Superstitious,magical, and paranormal beliefs: An integrative model

Lack of conceptual clarity has hampered theory formation and research on superstitious, magical, and paranormal beliefs. This study offers a conceptual framework where these concepts are differentiated from other unfounded beliefs and defined identically as a confusion of core knowledge about physical, psychological, and biological phenomena. When testing this definition with questionnaire items (N = 239), the results showed that superstitious individuals accepted more violations of core ontological distinctions than skeptics did and that ontological confusions discriminated believers from skeptics better than intuitive thinking, analytical thinking, or emotional instability. The findings justify the present conceptualization of superstitious, magical, and paranormal beliefs, and offer new theoretical propositions for the familiar everyday beliefs that are yet scientifically so poorly understood.     

Conceptions about the mind-body problem and their relations to afterlife beliefs,paranormal beliefs,religiosity, and ontological confusions

We examined lay people’s conceptions about the relationship between mind and body and their correlates. In Study 1, a web survey (N = 850) of reflective dualistic, emergentistic, and monistic perceptions of the mind-body relationship, afterlife beliefs (i.e., common sense dualism), religiosity, paranormal beliefs, and ontological confusions about physical, biological, and psychological phenomena was conducted. In Study 2 (N = 73), we examined implicit ontological confusions and their relations to afterlife beliefs, paranormal beliefs, and religiosity. Correlation and regression analyses showed that reflective dualism, afterlife beliefs, paranormal beliefs, and religiosity were strongly and positively related and that reflective dualism and afterlife beliefs mediated the relationship between ontological confusions and religious and paranormal beliefs. The results elucidate the contention that dualism is a manifestation of universal cognitive processes related to intuitions about physical, biological, and psychological phenomena by showing that especially individuals who confuse the distinctive attributes of these phenomena tend to set the mind apart from the body.     

Personal ideals and socially desirable responding

The effect of personal ideals on socially desirable responding (impression management or IM, and self-deception or SDE) was examined in a study of 428 undergraduate students. The subjects indicated their endorsement of 56 values and filled in Paulhus's (1991) Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Three IM types, viz. ingratiators, exemplificators, and intimidators, were defined from the subjects’ personal ideals. We hypothesized that both ingratiators and exemplificators score high and that intimidators score low on IM items. These hypotheses were confirmed, but the result for intimidators was only marginally reliable. Furthermore, it turned out that high IM scorers strove for collective values but high SDE scorers strove for individual values. The results are discussed as an expression of a self-construction process, which is based on personal, rather than social, ideals. In addition, the implications of the results for controlling the effect of socially desirable responding are discussed.     

Diverse Cognitive Profiles of Religious Believers and Nonbelievers

The factors that make people religious or atheistic are currently much debated, and empirical evidence is limited. Further, the possibility that both religious believers and nonbelievers comprise diverse subtypes with different characteristics has seldom been considered. In this study, characteristics of religious believers (N = 984) and nonbelievers (N = 1,000) were analyzed with latent class analyses. These analyses identified five religious subgroups and five nonbeliever subgroups that differed in analytical thinking, empathizing, mechanistic cognition (i.e., systemizing), and autistic and schizotypal traits. The results highlight the strengths and limitations of current theoretical arguments about religious beliefs.     

Discounting input from older adults: the role of age salience on partner age effects in the social contagion of memory

Three experiments examined the impact of partner age on the magnitude of socially suggested false memories. Young participants recalled household scenes in collaboration with an implied young or older adult partner who intentionally recalled false items. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with only the age of their partner (low age-salience context); in Experiment 2, participants were presented with the age of their partner along with a photograph and biographical information about their partner (high age-salience context); in Experiment 3, age salience was varied within the same experiment. Across experiments, participants in both the low age-salience and high age-salience contexts incorporated their partners’ misleading suggestions into their own subsequent recall and recognition reports, thus demonstrating social contagion with implied partners. Importantly, the effect of partner age differed across conditions. Participants in the high age-salience context were less likely to incorporate misleading suggestions from older adult partners than from young adult partners, but participants in the low age-salience context were equally likely to incorporate suggestions from young and older adult partners. Participants discount the memory of older adult partners only when age is highly salient.     

Believing in the purpose of events—why does it occur,and is it supernatural?

What is the cognitive basis for the common belief that random events have a purpose, and are these beliefs a form of supernatural thinking, as Bering has suggested? Two questionnaire studies with Finnish volunteer participants (N = 2650, 1830 females, mean age 26) used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the hypotheses that beliefs in the purpose of events are part of the same phenomenon as paranormal beliefs and that confusions of core knowledge of the psychological, biological and physical domains predict both sets of beliefs. In Study 1, participants were not given a definition of purpose, and in Study 2, purpose was explicitly defined as entailing planning by a supernatural agent. The results from both studies supported the predictions. The results indicate that construing events in terms of purpose is not a universal tendency but an individual cognitive bias that can be accounted for by false analogies from intuitive psychology, biology and physics. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Feminist Slants on Nature and Health

Ecological feminism (or ecofeminism) and feminist bioethics seem to have much in common. They share certain methodological and epistemological concerns, offer similar challenges to traditional philosophy, and take up a number of the same practical issues. The two disciplines have thus far had little or no direct interaction; this is one attempt to begin some conversation and perhaps stimulate some cross-pollination of ideas. The email dialogue engaged an active ecofeminist scholar, Karen Warren, and an active feminist bioethicist, Hilde Nelson, in an exchange of ideas. Jessica Pierce, whose research cuts between environmental philosophy and bioethics, served as moderator.     

Performance Rating Accuracy: Convergence Between Supervisor Assessment and Sales Productivity

The role of seven variables in predicting supervisor rating accuracy was examined. The study was conducted in natural settings, and the criterion for rating accuracy was the rated salesperson’s productivity in terms of sales. The predictors examined were the supervisor’s gender, the amount of time the supervisor spent working with the subordinate, the length of the supervisor–subordinate relationship, depth of acquaintance, the subordinate’s sensitivity to expressive behavior in others, the ability to modify self-presentation and the subordinate’s age. The participants were 208 supervisors and 268 female salespersons. The results of a discriminant analysis showed that the variables predicting accuracy–inaccuracy were different from those predicting overestimation–underestimation. Accuracy was best predicted by the length of the supervisor–subordinate relationship and by the supervisor’s female gender. The direction of the inaccurate ratings was best predicted by high acquaintance, which pulled the ratings in a positively-biased direction.     

The Relationship between Mindfulness and Subjective Well-Being: Examining the Indirect Effects of Self-Connection and Meaning in Life

Over the past decade, support for the relationship between mindfulness and happiness has increased dramatically. The consensus is that people who are mindful also experience greater happiness. However, little is still known about how and why greater mindfulness leads one to be happier. The current research calls on recent theorizing to help understand the process by which this occurs. In particular, we studied the indirect effects of both self-connection and meaning in life on the relationship between mindfulness and subjective well-being. To this end, we compiled data collected in our lab over the past 3 years. A total of 2,929 participants provided cross-sectional data while 465 participated in longitudinal studies. Across both samples, the data supported our proposed model. Self-connection and meaning in life combined to mediate the relationship between mindfulness and the various aspects of subjective well-being. In all, it is clear that, although mindfulness is important, self-connection and meaning in life play key roles in one’s subjective well-being. This suggests that more research and interventions should focus on ways to increase self-connection and meaning in life as ways to help people experience greater happiness.