Terence Hines - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky’s (1985) results show that the “hot hand” is a cognitive illusion brought about by the tendency to judge short sequences having runs—whether sequences of successful shots in basketball or sequences of heads or tails in coin flipping—as differing from chance when in fact such sequences do not violate the laws of chance. As predicted by this finding, when asked to generate random sequences, people include more alternations than would occur by chance alone and fewer runs than would occur by chance. Thus, when confronted with a truly random sequence, people will perceive it as non-random and feel a need to “explain” the perceived nonrandomness. Thus, the “hot hand” belief is used to explain the perceived nonrandomness in basketball shooting, just as ESP is used to explain the perceived nonrandomness in the outcome of hunches, dreams, thoughts about acquaintances, “predictions” of psychics, and so forth.

Blackmore (1985) found that believers in ESP were worse than nonbelievers at making judgments of probability. In a coin-flipping experiment, believers significantly underestimated the number of heads or tails that would occur due to chance alone. Nonbelievers made accurate estimates. Thus, when believers are faced with a sequence of random events, they, more than the nonbeliever, will perceive it as nonchance and seek some explanation for the perceived nonchance nature of the sequence of events. ESP, or other paranormal powers, provide a perfect “explanation.”

Another study showed that believers in ESP were less able to interpret and assimilate new information if the new information was contrary to their belief in ESP than if it confirmed their belief in ESP. Russell and Jones (1980) gave believers and nonbelievers articles to read about ESP. The articles were either supportive of the reality of ESP or argued that ESP didn’t exist. Believers remembered the articles that supported their position very well. Believers’ memories about the article that argued against ESP, however, were quite inaccurate, and more than 15 percent actually remembered the article, incorrectly, as favorable to the existence of ESP. Nonbelievers, on the other hand, showed excellent memory for both articles, regardless of whether the articles supported or argued against the nonbelievers’ position.

The finding that believers are less willing or able than nonbelievers to deal with information that counters their preconceived belief is not limited to belief in ESP. It may be a general characteristic of believers. Click and Snyder studied belief in astrology; their findings are highly relevant here as they take the results of the Russell and Jones (1980) study one step further, to ask what effects confirming or disconfirming information has on believers’ and nonbelievers’ beliefs. Click and Snyder (1986) gave subjects, who were classified as believing or not believing in astrology, the opportunity to test a particular astrological prediction by asking an individual questions about his personality and habits. The “hypothesis” being tested was that this individual was, according to his horoscope, extroverted, friendly, and outgoing. Unknown to the subjects, the individual who was interviewed was a confederate of the experimenters and was instructed to provide responses of a particular type. If the question was such that it invited an “extroverted answer” (i.e., “Do you like to go to parties?”), the confederate gave an extroverted answer (“yes,” in this case). If the question invited an introverted answer (i.e., “Do you like to stay at home alone and read?”) the confederate gave an introverted answer (“yes,” in this case).

Click and Snyder (1986) found that both believers and nonbelievers asked more questions that would tend to confirm the “hypothesis.” Thus, both believers and nonbelievers got the same information from their questioning of the confederate. However, for the believers the information confirmed their belief while, for the nonbelievers, it disconfirmed their prior attitude. What effect did this information have on the attitudes toward astrology of the believers and nonbelievers? Nonbelievers were more likely than believers to see the specific astrological prediction as confirmed. That is, they used the information to modify their prior attitude. Believers did not use the information obtained to modify their belief in astrology. Within the group of believers there was a variation in the number of confirmatory questions asked of the confederate and, therefore, variation in the amount of evidence the believers received that confirmed the astrological hypothesis. This made no difference in the believers’ ratings of whether or not the hypothesis had been confirmed. No matter how much or how little confirming evidence they obtained, they saw the hypothesis as confirmed. The nonbelievers showed the opposite effect. The more confirming responses a nonbeliever received, the more he believed the hypothesis had been confirmed. In other words, nonbelievers were more willing than were believers to assimilate new information that countered their preexisting attitudes and to use that information to change their attitudes.

The pattern that emerges from these studies is one in which believers in paranormal phenomena are more rigid and unchanging in their beliefs than are skeptics, who are more willing and able to change their attitudes when presented with evidence that shows their beliefs to be incorrect. In other words, believers appear to be considerably more closed-minded than nonbelievers.

Founded by Sigmund Freud in Vienna in the late 1800s, psychoanalysis has had enormous influence on Western culture. For most people, Freud and psychoanalysis are synonymous with psychology. Psychoanalytic approaches have been applied to such widely diverse fields as history and political science, literature, music, and the arts. Nonetheless, psychoanalysis is based in large part on pseudoscientific formulations that are inherently unfalsifiable. This unfalsifiability accounts for the popularity of psychoanalytic “explanations” in many fields. In some instances, psychoanalytic theory does make testable predictions; these predictions have usually been found to be incorrect. The next section will summarize the major components of Freud’s theories.

One major aspect of Freud’s theory was his division of the mind into three levels of consciousness. First, there was the conscious level; below this lay the preconscious, equivalent to a mental library and storing most of our memories. Freud believed these memories were available to consciousness, so the preconscious would thus correspond to what modern psychologists call long-term memory. Below the preconscious lay the unconscious. Freud believed this contained memories, desires, and feelings that had been repressed by the individual because they were too traumatic or painful to face directly. For example, Freud believed that all children go through a period when they have sexual desires for the parent of the opposite sex. He termed this the Oedipus complex. Since these incestuous desires would be considered perverted by most societies, they were repressed. Castration anxiety, discussed below, also resulted in the repression of the Oedipal feelings. Highly traumatic events that took place in childhood or adulthood could also be repressed and relegated to the unconscious, because memories of these events would be too painful to face directly. Material in the unconscious was not available to consciousness, but could still exert powerful influences on behavior. Thus, the repressed memory of some childhood trauma could result in severe psychological difficulties later in life, even though the patient would deny that the actual trauma had ever taken place.