The Role Of Coincidence And Probablity Judgements

Question 1

What does the “egocentricity bias” say about the beliefs in coincidence?

Answer 1

Suggests hoe people interpret coincidences depends whether the coincidence happened to themselves or to others

Falk (1989) claims that coincidences which we are personally involved in are much more surprising and are subsequently more likely to consider our own stories of coincidence as having a paranormal cause.
If it happens to someone else, it can be explained as a coincidence and/or as just not very surprising.

The egocentricity bias explanations claims that we have a “cognitive bias” to exaggerate the importance of the coincidence if it happens to ourselves.

• Falk (1981) conducted an experiment to determine how people who hear stories on coincidences interpret them. He found that they rated their own stories that they were asked to write as more supervising than those that they were told.

Question 2

What does the “law of truly large numbers” say about probability judgements?

Answer 2

Diaconis and Mosteller (1989) use this theory as an explanation as to why some people have a lack of poor understanding of probability.

The law of truly large numbers states that:
“even with a large enough sample size of number of opportunities (people, events) even the most unlikely outrageous coincidences are likely to happen”

It should not be a surprise when a “one-in-a-million” coincidence happens, as with 7 billion people having. An average of five dreams, therefore equates to approximately 35 billion dreams each night.

A strength of this theory is that it is able to demonstrate that some people have a poor understanding of probability and shows why some people may attribute coincidences as a meaningful experience

A limitation is that it only gives estimation on the probability of an event occurring, which can’t tell us if the coincidence may have been a real anomalous experience, such as having a precognitive dream

Question 3

What does the “probability misjudgement theory” say about probability judgements?

Answer 3

Blackmore and Troscianko (1985) argue that paranormal experiences are really cognitive illusions that result from errors and bias in people’s thinking process.

Different reasoning tests to assess probability judgement:

1) Repetition avoidance task:
Carrying out a random number sequence task.
Brugger et al (1990) found believers are likely to show more avoidance repetition from a sequence of dice throws than non-believers.
They concluded that believers underestimate the probability of coincidence that can occur by chance, which may explain why they are more likely to seek a paranormal explanation.

2) Probability reasoning task:
Blackmore and Troscianko (1985) carried out a number of probabilistic reasoning questions and found that non-believers tend to answer the questions more correctly than believers

• Mixed findings, other research findings do not support the probability misjudgment theory as a possible cause for paranormal beliefs.
• Blackmore and Matthews (1995) repeated the birthday paradox question and the findings were not repeated
• Lacks ecological validity
  Tests are often conducted in artificial laboratory conditions. Measuring probability judgment like so bears little relationship to real life personal experience as to how people actually judge probability in the real world

Question 4

What does the “general cognitive ability” say about the belief in coincidences?

Answer 4

Suggests that believers may in general have a lower intelligence level and are therefore less able to accurately judge certain events such as “experiencing coincidences”.
In such cases they are more likely to accept a paranormal explanation than accepting a more reasonable explanation, such as it being a product of random chance.

• Gray (1987) found a negative correlation between paranormal beliefs and educational achievements (then stronger your beliefs in the paranormal, the lower your educational achievements. Suggesting levels of intelligence maybe a factor underlying paranormal beliefs.
• Further research provided mixed findings, and the reasons for such unreliability may be due to confounding variables such as “experimenter effects”