What are the causes of superstition and the contributing factors to belief in apparitional experiences? Why does external belief persist in this age of reason?

Katherine White

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

What are the causes of superstition and the contributing factors to belief in apparitional expe-riences? Why does external belief persist in this age of reason?

Prologue

The supernatural has always been a topic that has fascinated me with a rather compelling force from a very young age, particularly the notion of apparitional beings and superstitious beliefs. I frequently read the ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’ books, as well as books about mysterious UFO sightings, inexplicable anomalies and haunted houses. Despite being a (very happy) but almost neurotic child who couldn’t face watching things like Doctor Who, I could often be found with my nose buried in a Susan Hill ghost story, and craved the rush of adrenaline I got from telling and lis-tening to scary stories at sleepovers. My family has never been religious; I think I have been to church once perhaps, on a Christmas Eve, yet you can ask most of my family members, and they will tell you that they believe in the existence of life after death, apparitions, or a ‘higher power’. As a child I also suffered from night terrors and often thought I had seen or heard strange things at night, causing me to have extreme supernatural beliefs. However, my research has caused me to conclude that these disturbances to my sleep where merely figments of my overactive imagination, and a result of ‘magical thinking’ which is actually a fairly normal condition in childhood. Having had started subjects such as psychology and sociology that encourage rational and critical think-ing, I am now a self-confessed skeptic. My attention has been turned to what it is that makes the world believe in such unfathomable and illusive things despite living in an age where qualities such as scientific thought and rationality are valued so highly. I have discovered a myriad of factors ranging from evolutionary, biological, cognitive, and psychological as to why according to psy-chologists such as Twenge et al. (2014) claim that the members of our society are becoming in-creasingly external in their beliefs. I hope to show you at least a snapshot of the hundreds of rea-sons that explain why so many people believe in apparitions and are superstitious, which have been proposed by psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists alike.

Introduction

Not long after the end of the Second World War, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was vis-iting the White House when he is said to have had an abnormal experience. After having a long bath he was reported to walk into the neighbouring bedroom, only to be met by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln himself. Calm and collected, even while completely naked, Churchill supposedly an-nounced: “Good evening, Mr. President. You seem to have me at a disadvantage.” The spirit smiled and disappeared. Yet Churchill was not the only historical figure known to have such an experi-ence. Arthur Conan Doyle was known to speak to so-called ‘ghosts’ through mediums, while Alan Turing claimed to believe in telepathy. These three men throughout history have been known for their razor-sharp, rational thinking and intelligence, and yet they still could not stop themselves from believing in the inexplicable. These men capture the essence of my project question - why is it that people continue to believe in the paranormal despite living in this age of scientific reason?

It is uncertain as to what point in history the members of our society started to question and chal-lenge the existence of the supernatural. The paths of external belief and science have crossed over across time and across cultures, for instance it is well known that Hinduism always embraced the notion of empiricism and reason. However, events in Europe such as the discoveries of Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton lead to a period known as the Age of Enlightenment, which centred on the idea of reasoning as the primary source of authority and legitimacy, advancing in concepts such as liberty and progress. This proceeded a scientific revolution and thus led to the industrial revolution of Great Britain, giving birth to a period known as Modernity, which by the dominant sociological

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theories is still accepted as the state our society is currently experiencing. Along with empiricism and the ability to explain the inexplicable came challenges to belief in the supernatural. Since then, countless psychologists, sociologists, philosophers and the like have attempted to explain or dispute these beliefs. For the purpose of this project, I intend to particularly explore the psychological rea-sons behind this, as well as attempt to explain my own experiences with so-called ‘apparitions’, as referred to in the prologue.

Despite increasing emphasis on the importance of empiricism and causal explanations, we are no strangers to external belief, it seems. According to a survey conducted by Irwin and Watt (2007), 17-30% of the public claim to have had an apparitional experience . In fact, research shows that due 1

to Britain becoming gradually more secular, we are actually more likely to believe in the ‘supernat-ural’ than a God. Sociologist Robert Bellah (1970) also found that a similar phenomenon was ap-parent in the USA, which according to him now has a belief system that attaches sacred qualities to society itself through faith in Americanism, where people now feel a strong attachment to national symbols such as the American flag, belief in core American values such as individualism, and also national ceremonies and rituals which serve as a “new religion”.

Most people accept that the term ‘supernatural’ simply means manifestations or even events that cannot be explained by science, due to it being inexplicable by the laws of nature, hence the term supernatural. The word comes from the Latin term supernaturalis, literally meaning ‘beyond na-ture’. For the purpose of this topic, I would like to clarify that by supernatural, I do not mean the existence of a God or a more superior power. I aim to look at supernatural belief in a much broader sense, also looking at external belief, whereby people believe their decisions and life are controlled by environmental factors which they cannot influence, or by chance or fate . This phenomenon has 2

been a powerful influence all over the world, but particularly in Britain, some psychologists believe that this type of belief has increased due to the secularisation of society and thus the decrease in re-ligious belief.3

Apparitional belief and anthropomorphism: why we are evolutionarily hardwired to see faces in inanimate objects

Anthropomorphism is our tendency to attribute human characteristics to non-human objects and events - a pervasive aspect of human cognition. Many evolutionary psychologists believe that the mind has a modular structure, with each module specifically designed to deal with different prob-lems. Some of these modules have relevance in explaining a range of different paranormal and su-pernatural beliefs. Anthropologist Stewart Guthrie attempts to explain why we anthropomorphise in terms of the fact that the world is “uncertain, ambiguous and in need of interpretation” , and thus 4

we interpret the world based on the things that are most important to us. Given that humans are so-cial animals with a high need for the affiliation of others, we guess that “the world is human-like” . 5

Scanning the world for humanlike things and events, we find apparent instances everywhere. An-thropomorphism is so deeply rooted in our experiences that it happens spontaneously and usually

Irwin & Watt (2007) An Introduction to Parapsychology (5th Ed.) Jefferson, NC: McFarland 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control2

In this project, I may use the terms ‘anomalistic psychology’ and ‘parapsychology’ interchange3 -ably - they both simply mean that study of parapsychological or psychic faculties or phenomena - the study of psi (or in other words, the field of psychology dedicated to enquiry of the supernatural)

Faces in the Clouds by Stewart Guthrie, 1993, p3 4

Faces in the Clouds by Stewart Guthrie, 1993, p3 5

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without conscious thought. One of the most obvious way in which this manifests itself is our readi-ness to see humanlike faces in random patterns.

