statements.
529
Remarkably, the study by Standing and Keays (1987) found no relation of
paranor-530
mal belief and gullibility with susceptibility to the Barnum effect. This prevalent cognitive
531
bias, which is often used to explain the popularity of horoscopes, denotes the tendency to
532
accept general personality descriptions as uniquely applying to oneself (Dickson & Kelly,
533
1985). It was first reported by Forer (1949) and in fact taken as a classic demonstration of
534
gullibility. Indeed, some studies showed an increased Barnum effect among paranormal
be-535
lievers compared to skeptics (Glick, Gottesman, & Jolton, 1989; Blagrove et al., 2006)5. For
536
instance, Blagrove et al. (2006) found that believers showed a greater tendency to respond
537
affirmatively on personal statements compared to non-believers. Interestingly, astrology
be-538
lievers rated personality descriptions as more accurate compared to skeptics, regardless of
539
the source of description (astrological vs non-astrological) or valence of description (positive
540
vs negative), indicating a generalized tendency to endorse personal applicability of generic
541
information (Glick et al., 1989).
542
3.2.2 Suggestibility. Similar effects have been documented with regard to
sug-543
gestibility, most often for hypnotic suggestibility (Wagner & Ratzeburg, 1987). Interestingly,
544
whereas in one study the association between paranormal belief and self-reported hypnotic
545
suggestibility was found to be rather strong (r = 0.46; Hergovich, 2003), an experimental
546
study failed to find a significant difference in susceptibility to hypnotic suggestion between
547
paranormal believers and skeptics (Saucer, Cahoon, & Edmonds, 1992). In the experiment,
548
participants first memorized a word-list and were then exposed to an hypnotic induction
549
5It should be noted though, that other null-effects have also been reported (Tobacyk, Milford, Springer,
that involved a suggestion of amnesia for the word-list. Although the hypnotic induction
550
itself was successful, the extent of word-list amnesia was unrelated to PBS score. This
cor-551
roborates the possibility that the positive correlation between hypnotic suggestibility and
552
paranormal beliefs might to some extent be accounted for by the tendency for acquiescence
553
and to adopt looser evidential boundaries. That is, in a word recognition test, loose
eviden-554
tial boundaries would probably result in a bias towards ‘remembering’ (i.e., false positives)
555
rather than forgetting and therefore counteract the hypnotic suggestion. Of course, this is
556
very speculative and should just be taken as a possibility. More evidently, suggestibility
557
in a specific paranormal context - suggestions regarding the efficacy of psychokinesis in a
558
séance room - also revealed that paranormal believers were more susceptible to an actor’s
559
suggestion compared to skeptics (Wiseman, Greening, & Smith, 2003). Notably, although
560
the actor made no explicit reference to paranormal effects causing the levitation of objects,
561
believers were only more susceptible to suggestion when this was in line with their prior
562
beliefs regarding the séance (i.e., the psychic levitation of objects); both believers and
skep-563
tics were equally likely to endorse the incorrect suggestion of a failed movement when the
564
object in fact did move.
565
Another study did show an effect of paranormal belief on general suggestibility, also
566
when the content was unrelated to paranormal phenomena. That is, albeit less strongly,
567
paranormal belief was also related to interrogative suggestibility as measured on the
Gudjon-568
sson Suggestibility Scale (Gudjonsson, 1984), which measures susceptibility to (mis)leading
569
questions; one study reported a weak but significant (r = .25) correlation between
inter-570
rogative suggestibility and overall paranormal belief as measured on the PBS (Haraldsson,
571
1985) and one study found a significant correlation (r = .32) for the sub-scale superstition
572
of the PBS specifically (Hergovich, 2003).
573
3.2.3 Fantasy Proneness. Lastly, related to the previously mentioned
uncriti-574
cally open-mindedness of paranormal believers, various studies have established a relation
575
between belief in paranormality and openness to experience, and most particularly openness
576
to fantasy (Berkowski & MacDonald, 2014; Gow et al., 2009; Irwin, 1990; Merckelbach et
577
al., 2001; Smith, Johnson, & Hathaway, 2009). Fantasy proneness is often connected to
578
childhood traumas, whereby immersion in an imaginative world is developed during
child-579
hood as a vehicle to mentally escape reality6 (Berkowski & MacDonald, 2014; Irwin, 1994,
580
2009; Perkins & Allen, 2006). Later in life, fantasizing can additionally translate into a
581
propensity to endorse supernatural and paranormal beliefs, a same rationale that has been
582
proposed to account for the relation between dissociative tendencies and paranormal belief
583
(Irwin, 1994; Wilson & French, 2006; Wolfradt, 1997). Interestingly, Merckelbach, Muris,
584
6Childhood trauma and abuse has indeed also been related to the development of paranormal beliefs.
