Research Proposal

Working Title: The Effect of Cognitive Ability and Scientific Misrepresentation on Paranormal Belief

Topic: 

    I will examine the possible reasons behind people’s continued belief in the paranormal. This paper will link people’s cognitive ability to scientific misrepresentation, particularly in media, and explore the unreliability of ghost-hunting techniques, such as EVP. 

Research Question: 

    What sparked people’s interest in contacting spirits? How have our methods of reaching the undead evolved, and are these methods reliable? Despite the mounting evidence against the existence of spirits, why do people continue to believe in the paranormal?

Theoretical Frame:

In the study by Gordon Pennycook et al. “Analytic Cognitive Style Predicts Religious and Paranormal Belief,” and the study “Probability Misjudgment, Cognitive Ability, and Belief in the Paranormal” by Jochen Musch et al., researchers looked into the link between people’s cognitive abilities and their tendency to believe in the paranormal. These researchers found that cognitive ability is negatively correlated with paranormal belief. Pennycook’s study refers to high cognitive abilities as an “analytic cognitive style,” which is “defined as a propensity to engage in effortful reasoning” (Pennycook). While these findings do offer an explanation as to why some people are still adamant that ghosts exist, I found it unlikely that people’s lack of critical thinking is single handedly responsible for people’s belief in the paranormal. I thus looked to another source: Paul Brewer’s study, “The Trappings of Science: Media Messages, Scientific Authority, and Beliefs About Paranormal Investigators.” In this study, Brewer describes the “naturalizing effect,” which is when people are unable to “distinguish between fact and fiction” because “producers of fictional films often rely on science consultants to enhance the legitimacy of their own portrayals of science and scientists” (Brewer). This thus begs the question of how scientific misrepresentation as a whole has managed to impact people’s belief in the paranormal. 

Cases or Examples:

    Both Pennycook et al.’s “Analytic Cognitive Style Predicts Religious and Paranormal Belief” and Musch et al.’s “Probability Misjudgment, Cognitive Ability, and Belief in the Paranormal” present research and data for experiments measuring the association between people’s cognitive abilities and belief in the paranormal. In addition, Krissy Wilson and Christopher French’s study “Magic and Memory: Using Conjuring to Explore the Effects of Suggestion, Social Influence, and Paranormal Belief on Eyewitness Testimony for an Ostensibly Paranormal Event” shows how pre-existing beliefs and suggestion can trick people into believing that they have witnessed an “ostensibly paranormal event,” or an OPE. Wilson and French’s study supports how lower cognitive ability can increase someone’s tendency to believe in the paranormal, as critical thinkers are less likely to believe in OPEs. Their study also mentions the prevalence of OPEs in a historical context, which I can use for my paper, as I plan to discuss people’s historical fascination with the paranormal. 

    Cassie Axtell’s thesis, “Assessing Electronic Voice Phenomena through Speech Science,” explores how pseudoscientific ghost-hunting tools—particularly, electronic voice phenomena, or EVP—are used as evidence for paranormal activity. She talks about the history of how EVP was created and offers some theories as to how EVP is used to convince people that ghosts exist. What makes Axtell’s thesis even more interesting is how parapsychologist James Houran, in “Sheet Happens!’ Advancing Ghost Studies in the Analytics Age,” bemoans paranormal investigators’ fixation with “scientific” equipment. While Axtell is ostensibly a skeptic and Houran appears to be a believer, neither of them particularly approve of how reliant paranormal evidence is on “scientific” equipment. Another interesting study is Heather Ridolfo’s “Social Influences on Paranormal Belief: Popular Versus Scientific Support,” which examines how people’s belief may not be founded in scientific evidence in the first place. 

    Season 8, episode 11 of Ghost Hunters serves as a specific example of how paranormal investigators attempt to use pseudoscientific technologies as hard evidence that ghosts exist. In this episode, the Ghost Hunters return to a previous location based on “two of the most amazing EVPs” that they found last time. One of the investigators proudly proclaims during the investigation, “We decided to deploy every single piece of equipment shoved in our bags. That consisted of multiple REM pods, temperature sensors, and EMF meters. We set up the shadow detector that senses from three different directions. We set up the full spectrum camera” (“The Princess”). Something interesting to note is that the narrator even calls their findings in this episode “undeniable evidence,” as if broken, pseudoscientific technologies are enough to legitimize their findings as actual scientific evidence of ghosts. One of the investigators even talks about the fallibility of EMF meters, yet the Ghost Hunters continue to use EMF meters as indicators of a paranormal presence. 

    Deonna Kelli Sayed’s Paranormal Obsession: America’s Fascination with Ghosts & Hauntings, Spooks & Spirits, Angela Narth and Samuel Peter Aykroyd’s A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Séances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters, and Deborah Blum’s Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death are all books that I would like to potentially reference. Though I have not had the chance to thoroughly read any of them, they all explore the history of people’s fascination with the paranormal. 

Works Cited

Axtell, Cassie C., "Assessing Electronic Voice Phenomena through Speech Science" (2017). 

    Honors Theses. 415. https://encompass.eku.edu/honors_theses/415.

Aykroyd, Peter H., and Angela Narth. A History of Ghosts: the True Story of Séances, 

    Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters. Rodale, 2009. 

Blum, Deborah. Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life after Death. Century, 2007. 

Brewer, Paul R. “The Trappings of Science: Media Messages, Scientific Authority, and 

    Beliefs About Paranormal Investigators.” Science Communication, vol. 35, no. 3, SAGE 

    Publications, 2013, pp. 311–33, doi:10.1177/1075547012454599.

Houran, James. “‘Sheet Happens!’ Advancing Ghost Studies in the Analytics Age.” 

    Australian Journal of Parapsychology, vol. 17, no. 2, Dec. 2017, pp. 187–206. 

    EBSCOhost,  search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

    direct=true&db=aph&AN=127093363&site=ehost-live.

Musch, Jochen, and Katja Ehrenberg. “Probability Misjudgment, Cognitive Ability, and 

    Belief in the Paranormal.” The British Journal of Psychology, vol. 93, no. 2, Blackwell 

    Publishing Ltd, 2002, pp. 169–77, doi:10.1348/000712602162517.

Pennycook, Gordon, et al. “Analytic Cognitive Style Predicts Religious and Paranormal 

    Belief.” Cognition, vol. 123, no. 3, Elsevier B.V, 2012, pp. 335–

    46, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.003.

“The Princess and the EVP.” Ghost Hunters, narrated by Mike Rowe, season 8, episode 11, 

    SyFy, 9 May 2012. 

Ridolfo, Heather, et al. “Social Influences on Paranormal Belief: Popular Versus 

    Scientific Support.” Current Research in Social Psychology, vol. 15, no. 3, Center for the 

    Study of Group Processes, 2010, pp. 33–41. https://bit.ly/37ubSUF

Sayed, Deonna Kelli. Paranormal Obsession: America's Fascination with Ghosts & 

    Hauntings, Spooks & Spirits. Llewellyn Publications, 2011. 

Wilson, Krissy, and Christopher C. French. “Magic and Memory: Using Conjuring to 

    Explore the Effects of Suggestion, Social Influence, and Paranormal Belief on 

    Eyewitness Testimony for an Ostensibly Paranormal Event.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 

    5, FRONTIERS RESEARCH FOUNDATION, 2014, pp. 1289–

    1289, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01289.