Anomalistic Psychology

Anomalous Experience
1. Anomalous: means something that is irregular and doesn't fit into existing explanations
  1. a way to refer to paranormal or psi phenomenon
2. Pseudoscience and Parapsyhology
  1. used to describe a 'false' science
    1. masquerading as science
  2. Lack falsifiability
    1. scientific method of testing hypotheses: not possible to prove it correct but you can prove it wong
    2. many hypotheses related to anomalous experience have a end result of a non-falsifiable hypotheses as they are 'jealous phenomena
  3. Lack carefully controlled, replicable research
    1. many examples of failure to replicate studies in parapsychology
    2. the fact that sceptics invariably fail to get the same results as believers challenges the objective nature of the research
  4. Lack of ability to change
    1. continued to be explained in the same way for centuries despite a lack of evidence
  5. Burden of proof misplaced on sceptic
  6. If there are two competing explanations, simpler ne is to be preferred(Occam's razor) - paranormal explanations are extremely convoluted
3. Methodological Issues
  1. ESP (Ganzfeld)
    1. Researcher bias - sheep-goat effect
    2. File drawer effect
    3. Lack of control - sensory leakage
    4. Expectations affect outcome of meta-analysis
  2. Psychokinesis (PK)
    1. Expectations created in study led to macro-pk reports
    2. Lack of control - well controlled studies show no effect
    3. Ecological validity - micro-pk may not represent paranormal action
4. Explanations
  1. Coincidence and Probabilty
    1. Coincidence
      1. Illusion of causality
        if two things happen at the same time, sheep are more likely to believe that one has caused the other
      2. Illusion of connection
        making links between unrelated items
      3. Illusion of control
        explanations for coincidence give sense of order in world
      4. General cognitive ability
        lower intelligence more likely to be believers
    2. Probability
      1. paranormal experiences are a cognitive illusion due to attributing cause to random events
      2. tested using repetition avoidance(estimate dice throw), questions about probability(birthday party paradox), conjunction vignettes(estimate probability)
  2. Superstitious behaviors and Magical thinking
    1. Superstitious Behaviour
      1. making erroneous causal links (Type 1 error)
        Type 1 error: erroneously assume causality between two unrelated events that co-occur
      2. Skinner: superstitions develop when an accidental stimulus-response link is learned and then maintained through negative reinforcement
      3. superstitious develop to give an illusion of control
    2. Magical Thinking
      1. Freud: a form of childlike thinking, a defense mechanism in adults
      2. Dual processing theory: thought is intuitive or logical
      3. Animism: association of objects with feelings, e.g. the bed will hurt if we jump on them, feng shui
      4. Nominal thinking: names of objects affect our feelings about them
      5. Law of contagion: magical thinking is adaptive to avoid disease
  3. Personality factors
    1. Eysenck's personality factors
      1. Neuroticism - negative emotional states reduced by paranormal beliefs ( defense mechanism)
      2. Extraversion - people are more open to paranormal beliefs
      3. Psychoticism - associated not only with the liability to have a psychotic episode, but also with aggression
      4. Williams et al - positive correlation between neuroticism and paranormal beliefs
      5. Honor ton et al - positive correlation between extraversion and paranormal beliefs
    2. More imaginative personality
      1. Fantasy proneness - becoming so deeply absorbed in fantasy to believe it real
      2. Suggestibility - more willing to believe fakes
      3. Creative personalities make links between unrelated items
    3. Other factors
      1. Locus of control, field dependence, higher sense of seeking
Exceptional Experience
1. Psychic healing and mediumship
  1. Psychic healing
    1. energy fields re-aligned by therapeutic touch
    2. reduction of anxiety through psychological support
    3. Placebo effect - expectations of benefit created by success stories which could be due to spontaneous recovery
    4. Wirth - tested patients treated with TT or no touch, former recovered fasted
    5. Rosa - TT practitioners unable to detect 'energy field' of experimenter's hand
    6. Cha - effect of prayer on infertile women, twice as many became pregnant
  2. Psychic mediumship
    1. Clues help medium produce accurate information without psychic ability
    2. Use of general statements ( Barnum statements) and willingness of sitters to elaborate
    3. Fraud - psychic mediumship is big business so people rest to complex and convincing strategies
    4. Schwartz - accuracy of medium statements about 80%
    5. Rock and Beischel - mediums responding differently to dead and living love ones
2. Out-of-body and Near-death experiences
  1. Out-of-body (OOBE)
    1. Paranormal - mind and body separated
    2. Sensory input is disturbed, reconstruction based on bird's eye view
    3. Blake - stimulation of temporal-parental junction of the brain resulted in OOBEs
    4. Alvarado - induced OOBEs - weak but occasionally startling results
    5. Green - 400 personal accounts of OOBEs, 20% 'parasomatic', rest 'asomatic'
  2. Near-Death-Experience (NDE)
    1. evidence of an afterlife or 'soul' due to paranormal belief
    2. Endorphins released at time of stress, lead to feelings of euphoria and detachment
    3. REM intrusions due to hypoxia disrupt integration of sensory information
    4. Hypoxia triggers a flood of glutamate which is blocked by the brain to prevent neuronal death, leading to an NDE
    5. Ring - survivors describe NDE as peaceful and like a life review
    6. Nelson - NDE group more likely to experience REM intrusion
    7. Jansen - ketamine can produce symptoms of NDEs, ad ketamine has same effect a s glutamate

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Anomalistic Psychology

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