Are psi researchers more like lay believers or skeptics?
A study from the University of Virginia finds psi researchers believe more in psi phenomena than skeptics but share similar cognitive styles, emphasizing open-minded thinking and evidence evaluation.
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A recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology investigates the cognitive styles of psi researchers compared to lay believers and skeptics. The research, conducted by a team from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, reveals that while psi researchers exhibit a stronger belief in psi phenomena—such as extra-sensory perception and psychokinesis—than academic skeptics, they share similar cognitive styles with skeptics. Both groups demonstrate a commitment to actively open-minded thinking and a similar approach to evaluating evidence. In contrast, lay believers show less willingness to consider contradictory evidence. The findings suggest that despite their belief in psi, researchers in the field engage with evidence in a manner akin to skeptics, emphasizing the importance of sound reasoning. This study highlights the nuanced relationship between belief and cognitive processing in the context of psi research, suggesting that academic psi researchers are more aligned with skeptics than with lay believers in their analytical approaches.
- Psi researchers show greater belief in psi phenomena than academic skeptics.
- Both psi researchers and academic skeptics exhibit similar cognitive styles, particularly in open-minded thinking.
- Lay believers differ significantly from psi researchers and skeptics in their willingness to consider contradictory evidence.
- The study underscores the complexity of belief and reasoning in psi research.
- Academic engagement with psi phenomena has a long history, dating back to the 19th century.
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5 commentsFirst, I was shocked that these things are researched academically, and have their own regular looking peer reviewed journals. A lot of the papers are from tenured professors at well known universities, often from divisions affiliated with a medical school like this one: https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/
Secondly, I was also shocked to find I could find no obvious flaws in the reasoning or methodology in the papers I looked at- despite the subject matter seeming to be something that is "obviously impossible" they followed standard scientific procedures, and supported their findings with the same level of care and rigor you'd expect from other fields. I suppose then that the obvious explanation is that these "standard procedures" are themselves flawed, but from just reading the paper, I could not spot the flaw.
The two blue graphs (academic psi and lay psi) look like each other, and the two yellow graphs (academic skeptics and lay skeptics) look like each other. The data show the opposite of the headline: academic researchers into the paranormal seem to believe in it, while other academics don't.
Maybe this is some kind of meta-comment on how the "academic psi researchers" typically interpret hard data...
One of the examples given of a psi-related phenomenon is extra-sensory perception. As far as I know, ESP has never been rigorously demonstrated to exist, although it's been attempted many times.
What's this about?
Note that the editor's presentation linked in HN only shows the belief plot (showing that psi researchers tend to be believe in psi), but the actual article draw most conclusions from their figure 2 (which studies correlation between belief in psi and what they call open-minded thinking)
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