Horselenberg, and Stougie (2000) investigated the extent to which a false positives response
585
bias could account for the observed relation between childhood trauma and dissociative
586
tendencies. Indeed, they found that highly dissociative individuals tended to respond more
587
affirmatively on both negative and neutral life events compared to controls - which implies
588
that they either have a more eventful life, or looser response criteria. The finding that
589
these individuals were also more prone to false positives on a memory recognition tasks,
590
yet exhibited equal sensitivity, seems to point toward the second suggestion. Merckelbach
591
et al. (2000) thus argued - in a similar vein as I argue that evidential boundary looseness
592
could contribute to the observed associations between paranormal beliefs and various
cog-593
nitive biases - that loose response boundaries with respect to autobiographical memories
594
might inflate the prevalence of self-reported childhood trauma in individuals scoring high
595
on dissociative tendencies. Crucially, since controlling for fantasy proneness eliminated the
596
correlation between dissociation and reported memories, the authors concluded that fantasy
597
proneness might underlie the response bias. In that sense, one should be careful to label
598
this response bias towards false positives as blatant confabulation or lying, as Merckelbach
599
et al. (2000) classify it -although they do stress that they “use the term confabulation in a
600
rather broad way to refer to memory failures that also include relatively benign errors such
601
as endorsing logically plausible, but false positive items” (p.51). I would argue that those
602
‘benign errors such as endorsing logically plausible, but false positive items’ that partially
603
derive from fantasy proneness, are more like genuine confusions than confabulation, or at
604
least somewhere in the middle of those two poles. That is, as blurring of the boundaries
605
between real memories and imagined events makes the dissociation naturally more difficult,
606
some ‘memories’ might be so vividly imagined that they are also classified as real memories,
607
without the subject being aware of his misclassification. This remains speculative, however,
608
and will again be shortly addressed in sections 4.2.2 and 4.3.
609
3.3 Reasoning Biases Related to Evidential Looseness
610
In addition to these personality traits, there are some specific reasoning biases or
heuris-611
tics that also reflect a looseness in the application of evidential boundaries and have been
612
associated with paranormal belief. More specifically, paranormal believers tend to differ
613
from skeptics on two aspects related to weighing the evidential value of information, both
614
reflecting a looseness in placing evidential boundaries. That is, research has indicated that
615
believers employ biased criteria for the direction of information - preferring confirmatory
616
rather than disconfirmatory evidence - as well as for the amount of information that is
617
considered sufficient for drawing conclusions.
618
3.3.1 Confirmation Bias. First, the bias for false positives could to some degree
619
derive from a motivated tendency to expose oneself to specific pieces of information. That
is, one of the reasons why paranormal believers exhibit a ‘yes-saying bias’ and
acquies-621
cence, possibly lies in their heightened focus on confirmatory as opposed to disconfirmatory
622
evidence. Logically, if you expose yourself to more confirmatory information while
(unin-623
tentionally) ignoring any facts suggesting the contrary, it is not very surprising that you
624
will in the end be more convinced to accept some proposition or statement. There is some
625
evidence that the confirmation bias, which denotes this tendency to seek, interpret and
626
store information that is consistent with existing beliefs and expectations, and disregard
627
contradictory information (Nickerson, 1998) is more prevalent among paranormal
believ-628
ers relative to skeptics. For instance, Blanco et al. (2015) demonstrated that compared to
629
skeptics, paranormal believers were more prone to developing causal illusions (i.e., accepting
630
contingencies that are not objectively conclusive) with respect to a presented narrative, in
631
this case regarding the effectiveness of an ineffective medicine. Importantly, this relationship
632
was fully mediated by believers’ tendency to expose themselves to biased, confirmatory
ev-633
idence (i.e., testing whether administering the medicine resulted in a cure / no cure, rather
634
than whether withholding the medicine resulted in cure / no cure). Moreover, an early study
635
showed that whereas the presentation of counter-attitudinal statements induced emotional
636
arousal in both believers and skeptics of paranormal phenomena, only believers
demon-637
strated a bias for recalling significantly more information that was in line with their beliefs
638
(Russell & Jones, 1980). This strategy can again be understood as an exemplification of
639
loose evidential boundaries, analogous to the bias toward false positive outcomes.
