Paranormal Encounters as Eyewitness Phenomena: Psychological Determinants of Atypical Perceptual Interpretations |
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Authors: | Matthew J Sharps Elaine Newborg Stephanie Van Arsdall Jordan DeRuiter Bill Hayward Brianna Alcantar |
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Institution: | 1.Department of Psychology,California State University,Fresno,USA;2.Department of Forensic Clinical Psychology,Alliant International University,Fresno,USA |
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Abstract: | Many people who report paranormal sightings (e.g., Bigfoot and UFO aliens) are apparently sincere. This places many such sightings
in the category of eyewitness errors, rather than of deliberate deception. Recent research has supported this idea; in an
earlier paper, we demonstrated that paranormal beliefs are facilitated by tendencies toward attention deficit hyperactive
disorder, dissociation, and depression. These characteristics predicted specific patterns of beliefs in several paranormal
phenomena. The present research addressed the question of whether such psychological tendencies would tend to create bias
in perception and interpretation as well as in belief- in whether a person’s identification of a given stimulus as paranormal
in nature would be influenced by the same factors previously demonstrated to influence paranormal beliefs. This hypothesis
was supported. Specifically, those with dissociative tendencies were significantly more likely to identify given stimulus
items as paranormal in nature than were those with lower dissociation scores. Dissociation was further shown to be related
to paranormal beliefs, consistent with earlier findings. Results are discussed in terms of the reconfigurative dynamics known
to operate in areas of human cognition such as eyewitness identification, and in terms of the generality of those effects
to the realm of paranormal sightings. |
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