Personality Factors A more imaginative personality Rafa Liu

Fantasy proneness Personality test activity

Fantasy proneness It is not an occasional occurrence. Most writers and artists possess this characteristic in varying degrees.

Fantasy proneness Psychic experience in some due to difficulty in separating reality from fantasy they are so absorbed in a fantasy that it feels it is actually happening. Evidence suggests that paranormal believers are more fantasy prone. Wiseman el at. (2003) mock séance One actor suggested table was levitating (it wasn’t) More believers than non believers reported table had moved

Suggestibility Definition: is the inclination to accept the suggestion of the others. People who are suggestible are more easily hypnotised. Example: Your parents tell you that you have always been a good singer, so from then on you believe you have talent when really your parents were falsely encouraging you.

Suggestibility Hergovich (2003) suggested suggestibility may be linked with paranormal beliefs because some involve deception. for example psychic mediums or the apparent spoon bending abilities of Uri Geller, which have been demonstrated to be fakes. Psychic mediums have the ability to sense and communicate with beings and energies in other dimensions, including the spirits of people who have died.

Suggestibility Suggestible people are more prone to accept these phenomena as real. demonstrate Hergovich tested participants’ suggestibility by trying to hypnotise them found A positive correlation between this and their score on paranormal belief scale.

Creative personality Thalbourne (1998) meta-analysis of relevant studies found correlation between creative personality and paranormal beliefs.

Evaluation

Suggestibility Clancy et al. (2002) found people who claimed to have experienced an alien abduction were also found to be more susceptible to false memories possible that some reports of paranormal experience are false memories.

Link to false memories People with strong imaginations create a memory of events and then believe them to be true. susceptible to false memories A memory of something that didn’t happen but feels as if it is real. a memory of something that didn’t happen but feels as if it is real.

Link to false memories French and Wilson (2006) gave 100 participants a questionnaire 4 of the 5 items were real but 1 was fictitious 36% claimed they had seen the fictitious and these participants scored higher on paranormal belief and experience

Missing words Thalbourne (1998) Clancy et al. (2002) Wiseman el at. (2003) Hergovich (2003) French and Wilson (2006) believers non believers false memories imaginations deception

Assessment Outline two imaginative personality factors underlying anomalous experiences. (6 marks)