Psychic mediumship & healing, OOBEs and NDEs

Today we finished the Anomalistic Psychology unit and covered four topics very quickly.

The ppt on psychic healing (including therapeutic touch (TT)) and psychic mediumship is here. Psychic healing refers to treatments used to deal with health problems by purely mental means. Psychic mediums claim to be able to communicate with people in the afterlife or spirit world. The Barnum statements sheet is here.



We also started to look at out-of-body experiences (OOBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs). Both of these are reasonably well supported, scientifically, unlike the other paranormal phenomena we have covered. Research has indicated real physiological explanations for both of these experiences, however some people still use paranormal arguments to explain them.

The ppt on OOBEs and NDEs is here. Make sure you complete the list of questions on OOBEs and NDEs, which is here.

Do attempt the exam questions on both ppts. Mark schemes are on the AQA website, or you can email answers to me.

Personality factors underlying anomalous experience

Today we looked at how personality factors affect whether someone is more likely to believe in the paranormal. We looked at Locus of Control. Eysenck's personality types and imaginative personalities.

Today's ppt is here. The exam questions that you need to do are near the end of the ppt, the mark schemes are on there as well. 

Superstitious behaviour and magical thinking

Today we looked at superstition and magical thinking. These are both examples of irrational thinking where a causal relationship has been assumed between events that are merely correlated. There are various explanations as to why some people believe in these more than other people - it could be to create an illusion of control, or because they have learnt them through conditioning (like Skinner's pigeons), or because they are good at separating their logical from their intuitive brains - the dual processing theory.

Today's ppt is here.

Coincidence and probability judgements

Today we looked at some of the reasons why some people make illusions of causality - thinking coincidences are causally linked, or thinking unrelated events are linked to each other. One reason is that it allows people to feel in control of an unpredictable world, another is that it could be adaptive, another is that believers are lower in academic ability and another is that believers are just not good at making probability judgements. Furthermore, don't forget that human memory is notoriously unreliable and that some of the illusions of causality may just be down to a dodgy memory.

Today's ppt is here. Make sure you answer the exam questions at the end - all mark schemes on the AQA website, or see me if you are having trouble locating them.

Psychokinesis

Today we covered psychokinesis - the ability to move objects without touching them, and also micro-psychokinesis, which is the supposed ability to affect probability outcomes (such as random numbers or flipping a coin).

In this topic, you need to be able to discuss methodological issues. These are basically the reasons why positive findings are often reported.

Today's ppt is here. 

The Ganzfeld procedure

Today we looked at the Ganzfeld procedure - a methodology that attempts to objectively measure ESP. We used Zener cards (here) to carry out our own procedures, and looked at some of the reasons for positive results for ESP being shown in Ganzfeld studies.
The ppt is here. 

Anomalistic Psychology

Today's ppt is here - we started the next unit 4 topic today, Anomalistic Psychology. I introduced a few key terms and we looked at some examples of bad science from Ben Goldacre.
More to come next week.

Why Natural Selection Hasn’t Trashed Mental Illness

For a psychological disorder, schizophrenia has a very large genetic component - up to 48% in MZ twins, as you know. It's pretty maladaptive to have schizophrenia so why has it persisted in the genome?

Here is an interesting read about schizophrenia and evolution. It's hard to get our head round the fact that schizophrenia may actually be adaptive in some form or other. There are various evolutionary explanations and the article explains that the genes for SZ may be coupled to other, more positive traits, like intelligence.

Thanks to Jack C-J for suggesting the article. Anyone should feel free to contribute to the blog.