BBC - Future – Psychology:
The truth about the paranormal
In the 21st Century, why do so many
people still believe in the paranormal? David Robson discovers that there’s
good reason we hold superstitions – and a few surprising benefits.
By David Robson
31 October 2014
Soon after World War II, Winston
Churchill was visiting the White House when he is said to have had an uncanny experience. Having had a long bath with a Scotch and
cigar, he reportedly walked
into the adjoining bedroom – only to be met by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. Unflappable, even while completely naked, Churchill
apparently announced: “Good evening, Mr President. You seem to have me at a
disadvantage.” The spirit smiled and vanished.
Uncanny: Strange
Unflappable: Imperturbable
His supposed contact with the
supernatural puts Churchill in illustrious company. Arthur Conan Doyle spoke to
ghosts through mediums, while Alan Turing believed in telepathy. Three men who
were all known for their razor-sharp thinking,
yet couldn’t stop themselves from believing in the impossible. You may well
join them. According to recent surveys, as many as three quarters of Americans
believe in the paranormal, in some form, while nearly one in five claim to have
actually seen a ghost.
Razor-sharp: If you describe someone or someone's mind as razor-sharp, you mean that
they have a very accurate and clear understanding of things.
Intrigued by these persistent
beliefs, psychologists have started to look at why some of us can’t shake off old superstitions and folk-lore. Their findings
may suggest some hidden virtues to believing in the paranormal. At the very least, it should
cause you to question whether you hold more insidious
beliefs about the world.
Shake off: Leave behind
Insidious: Something that is insidious is unpleasant or dangerous and develops
gradually without being noticed. Stealthy,
subtle, cunning, designing. (Dit de la malaltia que no presenta els símptomes
característics.; Malicioso o dañino con apariencias inofensivas.)
Some paranormal experiences are
easily explainable, based on faulty activity in the brain. Reports of
poltergeists invisibly moving objects seem to be consistent with damage to
certain regions of the right hemisphere that are responsible for visual
processing; certain forms of epilepsy, meanwhile, can cause the spooky feeling that a presence is stalking you close by –
perhaps underlying accounts of faceless “shadow people” lurking
in the surroundings.
Spooky: Ghostly, spooky, phantasmal
Lurk: (of a person or animal) be or remain hidden so as to wait in ambush
for someone or something
Out-of-body experiences, meanwhile,
are now accepted neurological phenomena, while certain visual illusions could
confound the healthy brain and create mythical beings. For example, one young
Italian psychologist looked in the mirror one morning to find a grizzled old man staring back at him. His later experiments
confirmed that the illusion is surprisingly common when you look at your
reflection in the half light, perhaps because the brain struggles to construct
the contours of your face, so it begins to try to fill in the missing
information – even if that leads to the appearance of skulls, old hags or unsightly animals.
Grizzled: Having or streaked with gray hair.
Hag: A witch, especially one in the form of an ugly old woman (often used
as a term of disparagement for a woman).
Unsightly: Ugly, horrible
So any combination of exhaustion,
drugs, alcohol, and tricks of the light could contribute to single, isolated
sightings, like that reported by Churchill. But what about the experiences of
people like Conan Doyle, who seemed to see other-worldly actions
on a day-to-day basis?
Otherworldly: Otherworldly people, things, and places seem strange or spiritual, and
not much connected with ordinary things.
Day-to-day basis: Every day
Protective shield
Psychologists studying religion have
long suspected that a belief in the paranormal can be a kind of shield from the
even harsher truths of the world. The idea is that
when something unexpected happens – a death, natural disaster, or job loss –
the brain scrambles around for answers, looking for meaning in the chaos. “It’s
such an aversive state that if it can’t gain control objectively, we will get
it by perceiving more structures around us, even if they don’t exist,” says
Jennifer Whitson at the University of Texas, who studies pattern perception,
and judgment and decision making. Even simply asking people to remember a time
when they felt out of control, can make people see illusory forces at work, she
has found. That included seeing patterns in the random movements of the stock
market, for example, but it could also manifest itself by linking two unconnected
events, such as the belief that “knocking on wood” for good luck would improve
your chances in a job interview.
Harsher: Punitive
Anthropomorphism is another common
way that we try to understand events, says Adam Waytz at Northwestern
University in Illinois. So we might think that a spirit lies behind a storm or
that a demon is causing us to get ill – rather than acknowledging that we have
no control over the matter; and if a branch is tapping on your window, you
might be more inclined to imagine that it is a ghost sending you a message. “We
create beliefs in ghosts, because we don’t like believing that the universe is
random,” says Waytz. Again, this seems to be more common when we feel less
control over our lives.
Given these strange turns of the
mind, might some people be naturally inclined to see hidden patterns and
motives, and could this explain why they are more superstitious than others? It
is a question that Tapani Riekki at the University of Helsinki in Finland has
tried to answer for the last few years. He says that believers often welcome
his research, since they genuinely can’t understand why others don’t share
their worldview. “They say that ’I don’t see why other people don’t feel what I
feel, or believe what I believe’,” he says.