In terms of evolution, it is important for us to be able to readily identify human faces in the area, and then we can identify if these faces are familiar or unfamiliar; a friend or a foe. Most people do not attach much significance to such phenomena, however a minority become compelled by it which causes them to assume that the object must be of a greater significance beyond the accidental arrangement of stimuli. Very simple schematic stimuli such as two dots which may be perceived as eyes and a line for the mouth, may be perceived as a face. This can provide a possible explanation for why people claim to see apparitions in real life as well as in photographs.

Defining Apparitions

“Apparitions are the subjective experiences of a figure or being, when no real figure is physically present and when normal means of communication are ruled out” . 6

Some ghost-sightings can most likely be explained as ‘tricks of the light’. We are ‘hard-wired’ to see what we are expecting to see, and in particular to interpret patterns of light and shade as human faces. It may be that once people find themselves in an area such as a dark forest where they un-knowingly expect to see the ‘Slender Man’ or the ‘Black Eyed Child’, their visual processing of or-dinary sights like trees or bushes does the rest. Psychologist Richard Wiseman has studied places where ghosts are frequently reported and has recreated them in virtual reality (Sykes and Wiseman 2006). He found that people report similar sightings in virtual reality to real space, supporting the idea that apparent ghosts are simply visual phenomena . 7

This argument at first seems plausible given that there is enough randomness in our world for us to regularly encounter stimulus configurations that look like faces. The majority of the population would not then attach a meaning to such phenomena, but there is a sizeable amount of people who do so, attaching greater significance to the object than a simple accidental arrangement of stimuli. An example would be that in 1994, Miami, a woman saw what appeared to be the image of the Vir-gin Mary on her grilled cheese sandwich. She kept the sandwich in an air tight container for a decade before selling it for $28,000. Michael Shermer (2011) refers to this at ‘agenticity’, which 89 10

means that we attach a significance to an object and then assume that it has been intentionally put there by someone or something, and hence this can explain not only why apparitions appear to us in ‘tricks of the light’, but also how this can lead to other types of external belief, making us more alert to our surroundings in fear that something more sinister or powerful is out there which we do not have the ability to control. This therefore supports the argument that evolutionary perspectives can help us to understand belief in apparitions, as it illustrates our readiness to see random patterns in everyday stimuli, as well as our tendency to attach significance when there is none.He notes that finding predictive patterns in weather, migrating prey and so on was central to the survival of the

Irwin & Watt (2007) An Introduction to Parapsychology (5th ed.) Jefferson, NC: McFarland 6

Jarvis, Matt, Psychology Review, ‘The Psychology Of Ghosts’, (Hodder Education Magazine), 7

March 2016

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception?language=en8

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things?language=en9

Shermer, M. (2011). The believing brain: From ghosts to gods to politics and conspiracies - How 10

we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths. New York: Times Books.

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Palaeolithic hominids (humans from the early stages of the Stone Age - about 120,000 years ago). Consider the scenario of a Stone Age man hearing a rustling in the bushes. If he commits a type one error, whereby he believes that the rustling in the bushes is created by an enemy or predator but there is actually nothing there, he is more likely to survive than if he committed a type two error and dismissed the thought of a predator lurking in the bushes when in fact one was present. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, the cost of a type one error is far less than a type two, and thus natural se-lection has favoured the animals that look for patterns in apparently meaningless stimuli, since they have a better chance of surviving and continuing the species. Hence the term ‘patternicity’ is used by Shermer. However, he also added that since we are intelligent animals that have the ability to be aware of such mental states as well as the intentions of ourselves and others, we infer ‘agency’ to these patterns, meaning we assume that they were caused by invisible intentional ‘agents’. Thus, Shermer’s ideas can also be applied to the cognitive basis of things like shamanism and paganism who believe that there are agents which have the power to control the world. Bruce Hood (2009) 11

notes that this evolutionary idea can explain why even the most logical and reasonable thinkers do still hold external beliefs even in today’s age of reason. He explains that “many highly educated and intellectual people experience a powerful sense that there are patterns, forces, energies and entities operating in the world”. This idea seems extremely plausible from face value because it can explain why there is such a large number of people across the world who still hold supernatural beliefs and in particular claim to see apparitions or are superstitious of stimuli in their environment - since it is embedded in our genetic code, it can account for why it still persists to be a universal phenomenon. Since it has also aided our evolution, it would make sense that it continues to persist even today, and also why even the most scientific intellectuals still sometimes hold external belief.

This also links to Guthrie’s notion of thinking anthropomorphically, given that not only do we have a tendency to identity humanlike features in the environment around us, but we also assume that the events that occur around us are caused by humanlike agents. Barrett (2004) developed this notion 12

into what he called our Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (HADDs). These can help us to sur-vive in evolutionary terms because the price we pay for such external beliefs is that we then over-generalise them to inappropriate natural events. Barrett’s ideas of HADDs can be applied to a wide range of supernatural concepts, such as our ancestors creating gods to explain occurrences such as natural disasters and failures of the harvest, as well as phenomena such as ghosts and apparitions since HADDs are most likely to be activated in times of uncertainty and vulnerability, such as if we are woken up suddenly in the middle of the night rather than in the daytime. Malinowski also 13

highlighted this in his cross-cultural research on the magical rituals of the Melanesian Islanders, finding that they only engaged in such rituals in connection with tasks involving uncertainty and risk, such as deep-sea fishing. The same could be found on a more societal level in Padgett and Jor-gensen’s 1982 research in which they analysed articles on superstition in Germany between 1918 14

and 1940, during times of severe economic decline, with an increase in inflation and unemployment levels. They found that as public anxiety increased, so did the number of articles about the occult. and It makes more sense evolutionarily to be too paranoid rather than to be too lax about potential dangers in our environment, and thus it could be argued that evolutionary perspectives such as an-thropomorphism and agenticity are completely plausible and can explain why so much external be-

Hood, B. (2009). Supersense: From superstition to religion - The brain science of belief. London: 11

Constable.

