Are Religiosity and Belief in an Afterlife Better Predictors of Esp Performance than Belief in Psychic Phenomena? by Erlendur Haraldsson

Some measures of re l ig iosity, bel ief in an after l i fe , and bel ief in psychic phenomena were included in eight forced-choice ESP experiments. Seven of the experiments consisted of 40 trials of clairvoyance as a computer game and 40 trials of precognition in a paper-and-pencil test for each subject; and in one experiment there were 80 trials of clairvoyance. A combined measure of religiosity correlated significantly with the ESP scores in two of the experiments and for all the experiments combined (IV = 383). Belief in an afterlife also correlated significantly in two experiments and in all experiments combined (N = 382). Belief in psychic phenomena correlated significantly with ESP scores in two experiments but in opposite directions from each other, and was insignificantly cot-t-related in all the experiments combined (N = 448). Discovering usable predictors of performance in ESP experiments has proved to be a difficult task. It can be stated that no reliable such predictor has been found. This comes, of course, as no surprise when we consider the extremely low reliability of what have traditionally been termed ESP scores, a designation used even when there have been no signs of ESP operating in these scores (Haraldsson, 1983). However, in a fairly large number of experiments small effects and patterns have shown up that seem to have some consistency. One of these is the sheep-goat effect (SGE). Schmeidler (1945) introduced the terms sheep and gout into parapsychology, having taken them from a religious connotation in the Bible (Matthew, 25: 3133). She made them apply to “those who thought that ESP could occur in the experimental situation, and those who were sure it could not” (Schmeidler, 1945, p. 47), thereby referring to the “open-minded sheep” versus the “skeptical goats.” The effect of belief in psi on ESP performance has yielded significant results in many experiments but has not shown up in othThe author thanks Joop M. Houtkooper for computing most of the statistical analyses and Michael Thalbourne for some helpful comments. 260 The Journal of Parapsychology ers. Palmer (197 1, 1978) has reviewed a large number of experiments which have shown how belief in psychic phenomena or belief in the success of an ESP experiment has affected the scoring rate: believers (sheep) have tended to obtain a higher number of hits than disbelievers (goats). Often the belief was a general belief in psychic phenomena or a belief according to Schmeidler’s original definition, that is, “either accepting the possibility of ESP under the conditions of the experiment, or as rejecting any possibility of ESP under these conditions” (Schmeidler 8c McConnell, 1958, p. 24). The SGE may be considered one of the best, if not the best, demonstrated effect in parapsychology. In a few experiments conducted at the University of Iceland using a large number of subjects, the SGE has come clearly to view. One experiment (N = 449) revealed a significant SGE; another (N = 393) was almost significant (Haraldsson, 1975, 1980); and the third (N = 229) was significant but in the reversed direction, that is, the goats obtained higher scores than the sheep (Thorisson, Skulason, & Haraldsson, 1991). In these experiments we used the 3item Icelandic Sheep-Goat Scale, which measures belief in clairvoyance, precognition, and psychic dreams, as well as the reading of books and articles on psychic phenomena (Haraldsson, 198 1). The Icelandic Sheep-Goat Scale does not refer to a specific experimental setup as in Schmeidler’s original question. Religiosity and Belief in Psychic Phenomena A relationship between religious beliefs and belief in psychic phenomena has shown up in several studies with large samples of subjects. In four Icelandic samples (Haraldsson, 1981) there have been significant correlations between belief in psychic phenomena and items in a religiosity scale consisting of self-reported religiosity, praying, and reading of religious material. The correlations ranged from .26 (N = 568) to .55 (N = 195). Factor analysis of data from a large sample of students at Louisiana Tech University (Tobacyk 8c Milford, 1983) showed that items pertaining to “Traditional Religious Belief’ (belief in survival, devil, God, heaven, and hell) constituted a factor supposedly independent of other belief dimensions of their scale and that it correlated positively with belief in precognition (r = .23). However, Clarke (1991) found no relationship between self-reported religiosity and belief in telepathy and precognition in a large sample (N = 1,048) of New Zealand university students. Religiosity and Belief in an Afterlife 261 McClenon (1990), using 241 students at the University of Maryland, concluded that experience of ESP and belief in ESP (each measured by single items) were not related either to religious denomination or to self-perceived religiosity. Religiosity and Reporting of Psychic Experience Reporting of personal psychic experiences has similarly been found to correlate with religious beliefs. In a national representative survey in Iceland (N = 902), there was a significant correlation of r = .30 between the reporting of psychic experiences (six different kinds) and a 3-item religiosity scale: (How religious do you consider yourself to be? Have you ever had a vivid religious or spiritual experience? Do you read the Bible?) (Haraldsson, 1985; additional data not analyzed at the time). A mass survey (N = 18,607) was recently conducted in most countries of Western Europe and the United States (Haraldsson 8c Houtkooper, 1991). Among the religious variables relating significantly to psychic experiences were belief in reincarnation, God being important in one’s life, and taking some moments for prayer or meditation. In the sample of town people in Palmer’s (1979) Charlottesville community survey, 11% who were classified as “other” in regard to religious affiliation (i.e., not Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or atheist) tended to report a relatively high incidence of psi-related experiences (significant for ESP agency, apparitions, and haunting). Those claiming to be atheists reported a relatively low incidence, and selfreported religiosity was not related to the reporting of psi-related experiences. Thus far, this relationship between religious beliefs and belief in psychic phenomena has been explored only in surveys of self-reported psychic experiences and beliefs. We have lacked data to test whether religious beliefs and religiosity can predict ESP scores in experiments designed primarily to elicit ESP. The author searched in vain through the parapsychological literature for an experiment in which a religious variable was used to correlate with ESP performance. Results from a series of experiments-to be described in this paper-indicate that religious belief and belief in an afterlife may be more important predictors in ESP scoring than belief or interest in psychic phenomena, which is the essence of the sheep-goat effect. 262 The Journal of Parapsychology Since 1977 a series of 10 experiments have been conducted at the University of Iceland to test a possible relationship between perceptual defensiveness and performance in a forced-choice guessing game as an indicator of ESP. A meta-analysis has shown that these experiments revealed an overall significant relationship between perceptual defensiveness as measured by the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) and ESP performance: effect size (ES) = .12 1, z = 2.61, N = 462, p = .0045, one-tailed. The experiments have been described in detail elsewhere (Haraldsson, 1978; Haraldsson & Johnson, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1986; Haraldsson, Houtkooper, & Hoe&e, 1987; Haraldsson & Houtkooper, 1992; Johnson 8c Haraldsson, 1984). To test a possible relationship between ESP performance and religious belief and interest, a few religious items were included along with the Icelandic Sheep-Goat Scale in 8 of the 10 DMT-ESP experiments.