module 5: lectures Flashcards
The Families of Theoretical Positions on Paranormal and Religious Beliefs (4):
- The Social Marginality
(Deprivation) Hypothesis:
• People believe that the things that they do (i.e. prayers) because it helps them cope with the fact that they’re a part of a socially marginalised group.
• For example, countries with higher rates of religiosity also have higher rates of infant mortality.
• Paranormal and Religious beliefs should be strongest amongst the socially and economically deprived.
• CCM- believing in an external omnipotent being (i.e. god) is used to help us cope with the disorder, injustice and hardships that one disproportionately faces as a part of a minority group – reduces anxiety and increased perceived control on the outcome of one’s life. - The Attitudinal or Worldview
Hypothesis:
• Some people more than others tend to take a more subjective (rather than objective), emotional and unscientific view of the world.
• For example, women tend to say they believe more in paranormal and religion than men do. Inadvertently reinforces gender stereotypes in which women are viewed as more emotional and intuitive than men and explains why women may be more open to paranormal or religious beliefs. - The Cognitive
Correlates/Deficits Hypothesis:
• Theory that those who believe in religion or the paranormal have some form of cognitive deficit.
• For example, not smart enough, illogical, dogmatic (black and white thinking), foolish or credulous but there is little evidence to support this theory.
• One study found some individuals are able to make connections between stimuli that others may not, this may make them more likely to believe in the paranormal or religious phenomenon. - Personality
Correlates/Psychodynamic
Hypothesis:
• We believe in paranormal/religious phenomenon because it serves a function, to meet our psychological need[s].
• For example, Compensatory Control Model (CCM) the idea that part of the reason why people believe in these types of things is that they give us a sense of control over the world around us.
• E.g. when personal control is low, we turn to external systems to increase our perceived control on the world (pattern perceptions, institutions or omnipotent beings) to gain a semblance of order in our world. Sufficient to have affirmations of order i.e. through belief in science and societal progression.
Is science about finding “proof”
It’s not about finding proof, it’s an intellectual discipline which is sometimes more about the journey of the scientific endeavour than the results we obtain.
What is the Scientific Method?
The systematic testing of our hypothesis/theories about the world, where we go out to collect systematic and objective evidence which we can use to test our theory/explanations in comparison to alternatives.
Important distinctions:
(A) Construct & Variables:
- A construct is an intangible concept that we have an intuitive sense of but cannot be directly measured (belief, love, ESP). Thus, we use operationalisations of those constructs into variables, so we have a tool/form of measurement that allows us to collect data about our construct. A variable can vary in its magnitude, high or low anxiety, strong or weak belief etc.
- Our ability to make generalisations from our variable to our construct relies on two things: reliability and validity of our measurements.
(B) Construct Validity &
Reliability:
- Construct Validity- that the variable we use measures what we intend it to measure. I.e. the beliefs scale actually measures beliefs or the Kessler scale measures psychological distress. Or IQ tests measures intelligence (poor construct validity).
- If the measurement tool has good construct validity, it will also be able to predict important outcomes or behaviours linked to the construct of intrust (i.e. academic performance, mental distress severity etc.).
- Reliability, the scale or measurement tool reliably produces consistent measures overtime and across people.
- Test-retest reliability (are measures consistent).
- Inter-rater reliability (are observers consistent).
The Tools of Science: Correlation
- Use a scatterplot
- Measures the extent to which two (or more) variables covary.
- We use statistics to remove the subjectivity from forming conclusions, and use these tools to determine if there is a meaningful difference between two groups, or statistically significant correlation between variables.
- The correlation coefficient tells us the size, direction and magnitude of the relationship between two variables. Can vary from -1 to +1 with 0 meaning null correlation.
Strengths of Correlations
- Correlation allows the researcher to investigate naturally occurring variables that maybe unethical or impractical to test experimentally. For example, it would be unethical to conduct an experiment on whether smoking causes lung cancer.
- Correlation allows the researcher to clearly and easily see if there is a relationship between variables. This can then be displayed in a graphical form.