Barrett, J.L. (2004). Why would anyone believe in God? Plymouth: Alta Mira Press. 12

Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An account of the native enterprise and 13

adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Padgett, V.R., Jorgensen, D. O., (1982). ‘Superstition and economic threat: Germany, 14

1918-1940’. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 8, 736-41.

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lief persists in this age of reason. If it is in our gene pool, it cannot be something that can be eradi-cated by simply a more rational way of thinking, and thus these evolutionary explanations can help us to determine the persistence of supernatural belief in this age of reason.

However, this approach has not come without criticism. Critics have accused evolutionary psychol-ogists who look into anthropomorphism for making up ‘just-so’ stories to explain the psychological traits that we observe in modern humans, meaning that they assume that any given human trait we still have must have had an evolutionary purpose that aided our survival. The task is then to come up with a plausible explanation of what this purpose may have been. This implies that there are methodological issues with regards to this field of research since is can be somewhat semiotic in nature, that is, largely subjective and with a tendency for psychologists to conduct research with a preconceived idea of what they want to find, and thus they only extract the information that sup-ports their hypotheses. Researchers need to stop cherry-picking procedures and evidence that seems to work, and instead yield the data that appears the most promising. It is also important to note that much of psychology in this field is of a hypothetical nature as it is simply not possible to go back in time and observe the pressures that may or may not have played crucial roles in the evolutionary development of our species. Therefore, it is questionable as to the extent to which this approach is useful to explain why we believe in the supernatural, specifically why people claim to see appari-tions, given the bias that it imposes, and also the lack of ‘concrete’ evidence to back up it’s claims - for example, there is no actual evidence that we do have hyperactive agency detection devices, and there is no real explanation in Guthrie’s arguments as to why it is the majority of the population that essentially do not assume patterns or intentional agents where there are none. A task facing future researchers will be to devise direct experimental tests of the hypotheses proposed, in order to make up for the distinct lack of empirical evidence that this theory supplies. If it is only the minority of people that do this, it is clearly not a very useful approach in terms of looking at why so many peo-ple in this era continue to believe in the supernatural. We also have to assess the extent to which supernatural believe seems to be encouraged by this theory. Despite the fact that evolutionary psy-chologists seem to imply that anthropomorphic thinking is essential to our survival, this is not so true in relation to contemporary society. For our ancestors, everyday life was a struggle for survival, however noways we face far fewer threats in our daily lives, and therefore we perhaps do not need this unconscious system of threat vigilance to aid our survival. Logic would tell is that it is far better to rely upon rational analysis as the best means for dealing with those threats that still remain. This implies that this explanation is not perhaps relevant to contemporary society, and fails to explain why this genetic trait continues to persist even though we have long been able to live without the constant worry of struggling to survive.

2. Superstitious belief: how is it that our beliefs are so external, where did these beliefs come from and what psychological approach can help us understand them?

Superstition is a phenomenon that has been explored by many psychologists, from a range of differ-ent perspectives. It is not a recent notion, however, that superstition forms as a result of being a conditioned response. This view has been criticised somewhat given that the natural idea of super-stition is that is springs from the irrational beliefs of the beholder, however it has to be pointed out that when looking at a behaviourist perspective, and the idea of stimulus-response learning as a re-sult of conditioning, these cognitive elements must be ruled out. It is therefore also important to highlight that the behaviourist approach to explaining superstition is one of many.

Defining Superstition

“1a: a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation. 1b: an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural,

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nature, or God resulting from superstition. 2: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary” 15

A study about superstitious belief in the UK, conducted by Professor Richard Wiseman discovered that among UK citizens, levels of superstitious behaviour and beliefs are surprisingly high, even among those with a scientific background. Wiseman also looked at the kinds of characteristics that superstitious people tend to have, to determine whether there was any connection at all between personality and irrational beliefs. He found that superstitious people tend to worry about life (50% of worriers hold external beliefs, compared to 24% of non-worriers, for example), have a strong need for control, and have a low tolerance for ambiguity. He also found that these beliefs peaked at times of economic or political change or uncertainty.16

The survey also asked people about their personal superstitions. Over 500 people responded (ap-proximately 25% of all respondents), with many people describing that they wore lucky clothes to exams and interviews, used their lucky numbers when choosing lottery numbers and saluted mag-pies.

This range of behaviour supports the notion that new superstitions are constantly developing and evolving, and that there is no reason to expect superstition to decline in the near future.

Skinner, Behaviourism, Classical Conditioning and Superstition

Superstition be explained from a psychological perspective in terms of the behaviourist approach. Behaviourism assumes that all animal and human behaviour is learned, and thus superstitious and other external beliefs are learned a result of their consequences. There are three main assumptions within the behavioural approach: classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning theory. Classical conditioning can be used to explain superstitious belief in that people regularly look for objects and such to ‘blame’ for unfortunate or strange events. This object then becomes associated with the event, and thus people will avoid doing certain things in fear of bad luck, or in the past, witchcraft or black magic. The avoidance of this event is maintained by operant condition-ing. A person is rewarded by the safety and peace of mind that comes from avoiding supposed ‘un-lucky’ objects. The same concept applies when individuals are superstitious in terms of keeping ob-jects that bring good fortune, for example some people may wear special jewelry at certain times such as during exams. The key here is that the person may not always be rewarded with good for-tune, and thus the operant conditioning only occurs through the assurance of safety.

Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is learning by association. It occurs when two things are repeatedly paired together, that is, the unconditioned stimulus and the neutral stimulus are paired together so that the new conditioned response that eventually comes from this pairing is the same as that elicited from the original unconditioned stimulus. The superstition is at first learned through classical condition-ing. All superstitious behaviour is learned through classical conditioning. Events that are accidental-ly paired together are believed to have a cause-effect relationship. For example, if a woman was crossing under a ladder and coincidentally tripped and fell, the pain would be associated with cross-ing under the ladder. The individual begins to believe that walking under the ladder caused the fall, and she changes her behaviour by avoiding walking under ladders. 17

https://carusvenustas.wordpress.com/university-papers/operant-conditioning-and-superstitions/15

http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/superstition_report.pdf UK Superstition Survey16

http://www.ehow.com/info_8428774_behaviors-learned-through-classical-conditioning.html17

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Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is a type of learning where behaviour is shaped and maintained by conse-quences. Key concepts in operant conditioning include positive reinforcement, whereby an incen-tive is given to an individuals that exhibits the desired behaviour. Negative reinforcement occurs when an individual is rewarded by the avoidance of an unpleasant consequence. Positive punish-ment happens when a person is punished for exhibiting the inappropriate behaviour by being pre-sented with an unpleasant outcome - the aim of punishment is to decrease the undesired behaviour. Negative punishment decreases undesired behaviour by taking away the item that produces a plea-surable response.

