Exploring personality correlates of exceptional experiences and beliefs

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Exploring personality correlates of exceptional
experiences and beliefs

• Christine Simmonds-Moore
• Lecture 4

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Some definitions
Exceptional human experiences, personal
meaningful and peak experiences, includes
anomalous, transpersonal and paranormal
experiences
Anomalous experiences, a scientific explanation
cannot currently be applied (Beloff) e.g., UFOs,
alien abductions, past lives,

• Paranormal experiences,
• a subset of anomalous experiences.
• Fall outside of scientific explanation and are
  associated with the mind (Beloff)

Transpersonal experiences Experiences that are
Transformative
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We will take a wide view of what is anomalous,
and address exceptional human experiences,
anomalous experiences and paranormal experiences

• Creative insights and genius
• Alterations in consciousness
• Deja vu
• Time loss or gain
• Alien abduction experiences
• Mystical and transpersonal experiences
• Spirituality and spiritual experiences

• Out of body experiences
• Near death experiences
• Past life experiences and reincarnation
• Mediumship experiences
• Healing experiences
• Belief in new age and paranormal phenomena
• Lucid dreaming
• Some religious experiences
• And paranormal experiences

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Experiences falling under the umbrella of
parapsychology
The scientific study of experiences which, if
they are as they seem to be, are in principle
outside the realm of human capabilities as
presently conceived by conventional scientists
Irwin, 1999
The survival hypothesis
Extrasensory perception (ESP)
Psychokinesis (PK)
Poltergeists or RSPK

• Telepathy
• Clairvoyance
• Precognition
• Retrocognition

• OBE
• NDE
• Communication
• from beyond the grave

• Micro PK
• Macro PK

?
(Psi)
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Prevalence of a selection of spontaneous
experiences in the general population
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Paranormal beliefsin the general population
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Levels of anomaly

cognition
Anomalous beliefs
Anomalous Experiences
Anomalous sensory perceptions
perception
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universal features in anomalous experiences
across cultures

• McClenons experiential source theory
• Anomalous experiences are the source of folk
  beliefs in spirits, souls, life after death
  magical abilities
• There are biologically driven commonalities in
  anomalous experiences across cultures
• Social generation and propagation of beliefs
  both paranormal and religious

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An inheritable anomaly prone personality/personali
ties ?

• Genetic component to anomalies
• Twin studies and anomalous phenomena
• Shari Cohns survey of Scottish second sight
• Neppe and Hurst (1982) psi genetics, epilepsy
  and psi.

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Who reports anomalous experiences?

• Creative individuals
• Those with manic tendencies
• Extraverts
• Magical thinking
• Fantasy proneness
• Synaesthesia
• Dissociation
• Absorption
• schizophrenics

• Temporal lobe lability/those with epilepsy
• Boundary thinness
• Rational and intuitive thinking
• Mixed handedness
• Females
• Feminine and androgynous gender role

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Personality and anomalies 1Dissociation, fantasy
proneness absorption

• Dissociation - mental processes are divided or
  lacking in integration where integration is
  normally expected
• Fantasy proneness - highly associated with
  hypnosis proneness and involvement in fantasy
• Absorption when an object is imagined, it is
  experienced as present and real, reality is
  experienced as subjectively vivid, there is an
  altered sense of reality and in general, an
  altered sense of self among these individuals
  (Tellegen Atkinson, 1974, p. 274).
• Trait
• State
• Need for absorption

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Personality, experience and belief
Encouragement of fantasy
Paranormal beliefs
Social context
Need for control
Childhood trauma
Childhood Fantasy
Paranormal Experience
Irwins (1993) model
Childhood trauma
Childhood fantasy
Paranormal Experience
Paranormal Belief
Lawrence et al.s (1995) model
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Personality and anomalies 1Dissociation, fantasy
proneness absorption

• Past life/reincarnation experiences
• Extra sensory perception experiences
• Near death experiences
• Apparitional experiences
• Psychokinetic experiences
• Spiritual/psychic healing experiences
• Dream and sleep anomalies
• Lucid dreaming
• Out of body experience
• Alien abduction experiences
• Mediumship
• Shamanic experiences

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Cryptoamnesia as a normal explanation for some
anomalies

• This is where one has read something, seen
  something or heard something but does not
  remember doing so
• The information influences a later experience,
  and seems to be impressive
• Contributes to some apparent past life
  experiences
• Channelling/mediumship experiences
• Particularly where one scores high on the
  personality dimension dissociation

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McClenons ritual healing theory

