Coincidence & Probability

Brugger (1990)

Evaluation for the probability misjudgement exp. - he tested the number of repetitions people produced in a string of numbers when asked to make the series random. In a series of truly random numbers repetition is quite common but people who are believers were more likely to avoid making repetitions than non-believers. This suggests that those who believed in paranormal phenomena were more likely to misunderstand chance and the probability of an event occurring, suggesting the theory is likely to be valid

Research into poor intellectual/cognitive ability

Gray (1987) found that believers have significantly lower levels of academic performance than sceptics. Research has also found that believers perform less well on tests of syllogistic reasoning

Poor intellectual/cognitive ability

People who believe in psychic abilities often have reduced intellectual ability and do not appreciate the role of coincidence

Reasons for Illusion of Causality

Poor cognitive/intellectual ability Probability misjudgement The law of very large numbers

The Law of Very Large Numbers

Proposed by Diaconis & Mosteller (1989), they stated that with a large enough sample, the most improbable things happen, i.e. unusual events are likely to happen when there are lots of opportunities for that event. Since people with a poir grasp of probability believe that extreme events are very likely to happen, causality is often misattributed to something paranormal

Esgate & Groome (2001)

Research into probability misjudgement - Found thaf disasters are often reported on the news and disaster dreams are common, making the two likely to co-occur but this is not necessarily the case

Evans (1973)

Surveyed New Scientist readers (who are mainly scientists and engineers who are presumably high in cognitive ability) and found 67% said they regarded ESP either as an established fact or a likely possibility. Suggests that many individuals with high intellectual ability believe in paranormal phenomena, an therefore does not support the theory that a lack of intelligence is the reason behind paranormal belief

Probability

The likelihood of an event occuring. It is often expressed statistically as a percentage or decimal

Probability Misjudgement

There is evidence to suggest that people who believe in the paranormal are poorer at estimating chance and coincidence than non-believers. This might explain why they are more likely to accept a paranormal explanation of their experiences, since they are more likely to consider an unusual event to be so improbable as to be beyond coincidence

The Illusion of Causality

When two events coincide, people often assume that one event causes the other.

Coincidence

Where two or more events happen by chance to occur at the same time or in close succession leading to an assumption that they are linked