Skinner’s Experiments

B. F. Skinner’s (1948) experiments on the effect of operant and classical conditioning on how ani-mals learn to carry out certain behaviours illustrates how superstitions are learned behaviours. Skinner placed pigeons and rats in a 'Skinner Box’, and 75% of their normal weight was reduced so that the animals always viewed food as a reward. The Skinner box was connected to a shock gener-ator, and a lever which when pushed would activate a food pellet dispenser to release food into the box. The lever was placed conveniently so that the rat would accidentally activate it when inside the box. When the rats did so, a food pellet would be released. The rats soon realised that the desired behaviour was to press the lever and so the behaviour was repeated. The food acted as a positive reinforcement for this desired behaviour. Skinner then conducted a very similar experiment with pigeons. He set out to show that superstition was not something that was uniquely human, it is a learned behaviour across all animals which can actually help an animal’s survival. In this rendition of the experiment, a clock was arranged to present a food reward at regular intervals with no refer-ence to the bird’s behaviour whatsoever. This resulted in the birds repeating the behaviour prior to the reward. One bird was conditioned to turn anti-clockwise in between reinforcements. Another repeatedly push its head towards one of the upper corners of the cage. None of these responses no-ticeably appeared during adaptation to the cage or until the food was regularly presented. This oc-curred for six out of eight of cases. Skinner's Pigeon Experiment revealed that even pigeons can be conditioned to develop superstitious behaviours in belief that they will be fed.

This can be illustrated by belief in the phenomenon of luck. Superstitious behaviour or belief in luck arises when the delivery of a reinforcer or punisher occurs close together in time (temporal contiguity) with an independent behaviour. Therefore, the behaviour is accidentally reinforced or punished, increasing the likelihood of that behaviour occurring again. Some popularly known ex-amples of reinforcement include sporting rituals - a fixed sequence of actions such as wearing ‘lucky gear’ or carrying mascots. If the ‘lucky’ ritual precedes success long enough, failure to carry it out will distress and even hamper performance, due to the very belief that failure is imminent. A superstitious practice, although inherently ineffective, might increase performance solely by boost-ing confidence. This reinforces superstitions by making the superstitious practice a self-fulfilling prophecy (this is when an event becomes true simply because the individual expects it to come true). The effect is similar to that of a placebo. This suggests that superstitious belief including be-lief in luck across the world happens as a result of largely operant conditioning. This would help explain why external or superstitious beliefs continue to prevail in this age of reason, as well as ac-count for the fact that superstition occurs in every culture in some shape or form, since conditioning is a natural and worldwide animal behaviour. However, this universality would suggest that, like the appearance of apparitions or belief in the supernatural, an evolutionary explanation might be more suitable. Natural selection will tend to reinforce a tendency to generate weak associations or ‘rules

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of thumb’ that are overgeneralised. Like Michael Shermer’s idea of patternicity and agenticity, the evolutionary explanation of superstition would suggest that if there is a strong survival advantage of making correct associations, then this will outweigh the negatives of making incorrect, or supersti-tious associations. This makes sense in terms of cost-benefit analysis, and can explain more ade-quately why superstition is such a universal phenomenon.

On the other hand, Skinner’s finding has been supported by further research evidence - this experi-ment was also repeated on humans, in a less controlled manner, on the popular British TV series Trick or Treat, leading to similar conclusions to those of Skinner. The experiment involved the 18

return of all previous participants from the series, and were told they were going to be taking part in a "sociological experiment designed to unlock the irrational mindset behind superstitious thinking". Participants were placed in a room with a counter and several objects, saying that they had to score 100 points within half an hour. However, the points were awarded randomly and not by any actions performed in the room, referring to Skinner's pigeon experiments. If they had realised that, they might have noticed there was a further element, and found the sign above them on the ceiling telling them that the doors were unlocked and there was £150,000 waiting for them if they went to get it, which they did not. Interestingly, In another part of the episode, a superstitious woman was tested on her beliefs by being made to walk on pavement cracks and under ladders, smash a mirror and so on, (causing her to comment on whether she would be killed on the way home), to see if it affected her luck in a following experiment, which it didn't.

However, this approach has not come without criticism. Modern behavioural psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviours he recorded. Later research, while finding similar behaviour, failed to find support for Skinner's explanation for it. For example, Stad-don and Simmelhag conducted an experiment in 1971 in which they replicated Skinner’s experi-ment, rewarding pigeons at aperiodic intervals . Their experiment was far more systematic and ex19 -tensive than Skinner’s research in terms of how they recorded their observations. They defined and measured the occurrence of many different type of responses and then recorded the frequency of these responses. They observed the timing of different behaviours within the interval, and were able to determine two types of behaviour: the terminal response, (Staddon and Simmelhag that these re-sponses are typical of the species in anticipation of food) and interim responses, (when food presen-tation is unlikely, just after a food delivery had arrived, which were behaviours that could be seen earlier on during the inter-food interval), but rarely had anything to do with food. Terminal respons-es seemed to reflect classical rather than operant conditioning, and not the positive reinforcement that Skinner described. Staddon and Simmelhag also suggested it is response-reinforcer contiguity that is important during instrumental conditioning, and not the accidental superstitious process that Skinner describes. Activity increased after food delivery and then decreased as the time for the next delivery drew closer, therefore they uncovered certain behaviour regularities which Skinner failed to pick up on during his research. These behaviours were also later reinterpreted as behaviours that improve foraging efficacy, which suggests that the pigeons' behaviour does not correspond to Skin-ner's intended meaning of superstition, which highlights that pigeons have a biological predisposi-tion to behave in such ways - it was not because they were conditioned into superstitious anticipa-tion of food. Overall this highlights that Skinner had many methodological flaws in his research which caused him to misinterpret the behaviour of the pigeons and fail to pick up on crucial trends due to looking at things idiosyncratically.