Hidden faces
Riekki recently asked sceptics and
believers to view simple animations of moving shapes, while lying in a brain
scanner. He found paranormal believers were more likely to see some kind of
intention behind the movements – as if the shapes were playing a game of “tag”, say – and this was reflected in greater brain activity in the
regions normally associated with “theory of mind” and understanding others’
motives. Riekki has also found that people who believe in the supernatural are
more likely to see hidden faces in everyday photos – a finding confirmed by
another team at the University of Amsterdam, who showed that paranormal
believers are more likely to imagine that they had seen a walking figure in
random light displays.
Game
of tag: (jugar a
parar; jugar a policías y ladrones)
Added to this, Riekki has found that
believers may have weaker cognitive “inhibition”, compared to sceptics. That’s
the skill that allows you to quash unwanted
thoughts, so perhaps we are all spooked by strange coincidences and patterns
from time to time, but sceptics are better at pushing them aside. Riekki gives
the example of someone who is thinking about their mother, only for her to call
two minutes later. “Is it just that sceptics can laugh and say it is just
coincidence, and then think of something else?” he wonders. Significantly,
another paper reported that paranormal believers also tend to have greater
confidence in their decisions, even when they are based on ambiguous
information. So once they have latched onto the
belief, you might be less likely to let it go.
Quash: Supress
Latch: A latch is a fastening on a door or gate. It consists of a metal bar
which you lift in order to open the door.
Even so, most researchers agree that
sceptics shouldn’t be too critical of people who harbour
these beliefs. After all, one study has found that various superstitions can
boost your performance in a range of skills. In one trial, bringing their favourite
lucky charm into a memory test significantly
improved subjects’ recall, since it seemed to increase their confidence in
their own abilities. Another experiment tested the subjects’ golf putting
ability. Telling them that they were using a “lucky” ball meant they were more
likely to score than those simply using any old ball. Even something as simple
as saying “break a leg” or “I’ll keep my
fingers for you” improved the participants’ motor dexterity and
their ability to solve anagrams.
Harbour: Have.
Charm: A charm is an act, saying, or object that is believed to have magic
powers.
Break a leg: "Break a leg" is an idiom in theatre used to wish a performer
"good luck" in an ironic way. Well-wishers typically say "Break
a leg" to actors and musicians before they go on stage to perform. The
origin of the phrase remains obscure. The expression reflects a theatrical
superstition in which wishing a person "good luck" is considered bad
luck. The expression is sometimes used outside the theatre as superstitions and
customs travel through other professions and then into common use. Among
professional dancers, the traditional saying is not "break a leg,"
but "merde.
I’ll keep my fingers for you: I’ll keep my fingers (crossed) for you.
And even if you think you are
immune, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of suggestion. Michael Nees at
the Lafayette College in Pennsylvania recently asked a group of students to
listen to sound recordings from US ghost-hunting shows. Subtly priming the
volunteers with the thought that they were involved in a paranormal study
increased the number of voices they reported hearing in the fuzzy recordings
– despite the fact that they mostly reported being sceptics. It seems that the
merest expectation of hearing something spooky can set your mind whirring.
Fuzzy: Unsure, ambiguous
Whirring: A prolonged soft swish or buzz, as of a motor working or wings
flapping
Whitson’s research, meanwhile, shows
how easy it is for us all to imagine strange happenings when we feel unsettled. Her latest experiment found that even priming
someone with a feeling of hope – normally considered a positive emotion – can
still increase people’s belief in the supernatural, or conspiracy theories. The
reason, she says, is that hope is still full of uncertainty; it makes you
question the future, compared to a feeling like anger where you might be surer
of your righteousness.
Unsettled: Worried
And if you tell yourself that you
have reasoned yourself out of superstitions and ghost stories, you might still
harbour other beliefs that are equally fanciful, she says. It could be a full
blown conspiracy theory about the government, or just suspicions that your
colleagues are ganging up on you, based on a few spurious comments.
We can perhaps see the brain’s
ability to “spot” illusory patterns in the response to the Ebola epidemic –
such as the emergence of folk remedies (including the belief that drinking salt
water is a cure), fears in the West that it will spread through air travel, and
theories that it was created by industrialised governments.
“It’s easy to think of yourself as
the one holding the rational cards, but it’s wiser
to understand that every one of us are going to be prone to those mistakes when
we feel like we are lacking control,” says Whitson. “We should all be ready to
evaluate our assumptions more thoughtfully.” As
Churchill, Turing and Conan Doyle showed us, even the most astute minds can be
given to fancy from time to time.
Wiser: Cleverer
Thoughtfully: If you are thoughtful, you are quiet and serious because you are
thinking about something.
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