The impact of event vividness, event severity, and prior paranormal belief on attributions towards a depicted remarkable coincidence experience: Two studies examining the misattribution hypothesis

Abstract

Two studies examine the impact event vividness, event severity, and prior paranormal belief has on causal attributions for a depicted remarkable coincidence experience. In Study 1, respondents (n = 179) read a hypothetical vignette in which a fictional character accurately predicts a plane crash 1 day before it occurs. The crash was described in either vivid or pallid terms with the final outcome being either severe (fatal) or non-severe (non-fatal). Respondents completed 29 causal attribution items, one attribution confidence item, nine scenario perception items, a popular paranormal belief scale, and a standard demographics questionnaire. Principal axis factoring reduced the 29 attribution items to four attribution factors which were then subjected to a 2 (event vividness) × 2 (event severity) × 2 (paranormal belief) MANCOVA controlling for respondent gender. As expected, paranormal believers attributed the accurate crash prediction less to coincidence and more to both paranormal and transcendental knowing than did paranormal sceptics. Furthermore, paranormal (psychokinesis) believers deemed the prediction more reflective of paranormal knowing to both (1) a vivid/non-fatal and (2) a pallid/fatal crash depiction. Vividness, severity, and paranormal belief types had no impact on attribution confidence. In Study 2, respondents (also n = 179) generated data that were a moderately good fit to the previous factor structure and replicated several differences across attributional pairings albeit for paranormal non-believers only. Corresponding effects for event severity and paranormal belief were not replicated. Findings are discussed in terms of their support for the paranormal misattribution hypothesis and the impact of availability biases in the form of both vividness and severity effects. Methodological issues and future research ideas are also discussed.

Talking to the Dead in the Classroom: How a Supposedly Psychic Event Impacts Beliefs and Feelings

“…Likewise, we can assess PBrelated behavior with cognitive measures that have previously been associated with enhanced PBs. Examples of such measures include (1) tasks that show a tendency to easily associate things or events (Bressan, 2002;Rogers, Fisk, & Wiltshire, 2011;Rogers, Qualter, & Wood, 2016), (2) the propensity to see meaningful patterns in random noise (Blackmore & Moore, 1994;Brugger et al, 1993;Riekki, Lindeman, Aleneff, Halme, & Nuortimo, 2013), (3) attenuated reasoning abilities (Denovan, Dagnall, Drinkwater, & Parker, 2018;Lawrence & Peters, 2004;Lindeman & Svedholm-Häkkinen, 2016), and (4) repetition avoidance (Brugger, Landis, & Regard, 1990). Brugger et al (1990) assessed repetition avoidance by asking participants to repeatedly imagine throwing a dice and to report the number they imagined on top of the dice (mental dice task).…”

Coincidence by design

“…Finally: the case for the systematic study of the discourse of coincidence offers a counterpoint to research in psychology that treats the appearance of significant coincidence as merely the consequence of errors of interpretation and incorrect probabilistic reasoning or which investigates the cognitive processes by which people come to see events as meaningfully coincidental (Johanson and Osman, 2015;Rogers, Qualter and Wood, 2016). A common approach in this research is to categorise people into rather arbitrary and fixed categories: believer or non-believers, with high suggestibility or low suggestibility, either inclined to see the world as a mysterious place or not so inclined.…”

Factores cognitivos, mórbidos y premórbidos en la formación y sustento de la creencia en lo paranormal

“…Sin embargo, a día de hoy, el determinar cuál creencia o experiencia es la causa y cuál, la consecuencia sigue siendo un desafío. Gran cantidad de estudios muestran una correlación positiva entre el número de experiencias paranormales subjetivas y la intensidad de la creencia paranormal (Dagnall et al, 2017;Glicksohn, 1990;Hergovich, Willinger y Arendasy, 2005;Irwin, Dagnall y Drinkwater, 2013;Lange y Thalbourne, 2002;Rabeyron y Watt, 2010;Rattet y Bursik, 2001;Rogers y Qualter, 2016). No obstante, son escasos los trabajos realizados con la finalidad de determinar la direccionalidad de la relación.…”