"Derren Brown: Trick or Treat - 4oD". Channel 4. Retrieved September 30, 2016.18

http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics1981/A1981LF07000001.pdf19

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Another criticism of Skinner’s research is that it allows no room for the concept of free will or room for human cognition. The way he explains superstition sees humans more as passive and machine-like responders to environmental stimuli, with no ability for cognitive input or interpretation once a stimulus has been encountered. This idea has been rejected by psychologists from the cognitive and humanistic approach as well as the social learning theory for being far too deterministic due to ig-noring the importance of mental events during the learning and acquiring of behaviour. Skinner himself argued that any sense of free will is simply an illusion, and even advocated the term ‘envi-ronmental determinism’, in which his ideas of learning superstitious beliefs via reinforcement and conditioning suggest that our behaviour is completely determined by past experiences that have been conditioned. Skinner suggested that whilst we impose the sense of having made a decision, our past conditioning history still determines the outcome. For instance, taking the example of ‘blam-ing’ objects and the like for an unfortunate event due to the event and the object being in the same proximity, Skinner looks at the maintenance of this behaviour in terms of operant conditioning, which allows no room for the idea that there is cognitive processing that goes on between experi-encing the event and ‘blaming’ it on something. For example, if we were to look at the social learn-ing theory, it might better explain things such as irrational fears of black cats or belief that things like the horseshoe are ‘lucky’. It is unlikely that many of us have encountered an unpleasant or in-explicable event in the presence of a black cat, or have indeed experienced something good whilst in the presence of a horseshoe. This suggests that superstitious belief may be better explained in terms of learning from other people, or from a more social point of view. Albert Bandura who cre-ated this theory suggested that we observe other peoples’ behaviour because we see them as a role model. We interpret their behaviour in the context of whether or not it is reinforced or punished, and then when necessary we imitate the behaviour in the appropriate situation. In fact, there simply must be cognition between stimulus and response in this context because Skinner argues that super-stition is caused by making false connections between cause and effect, which in itself implies that there must be processing, despite it apparently being ‘faulty’. There have been multiple other stud-ies that have also looked into superstitions as being rooted in social experiences, which suggests that the behaviourist approach is only a partial explanation and cannot explain why people hold ex-ternal beliefs. Conklin (1919) found that 47% of his sample said that they held superstitious beliefs because of social suggestion, that is, because their associates do or for the purposes of fun. 22% also suggested that they learned their beliefs from their parents or elders, which lends itself to Ban-dura’s Social Learning Theory because it shows that learning of a behaviour occurs when a child identifies or looks up to an adult and therefore ‘models’ or imitates their behaviour.  What Conklin also found as well as Maller and Lundeen (1933) was that personal observation or learning of a be-lief from  a confirming experience constituted the smallest group of participants, showing that be-haviourism may not be very useful in looking at why people contract external beliefs today. Hu-mans cannot simply be machine-like responders to stimuli, it is evident from the way that we have changed overtime that we learn from our environment and the people around us. If we always acted without cognition, the world would be an extremely dangerous place to live in.                                                                   My Own Experience

As discussed in the introduction, my own experience of the supernatural consisted of being a child with an overactive imagination, experiencing hallucinations at night and also having frequent night terrors and so called ‘inexplicable experiences’ which I put down to having been visited by a ‘ghost’. Growing up I lived in Bahrain, and my mother, grandmother and a family friend claimed to have seen an apparition of a small girl appear in our house, on more than one occasion. Surrounded by adults whom I respected and loved who had such beliefs only led to the conclusion that I too contracted the belief in ghosts and apparitions. My personal experiences were frequently multi-sen-sory - often sounds were involved such as footsteps, knocking and voices, and on one occasion I thought I felt a gust of wind come over me. I have only fairly recently become skeptic of the con-

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cept of the ‘supernatural’, and so this has caused me to want to delve into the reasons why I suppos-edly saw, heard and felt these ‘ghosts’.

The experience of an apparition is almost always felt to be very real, and very often the sensation is similar to experiencing a hallucination. However, unlike hallucinations, apparitions can often be witnessed by a group of people, experiencing similar images at the same time, and this in itself can firstly help us to understand why the ‘ghost’ that was present in my previous home was seen by more than one person.

REM Sleep Intrusions Into The Waking State

One experience I had as a child was when I woke up very late at night and I could hear a female voice singing. I seem to remember it being very unpleasant, as I felt as if I could not move to get up and look around but I could hear and feel different sensations such as cold air and voices. I do not remember it lasting very long but I felt extremely frightened that I suddenly woke up and could not move. Once again, I assumed that what I had experienced was a visit from a supernatural being, however, rather than accepting a paranormal explanation for this experience, it may be a relief to learn an alternative interpretation of this condition – the result of sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is ‘the feeling of being paralysed while the mind is awake’ (French and Santomauro, 2007) . This 20

temporary state that occurs between sleeping and waking, in which one is unable to move or speak, may be accompanied by hallucinations, therefore explaining why I had such a multi-sensory experi-ence. Thus, I believe that what I experienced was the hypnagogic state:

“The hypnagogic state is the drowsy period between wakefulness and sleep, during which fantasies and hallucinations often occur” 21

Apparitions commonly occur when the individual is not quite asleep or awake. Hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs) accompanying sleep paralysis (SP) are often cited as sources of accounts of supernatural nocturnal assaults and paranormal experiences. They are often charac-terised by vivid imagery and auditory phenomena, such as audio and visual hallucinations, as with my experience. This hallucination seems to be subjectively real. This state of consciousness is also associated with dream-like mental imagery which appears to derive from an external source (Mavromatis, 1987) . Descriptions of such experiences are remarkably consistent across time and 22

cultures, consistent with the mechanisms of REM sleep intrusions into the waking state – for in-stance, most accounts of sleep paralysis have described the experience as intensely terrifying, as well as enduring the experience of not being able to move, a sense of fear and breathlessness. This state of consciousness also appears to be associated with reports of ghostly figures and other appari-tions (Sherwood 2002) , hence why I believed that what I heard and felt was some sort of appari23 -

French, C. C., Santomauro, J. (2007). ‘Something wicked this way comes: Causes and interpre20 -tations of sleep paralysis’. In S. Della Sala (ed.), Tall Tales About the Mind and Brain: Separating Fact from Fiction. (pp. 380-98). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hypnagogic-state21

Mavromatis, A. (1987). Hypnagogia: The unique state of consciousness between wakefulness 22

and sleep. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Sherwood, S. (2002). Relationship between the hypnagogic/hypnopompic states and reports of 23

anomalous experiences. Journal of Parapsychology. 66, 127-150.