• Paleolithic people with dissociative abilities
  had greater survival advantages when exposed to
  trauma than those lacking in the ability
• Genotypes associated with dissociation increased
• These were linked to a variety of anomalous
  experiences? foundation for shamanism
• The gene was further selected as Shamanistic
  rituals incorporated greater benefits for those
  with dissociative abilities

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Personality and anomalous experiences 2 Magical
thinking, schizotypy, transliminality, boundary
thinness

• Positive schizotypy- personality construct which
  is genetically related to schizophrenia
• Perceptual anomalies, hyperaesthesia,
  hallucinatory experiences, magical thinking
  (belief that transfer of energy or information
  between physical systems takes place due to
  similarity or contiguity in time and space or
  that thoughts, words or actions can achieve
  physical effects in a manner not governed by the
  principles of ordinary transmission of energy or
  information Zusne Jones, 1989, p. 13)

• Boundary thinness how connected versus
  separated is the mind/brain
• Transliminality - the hypothesised tendency for
  psychological material to cross thresholds into
  or out of consciousness (Thalbourne Houran,
  2000, p. 861).
• Jawers sensitivity Arons highly sensitive
  person

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Boundaries in the mind and brain
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Types of experiences

• Scoring on anomalous experiences inventory
• Out of body experiences
• Extra sensory perception experiences
• Spiritual/psychic healers
• Dream recall
• Synaesthesia
• Creative experiences
• ESP performance
• Hallucinatory experiences
• Spirituality
• New age religion
• More hypnagogic experiences

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Exceptional experiences associated with positive
schizotypy indicate an adaptive aspect to the
schizophrenia gene

• Healthy versus unhealthy experiences
• Both have wide attention
• But more control and flexibility in
  healthy/benign schizotypes
• Positive associations to the schizophrenia gene
• Spirituality, creativity, positive mental health
  better mating success among those with positive
  but not negative aspects of schizotypy
• Ritual healing theory revisited shamanism and
  schizotypy?

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Personality and anomalies 3 Temporal lobe
lability/anomalies

• Epilepsy as the sacred disease
• Nelsons (1970) findings with trance mediums
• Roll (1977) epilepsy and poltergeist activity
• Patterns of anomalous experience mimic patterns
  of epileptic seizures
• Temporal lobe signs and subjective paranormal
  experiences
• Neppe
• Persingers temporal lobe lability
• Recent work by Palmer and Neppe

• The God Helmet
• Creating anomalous
• phenomena in the laboratory

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Types of experiences

• Subjective paranormal experiences
• Paranormal beliefs
• Poltergeist phenomena
• mediumship
• Creativity experiences
• Drama students exhibit high scores
• False pregnancy experiences
• Altered state experiences
• Sense of presence
• Particularly in women
• Apparitions
• Meaningulness

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Intuition/rationality/gender role/gender

• Intuition/femininity
• Right hemisphere
• Belief
• spirituality

• Rationality/masculinity
• Left hemisphere
• Disbelief
• Organised religion?

• Both intuitive and rational thinking/psychological
  androgyny
• Anomalous experiences, beliefs and abilities
  (Wolfradt et al, 1998)
• Spirituality
• ESP belief

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Ambiguity tolerance
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Why do these personality types relate to
anomalous perceptions?

• Imagination is so vivid, experiences which are
  imaginary are experienced as real?
• Greater likelihood of finding experiences
  meaningful
• Greater likelihood of seeing connections between
  events that are actually random
• Memories of dreams might be experienced as
  reality
• Suggestibility
• Dissociation (of attention or memory)
• There is increased sensitivity to something that
  is really there
• There is a tendency to experience altered states
  of consciousness/sleep related anomalies
• Hallucination
• Access to other realities

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Limitations to individual differences approach

• Cultural differences might be more powerful in
  predicting experiences and beliefs
• Interactions with other variables, e.g., many
  personality variables are moderated by gender
• Are these variables addressing different aspects
  of the same thing?
• Altered states of consciousness might be more
  important re anomalies
• Many of these personality variables are also
  states
• Trait and state might interact?

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References and further reading

• Cardena, E. Lynn, S. J. Krippner, S. (Eds.),
  Varieties of anomalous experience Examining the
  scientific evidence, (pp. 25-46). Washington DC
  American Psychological Association.
• In particular, chapter 1
• Zusne, L., Jones, W. H. (1989). Anomalistic
  Psychology A study of magical thinking. (2nd
  Edition), Hillsdale, NJ Erlbaum. (in the
  library)
• Houran, J Lange, R. (1997). Tolerance of
  ambiguity and fear fo the paranormal in self
  identified percipients of haunting/RSPK
  phenomena, Journal of the Society for Psychical
  Research, 62, 38-40 (library)
• See link on website for other reading.