640
3.3.2 Jumping to Conclusions. Second, there has also been research indicating
641
that believers require less evidence before drawing conclusions. This ‘jumping to
conclu-642
sions’ (JTC) bias has repeatedly been identified as a robust predictor for delusion-proneness
643
in both clinical and non-clinical populations (R. Dudley, Taylor, Wickham, & Hutton, 2015;
644
van der Leer, Hartig, Goldmanis, & McKay, 2017; Ross, McKay, Coltheart, & Langdon,
645
2015). Typically, a beads task is used to assess the JTC bias. In this task, participants
646
observe sequential draws from two hidden jars with beads in two colors, the ratios of which
647
are 85:15 in one jar and 15:85 in the other7. Participants are to indicate from which jar
648
the beads are drawn and at what point they are confident to make that decision. Seminal
649
work by Huq, Garety, and Hemsley (1988) showed that delusional participants decided after
650
fewer draws compared to controls, with almost 50% reaching their conclusion after only a
651
single bead.
652
Interestingly, a recent large study (n = 558) showed that analytic cognitive style,
653
not delusional ideation, was associated with data gathering, suggesting that a more
gen-654
eral reasoning style underlies the tendency to jump to conclusions, rather than delusion
655
proneness specifically (Ross et al., 2016). Paranormal belief, on the other hand, was in fact
656
7
significantly, though weakly, correlated with the number of draws required for reaching a
657
decision (rs= −.11). Significant correlations also appeared between paranormal belief and
658
analytical cognitive style (rs = −.28) and analytical cognitive style and number of draws
659
(rs = .26). Indeed, interpreting these findings from the perspective of boundary looseness
660
creates a coherent picture. Based on the loose application of evidential boundaries,
para-661
normal believers rely heavily on intuitive thinking, relative to analytical thinking, which
662
guides them toward accepting conclusions in the face of seemingly clear evidence, without
663
elaborate and critical hypothesis testing.
664
Although studies on paranormal beliefs and the JTC bias are scarce, the few existing
665
studies corroborate this view. For instance, Irwin et al. (2014) reported a relation between
666
paranormal belief and the tendency for JTC, both measured in self-report and the beads
667
task. It should be noted that the correlations are - similar to the study by Ross et al. (2016)
668
- rather weak (rs = −.22) and held only for the subset of traditional paranormal beliefs
669
and not for new age beliefs. Interestingly, a stronger relation appeared for the subjective
670
report of JTC as measured on the JTC subscale of the Davos Assessment of Cognitive
671
Biases Scale (DACOBS; van der Gaag et al., 2013), compared to objective performance
672
on the beads task. This might be related to a conscious strategy and explicit preference
673
to follow intuitions and one’s gut feeling, rather than an implicit cognitive style to do so,
674
as suggested by the authors. However, the difference might also arise from the fact that
675
performance on the beads task is only partially dependent on cognitive style and additionally
676
taps into cognitive ability, specifically probabilistic reasoning. That is, whereas items on
677
the questionnaires mostly concern (imaginative) real-life situations and decisions, in which
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an intuitive attitude might be seen as advantageous, the beads task is rather abstract and
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rational, and paranormal believers are likely to acknowledge that an analytical approach
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is favored. Since they do not necessarily deviate from normal in terms of probabilistic
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reasoning abilities (see section 4.2), the effect of paranormal beliefs on JTC as measured
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in the beads task is likely to be smaller relative to self-reported jumping to conclusions as
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framed in statements such as “The first thoughts are the right ones”.
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Another study experimentally tested JTC in a laboratory setting, but used a more
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narrative paradigm of a mouse on a grid trying to reach a piece of cheese in a trap, which
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is, crucially, unrelated to probabilistic reasoning - (Brugger & Graves, 1997). Beside the
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JTC bias, this experiment additionally assessed illusory contingency perception (see below).
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The trial could either result in success (mouse gets cheese) or failure (mouse is trapped)
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depending simply on whether or not the target is reached after a sufficient time delay.
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Participants however, usually develop elaborative strategic response patterns, which are
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coincidentally “confirmed” by the virtue of being time-consuming (i.e., participants’
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evant strategies nonetheless result in success because they spend enough time on the trial