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

tion. When sleep paralysis occurs during the hypnagogic state, the condition is known as Hypno-gogia. It is a surprisingly common experience - Spanos et al. (1995) found that 21% of their sam24 -ple of undergraduate students had had at least one isolated experience of sleep paralysis. This shows that Hypnogogia does not necessarily have to occur repetitively, meaning it can be considered an appropriate explanation for my condition, given that I only experienced this sensation once. It is believed that sleep paralysis occurs when we are asleep, but also persists for a short period when we awake. Hallucinations occur in 75% of sleep paralysis cases , thereby highlighting that my experi25 -ence is by no means unique and therefore sleep paralysis can be considered a useful and appropriate explanation for my experience. This sensation is accompanied by the sense of a ‘presence’, which also suggests why I heard this supposed female voice upon waking up. Cheyne and Girard (2004) 26

call this an ‘intruder experience’, which they believe is caused by the neural system that activates threat-vigilance, hence why the experience is so frightening for most individuals. McCreery (2008) also notes that some individuals experience ‘micro sleeps’ where intrusions are made into 27

the waking state briefly but frequently, and often the beholder cannot distinguish the hallucination from reality. This often happens to people who are more fantasy-prone, hence why as an imagina-tive and magically-thinking child I was more susceptible to sleep paralysis than most. Looking from a more neurological or biological viewpoint, Michael Persinger has argued that sleep paralysis is 28

actually caused by the interaction of hormones and brain stimulation with the sleep-awake cycle, causing sudden nocturnal awakenings which are followed by a ‘sense of presence’ or the appear-ance of an ‘apparition’, such as a lack of the hormone melatonin which causes an increase of the chemical corticotrophin in the brain that is implicated in epileptic effects. 29

This explanation can be considered valid. Evidence to support that this explanation can be clearly linked to experiencing the ‘supernatural’ and comes from a recent analysis of ghost stories in Japan

Spanos, N., DuBreil, C. & McNulty, S. (1995). The frequency and correlates of sleep paralysis in 24

a university sample. Journal of Research in Personality, 47, 21-150.

Cheyne, J.A, Newby-Clark, I.R., & Rueffer, S.D., (1999). ‘Relations among hypnagogic and 25

hypnopompic experiences associated with sleep paralysis’. Journal of sleep research 8, 313-17.

Cheyne, J.A. & Girard, T.A.(2009). ‘The Body Unbound: Vestibular-motor hallucinations and out-26

of-body experiences’. Cortex, 45, 201-15.

McCreery, C. (2008). ‘Dreams and psychosis: A new look at the old hypothesis’. Retrieved from 27

http://www.celiagreen.com/charlesmccreery/dreams-and-psychosis.pdf.

Persinger, M.A. (1993). ‘Average dinural changes in melatonin levels are associated with hourly 28

incidence of bereavement apparitions: Support for the hypothesis of temporal (limbic) lobe micro-seizuring’. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 76, 444-6.

It is important to note that I am by no means a psychologist or doctor, and am limited in many 29

ways by using myself as a case study as I simply do not have the knowledge or the space in my report to self-diagnose. This is somewhat limitation of my report since I am constrained by the word count, and thus although the biological explanations of supernatural belief cover a much larger perimeter, for the purpose of my EPQ I am choosing mainly to look at the psychological reasons behind supernatural belief. This means that my explanations are to a certain degree ‘pigeon-holed’ in nature and do not give a very holistic view of external beliefs.

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

by Furuya et al. (2009) . They concluded after a second collection of stories that 36.6% of them 30

were sleep-related – including those associated with hypnagogia and REM disorder. It is therefore clear that sleep processes are strongly implicated in personal apparitional experiences as well as those which are recorded as ‘ghost stories’ in a particular culture. The fact that this study was con-ducted on Japanese stories also shows this idea can travel cross-culturally, thus showing that the explanations of sleep paralysis and the supernatural are, as mentioned previously, consistent across time and cultures. This indicates that this theory generally may be more valid on account of avoid-ing the issue of culture bias, whereby an idea, concept, theory or research is distorted by ignorance of cultural differences, and interpreting phenomena through the ‘lens’ of one’s own culture, causing bias. Since there is research to suggest that experiencing supposed supernatural experiences in sleep-related situations is a universal phenomenon, further credence is given to this explanation. The evidence that sleep paralysis is often accompanied by audio and visual hallucinations also bares a striking resemblance to my own experience, and thus can be considered an appropriate explana-tion.

This idea also makes sense in terms of the fact that I experienced this feeling at the age of about 9 or 10, and although sleep paralysis can occur at any stage of an individual’s life, it may have been that I was more susceptible to the accompaniment of hallucinations. I referred to the term ‘magical thinking’ in my prologue. During childhood, many children experience a phase of ‘magical think-ing’ which normally disappears by adulthood. It is the belief that something will happen as a result of wishing or willing it to happen. In many cases it is also the attribution of a real status to patterned relationships between events that cannot be justified by reason or science, such as odd coincidences, thus it is quite similar to the concept of patternicity (Shermer, 2011), as referred to earlier in the first section of the report. Magical thinking may be developed by parents reading stories with magical themes, the beliefs and culture of their peer groups which exert tremendous social pressure on chil-dren to conform, as well as adults often using ‘magic’ as a ‘semi-explanation’ to a question. As children we are also encouraged to believe in magical figures such as the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas.