Limitations of Correlations
- Correlation is not and cannot be taken to imply causation. Even if there is a very strong association between two variables we cannot assume that one causes the other.
- Correlation does not allow us to go beyond the data that is given.
Curvilinear Regression
- Relationships between variables are not always linear, sometimes a curvilinear relationship better describes how two variables covary.
- The figure shows, people who report having among the lowest levels of non-religious paranormal beliefs are also report the lowest levels of religious beliefs.
- The most religious people in the sample, also tend to report low levels of non-religious paranormal beliefs.
- Correlation coefficient for this graph is .63, a stronger positive correlation.
The Tools of Science: Experiments
*the gold standard of scientific research because you can make claims about causality
- Instead, we measured two groups of religious and non-religious paranormal beliefs.
- However, I manipulate what the two groups are told before they participate.
- This is an experiment.
- Group 1: reports more religious and non-religious paranormal beliefs than group 2.
- Less than 1 in 1000 (10%) chance that my results are due to chance.
- Control: improves our confidence that the results are due to the manipulation of the IV and we are measuring its effect on the DV. We want to control so we can rule out confounds and alternative explanations of our findings.
• The study of causality within psychology is referred to as…
(A) Attributions:
when we make inferences about the cause of behaviours or events in order to understand our experiences. These attributions have a large influence on our behaviour and how we interact with others.
Two dimensions of Attributions:
o Internal vs. External:
Is the event attributed to an internal, or dispositional factors such as personality, emotions or abilities.
Is the event attributed to external causes, or situational factors like the persons environment.
o Stable vs. Unstable:
Is the attributed cause a stable or unstable factor? Is it unchanging
factor or a temporary factor?
Locus of Control
People have a dispositional factor, locus of control, which makes people more likely to perceive and attribute causes as being internal, external or somewhere in between.
- Internal causes, such as dispositional factors are perceived to be controllable e.g. intelligence, hard work. More ambitious people who are success-orientated, politically active, middle aged that is detrimental in the sense that if we believe ourselves to be in control of our future and outcomes then we are also to blame for our failures.
- External causes, or situational factors which we have limited control over e.g. difficulty of task or luck. Belief that we have little control over the outcome or future. Sometimes to the extent to which you believe others control what you do and you just simply obey. For example, luck, chance, unpredictable, fate or others. People with an external locus of control tend to be fatalistic, more passive and accepting, less likely to have expectancy shifts, more common in younger or older people and are in the background because they feel they have no control over events.
locus of control is a ___ it may __ across contexts?
Is a spectrum of locus of control, your preference may vary across contexts.
Pros and Cons of Internal and External Locus of Control:
Pro:
- People with an internal locus of control are more likely to try and change the world to fit around me (i.e. study harder).
- External Locus of Control can be good for… situations in which we generally, have no control for i.e. accidents, natural disasters etc. Internal locus of control individuals struggle to accept things are outside of their control and take much longer to recover and are less happy than external locus of control individuals.
Con:
• External locus of control will not study hard because they believe their performance is outside of their control (fate, luck or others choices).
Terror Management Theory:
• How do we cope with the reality that death is certain and unavoidable?
• Humans are unique in the sense that we are aware of our own mortality and have a strong desire to live.
• Mortality salience causes intense feelings of anxiety that motivate us to engage in certain behaviours to buffer our anxiety about death and uncertainty around it.
e.g. avoiding thinking about death, developing cultural symbols of meaning and value to feel a sense of purpose in one’s life (symbolic or belief in life after death).
terror management theory and religious/paranormal beliefs:
- Those who took the death anxiety survey first were more likely to believe in religious and non-religious paranormal phenomenon.
- Levels of death anxiety were consistent across all conditions regardless on the order in which you took the survey. This tells us that death anxiety is more likely to cause or influence what people believe than beliefs influence their death anxiety.
An Evolutionary Theory of Religion:
*Baumards & Boyer’s (2013)
We engage in religion because we have evolved to do so.
human minds are motivated by evolution (dual-process model) to produce metarepresentation comments on our own intuitions.
