There
is a type of psychology experiment that we can call a stigma-seeking
psychology experiment. This type of experiment is typically designed
by some experimenter who is offended by some belief that others may
hold. The experimenter (who we may call the stigma-seeker) runs
an experiment designed to find some psychological defect in those who
hold the belief he is offended by. The stigma-seeker's goal is to be
able to say something like, “Aha, those type of people believe such
things because they have this type of glitch in their minds.”
For
example, if you are a Democrat psychology professor, you may run some
experiment designed to show that Republicans believe some thing
because of a glitch in their minds; and if you are a Republican
psychology professor, you may run some experiment designed to show
that Democrats believe some thing because of a glitch in their minds.
Similarly, if you an atheist you may some run some experiment
designed to show that people believe in God because of some glitch in
their minds; and if you are a theist you may run some experiment
designed to show that people do not believe in God because of some
glitch in their minds.
An
example of this type of weaponized psychology experiment was recently
published. The
stigma seekers are Jan-Willem
van Prooijen, Karen M. Douglas, and Clara De Inocencio.
They have
aimed their arrows at the target of people who believe in the
paranormal. That is probably a majority of the people in the United
States, as studies show that more than 50% of Americans believe in
one or more things that can be called paranormal.
These
psychologists have done a joint study on believers in the paranormal
and conspiracy theorists. This is the same kind of crude “smear
by bad association” trick one might do if you were to try to smear
Democrats by doing a joint study on the thought habits of Democrats
and flat earth believers, or if you were to try to smear Catholics
by doing a joint study on the behavior of Catholics and arsonists.
Our
stigma-seeking psychologists start out in their paper by very
aggressively attempting to portray belief in the paranormal or
supernatural as something irrational and dangerous. This is a dead
giveaway as to their hostility and bias on the topic, something very
different from the objectivity which a researcher should have. I may
note the weakness of their reasoning designed to show that belief in
the supernatural is harmful, such as this claim: “Supernatural
beliefs may lead people to consult spiritual healers instead of
qualified medical specialists to treat dangerous illnesses, or to
base important life decisions (e.g., whether to buy a house, or get a
divorce) on information derived from horoscopes or a random draw of
tarot cards.” But that's peanuts compared to the oceans of death
and pain delivered by people who did not
believe in the supernatural, such as the atheist Joseph Stalin who
sent many millions to their deaths or to prison work camps in
Siberia.
The psychologists did five
experiments, which all used the same approach. Each experiment was
done using only a few hundred anonymous online subjects who the
psychologists never even met. The subjects used an online site
(something called Crowdflower), and did little quickie tests running
about 15 or 20 minutes. As part of such testing, the subjects were
asked to fill out online questionnaires asking about their beliefs
about the paranormal and conspiracy beliefs. The subjects received a
small payment of 75 cents, meaning they were paid at the rate of
about $3 an hour.
Since they were online
tests, why could our experiments not have waited until thousands had
finished the tests? An online experiment with a few hundred anonymous
subjects is hardly a way to produce an effect that we should have any
confidence will be replicated reliably. The results reported are not very
strong, and the reported correlations are almost all weak, most much
less than 50%.
The hypothesis the
psychologists were trying to show was that belief in the paranormal
results from a tendency to see patterns where there are none. This
hypothesis does not make sense. There is almost no belief in the
supernatural or paranormal that can be plausibly explained in such a
way.
Let's consider some
examples. People may believe in God because of the universe's
unexplained beginning, and the extraordinary fine-tuning and order in
the universe's physics and organisms. Others may simply believe in
God because they believe what their religion teacher told them. Such
belief has nothing to do with a pattern. People may believe in ghosts
or Bigfoot because they saw a ghost or saw what looked like Bigfoot,
or they may believe witnesses whose accounts were written up in a
book. Again, this has nothing to do with pattern interpretation.
Belief in near-death experiences is based on the accounts of people
who had such experiences, and has nothing to do with pattern
interpretation. People may believe in ESP (extrasensory perception)
because they read about the very convincing laboratory experiments
which have shown such a thing, or because they had some memorable
experience in which they seemed to know the thoughts of someone in a
way that seemed inexplicable. Again, this does not involve pattern
interpretation. People may believe in UFOs after they saw something
dramatic and inexplicable in the sky, or read lots of accounts about
other people seeing dramatic and inexplicable lights in the sky. This
has nothing to do with pattern interpretation.
There is a general rule
that the larger the size of a belief group, the more that belief
group will tend to have average mental characteristics. In some tiny
belief group you might see aberrant mental characteristics; but in
some group with a size such as 50 million you will see mental
characteristics very close to average mental characteristics. In the
case of belief in the paranormal or the supernatural, the belief group is
actually a majority of humanity, which makes any type of mental
aberration hypothesis (such as that of our stigma-seeking
psychologists) very implausible.
For someone eager to show
some psychological defect in people they are studying, there are two
advantages to running an online study paying test subjects “slave
wages” of only $3 an hour, such as this study did. The first
advantage is that you can pay less than $100 for 200 20-minute
subjects, meaning if necessary you can very inexpensively keep
repeating the experiment until it produces the desired effect.
The second advantage is that pretty much the only people who will
work for these “slave wages” (must less than the minimum legal US
wage) are the financially desperate; and if you're getting only such
subjects, you maximize your chance that some psychological defect
will show up in the subjects you are studying.
An earlier scientific
paper done by different scientists, based on tests with hundreds of
subjects, stated “This paper argues against the theory that people
interpret unusual coincidences as paranormal because they
misunderstand the probability of their occurring by chance.” This
scientific paper found that when only those with college educations
were chosen, there was no tendency for believers in the paranormal to
over-estimate patterns.
It might be rather easy to
turn the tables on our stigma-seeking psychologists trying to show
some glitch in the mind of believers in the paranormal. You could
design psychological experiments that might show that rejection of
convincing evidence for the paranormal or supernatural correlates
with unreasonable stubbornness, observational bias, or refusal to
accept reliable and highly repeated testimony. But it would be
pointless to do such a thing, because all stigma-seeking psychology
experiments are a waste of research dollars. If you don't agree with
someone's opinion on a topic, it is best to argue why such an opinion
is wrong, and why your opinion on the topic is right. Attempting to
fight an opinion by trying to experimentally demonstrate mind
glitches in those who hold it is just a fancy version of the ad hominem fallacy.
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