This highlights that sleep paralysis is an adequate explanation for my experience because it suggests that I naturally attributed my experiences to ‘magic’ or having had been visited by a ‘ghost’. How-ever, besides the obvious fact that magical thinking can help explain my overactive imagination, I never once willed my experiences to happen. Therefore, using this isolated experience as a case study example, it may only be a partial explanation. This explanation also offers no insight into the actual causes of sleep paralysis. Bedsides the fact that I was a child with an overactive imagination, it is far more complex a process to attempt to explain specifically why I believe I experienced sleep paralysis. For instance, Persinger has linked hallucinations during sleep paralysis to abnormal func-tioning of the temporal lobes. Magical thinking also may not be entirely useful since many people experience sleep paralysis once or twice in their life, it is not simply a phenomenon that only occurs in children, as highlighted by Spanos et al.’s study. Therefore, it cannot be that every victim of this condition is ‘abnormal’ in terms of their cognitions, given that adults normally grow out of magical thinking. On the other hand, there may be research to suggest that this situation is not so simple.

Furuya, H., Ikezoe, K., Shigeto, H., Ohyagi, Y., Arahata, H., Araki, E. & Fujii, N. (2009). Sleep-30

and non-sleep-related hallucinations - Relationship to ghost tales and their classifications. Dream-ing, 19, 232-238.

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

Woolley (1997b) notes that adults commonly obey the law of contagion, for example not wanting 31

to use someone else’s hairbrush even if it has been disinfected. Adults have also been shown to ac-cept magic as an explanation for the inexplicable movement of objects (Subbotsky, 1993) . There 32

is furthermore considerable evidence for adult belief in phenomena such as UFOs (for example there still are cults dedicated to this kind of inquiry in places such as the USA), ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster and so on. Overall, evidence points to the fact that adults do use various forms of magical thinking, even if it is not on exactly the same level as belief in things like goblins and witches. Magical thinking also does not have to mean a lack of ability or logic since research has shown that logical forms of thinking can exist independently from concepts of cause and effect. Therefore, as an explanation magical thinking may be able to offer a more generalisable view of sleep paralysis and belief in apparitions than it as first seemed.

However, it has to be noted that there are methodological issues with using myself as a case study example. It is apparent that like the psychologists investigating anthropomorphism, I too am guilty of using semiotic methods to provide an explanation for my childhood experiences. As referred to in footnote 29, I am not qualified enough to be able to certify that what I experienced was sleep paralysis, nor can I go back in time to re-live the experience to refresh my memory and say with certainty all the details of the event that I have highlighted in this report. Using my own experience is therefore injecting a form of bias into my research which is difficult to eradicate. I am aware of the fact that I have actively sought or ‘cherry-picked’ the facts that specifically fit my experience, with preconceived ideas about what may have caused my hallucinations before beginning my re-search. This therefore means that whilst sleep paralysis could be a good explanation for looking at why supernatural belief persists in this age of reason, given that it is a common and universal expe-rience, it is hard to determine whether it is a truly accurate depiction of my experience.

The Future of Anomalistic Psychology

Anomalistic psychology has had a long history. Although it has to be said that many paranormal explanations are of a hypothetical nature, it may be justified in arguing that this field of psychology has made huge progress in terms of providing plausible accounts of a variety of paranormal experi-ences, supported by empirical evidence.

As a discipline, anomalistic psychology has many practical applications. It has provided genuine insights into human psychology, and provides a purpose such as by protecting the consumer by in-forming the public of the telltale signs of trickery. It has also helped to spark debate about the nature of evidence and enquiry, for example why perhaps evidence from personal experience is perhaps quite an unreliable form of evidence. Many of the topics discussed in this filed are furthermore en-courage critical thinking, in the form of considering solid evidence and sound reasoning as opposed to intuition or anecdote. Therefore, it could be argued that anomalistic psychology has increased the scientific credence of psychology as a whole. Needless to say, anomalistic psychology also has huge implications for issues deemed to be of central importance to human beings, such as those re-lating to religious issues. In fact, it is possible that this field has contributed to the secularisation of

Wooley, J.D. (1997b). ‘Thinking about fantasy: Are children fundamentally different thinkers and 31

believers from adults?’. Child Development, 68, 991-1011.

Subbotsky, E. (1993). ‘Foundations of the mind: Children’s understanding of reality’. Cambridge, 32

MA, Harvard University Press.

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

society, given its need for empirical evidence to establish ‘facts’, by which we cannot apply to the existence of a higher power.

The future prospects for anomalistic psychology are good. Radin (1997b) notes that the effects that have been observed in the majority of experiments investigating parapsychological faculties or phenomena have been “replicated by competent, conventionally trained scientists at well-known academic, industrial, and government-supported laboratories worldwide for more than a century” . 33

This implies that much of what we know of parapsychology is not due to chance, selective report-ing, or differences in the quality of experimental investigation, and thus the evidence I have looked at can be seen as overwhelmingly valid and reliable. Anomalistic psychology has also created vast practical applications, for instance in the conceptualisation of mental health and medical practice. A century ago, Karl Jaspers noted that paranormal experiences were the result of psychiatric symp-toms . Nowadays, anomalous experiences and belief have become acceptable topics for psycholo34 -gists and health practitioners due to their inclusion in the DSM IV. Rather than seeing anomalous experiences as directly linked with pathology, we now understand that it is entirely normal for hu-mans to hold such beliefs and experience such things. Therefore, it is possible that the focus will be shifted to developing ways to encourage healthy paranormal experiences characterised by spirituali-ty and creativity rather than personal trauma. Of course, increased research into this field can also provide an insight into why despite this new age of rationality and critical thinking, it is a universal fact that many individuals still hold superstitious and anomalous beliefs, since it is supposedly deep rooted in our evolutionary hard wiring and cognitive structures.

It is, however, important to note that the processes involved in judgment of evidence are affected by the psychologists’ own preconceptions and beliefs, which suggests why different commentators looking at similar explanations for belief in the supernatural can come to such radically different conclusions. Radin also made the bold prediction that by 2015, parapsychology would be in com-mon use for “enhancing tuition”, and one day the Western world will learn that the practical ap-plications of psi would be ‘officially unveiled and found to be true’. Despite this, in contrast to psy-chological effects such as memory, perception and attention, that rarely fail to be demonstrated on demand, parapsychology has had many problems with replication and publication bias. For exam-ple, a replication carried out by Ritchie, Wiseman and French (2012a) was rejected by three high-35

impact journals without even being sent out for peer review. It was found that these journals rarely ever publicise direct replications, despite the fact that replication is often viewed as the ‘corner-stone’ of psychology, and indeed science itself. This highlights the issue with publication bias in psychology. Is the data examined here therefore actually valid? It will be interesting to see if not only anomalistic psychology, but psychology as a whole will rise to the challenge of tackling issues with replicability. Nevertheless, the fact that this field has made significant progress since at least the 1980s cannot be ignored.

Conclusion

Radin, D. I. (1997b). The conscious universe: The scientific truth of psychic phenomena. New 33

York, HY: Harper Collins. p. 275.

Jaspers, K. (1913). General Psychopathology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins. 34

Ritchie, S. J., Wiseman, R., & French, C. C. (2012a). ‘Failing the future” Three unsuccessful at35 -tempts to replicate Bem’s “retroactive facilitation of recall” effect’. PLoS One, 7, e33423. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033423.

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

A disadvantage of using myself as a case study means that I myself am guilty of the semiology ad-vocated by anthropomorphists to which I referred in section one of my report. This is because I must rely on what I remember of the details. Given I am by no means an expert, I am searching for information and picking out details of my experience that fit with this information in order to reach the conclusion that instead of genuinely witnessing an apparition, what I experienced was an REM intrusion into the waking state. Furthermore, given that I cannot go back in time and re-live my ‘paranormal’ experience, I cannot guarantee with 100% confidence that all of the details of my ex-perience I have recalled and discussed are completely accurate. Both of these issues somewhat damage the validity of my conclusions because it means that my methodology is not completely sound, and also the extent to which I can accurately recall details that happened to me when I was a child is questionable. This also limits my report further because I am looking at my experience with the lens of my own biases, preconceptions and subjectivities which makes it difficult for me to ‘di-agnose’ myself with a large degree of accuracy. I am furthermore limited in my analysis of this par-ticular section because it is difficult for me to look beyond ‘face’ validity, where I assess whether the information ‘appears’ valid. Whilst I can assess the supporting evidence of my explanation in greater depth, the extent to which I can analyse how the explanation of my supernatural experience fits with the idea of sleep paralysis is hampered. This is because, as previously mentioned, I cannot look at my 10 year old self from an ’outsider’ position and objectively and expertly assess the facts. Having said this, the validity of my explanation may be to a certain degree saved by the fact that I have provided supporting evidence, such as that of cross cultural research from Furuya et al. Al-though, I am making inferences about my experience based on evidence, which different approach-es in psychology have been criticised for doing, such as the cognitive approach. This states that we can understand the human mind by making inferences about it based on observable behaviour. This has been criticised because it is regarded as unscientific, since it is about indirectly making assump-tions about what is happening inside one’s mind. However, the aim of psychology is argued by many to meet the criteria of the established sciences to ensure maximum validity and reliability. This implies that at least for section three of my report, my argument is not very strong or indeed scientific.

In contrast, the behaviourist approach which I examined in detail as an explanation for superstitious beliefs, is widely regarded as adding scientific credibility to psychology as a discipline, given that it was able to bring the language and methods of the natural sciences into psychology by focusing on the measurement of observable behaviour within highly controlled laboratory setting, such as that in B.F. Skinner’s experiments. Therefore, behaviourism stresses the importance of the features of sci-ence such as objectivity and replication, thus increasing the credibility and status of psychology as a science. This also implies therefore, that the use of this approach to explain superstition is arguably more valid than other possible explanations because it is unlikely to have been affected by personal biases or unscientific methods. However, as previously outlined, there is competing evidence to suggest that a psychological explanation of superstition may not be the most appropriate. For in-stance, the fact that Skinner provoked superstition in pigeons and rats who clearly do not match humans on a psychological level implies that the explanation must be more about aiding the sur-vival of the species. For instance, similar to Michael Shermer’s idea of patternicity and agenticity, evolutionary biologists argue that superstition can be likened to a tendency to falsely link cause and effect which can be beneficial. As long as the cost of believing a superstition is less than the cost of

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

missing a real association, superstitious beliefs will be favoured. Skinner has also faced a range of criticism from competing researchers, most notably from Staddon and Simmelhag, who criticised Skinner for failing to notice crucial patterns in the behaviour of pigeons, as well as attributed their behaviour perhaps most notably to innate foraging efficacies rather than a conditioned superstition. In my research, one thing that constantly becomes apparent is the relevance of evolutionary and bi-ological explanations to explain superstition, external belief, and the perception of apparitional be-ings. For instance, anthropomorphism and patternicity are two explanations that I feel can be widely applied to a range of different so-called paranormal phenomena or experiences. However, once again I cannot infer if this is because my own personal biases and preconceptions that I may have injected into my research, given that when researching this was often the alternative explanation I looked at, thus increasing the amount of semiology in my research. Nevertheless, despite the issues I encountered such as semiotic methods, I feel that my explanations have been a thorough account of at least a snapshot of why belief in the supernatural persists in this age of reason. The evolution-ary explanation would also make sense in terms of the universality of such beliefs, which adds cred-ibility to my research overall. This field of psychology is essentially new and developing, and still has a long way to go until it can claim to find a single paradigmatic explanation for the different aspects of supernatural belief.

The fact that such a significant amount of the population of both Britain and America still hold some sort of supernatural or external belief, shows that we clearly have no reason to expect a de-cline in these sorts of beliefs in the near future. It seems too deeply rooted in our evolutionary hardwiring, and is essentially a part of being human.

Webography

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9781000/9781438.stm

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/02/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in.html

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/02/why-is-it-so-hard-to-persuade-people.html

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things?language=en

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception?language=en

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12934253

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03m6hb1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03cgdg4

https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/pritchard.pdf

http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luck

http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/superstition_report.pdf

https://www.psychologistworld.com/superstition.php

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6zS7v9nSpo

https://carusvenustas.wordpress.com/university-papers/operant-conditioning-and-superstitions/

http://www.ehow.com/info_8428774_behaviors-learned-through-classical-conditioning.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2590349/God-Were-likely-believe-supernatural-Number-people-think-sixth-sense-higher-regularly-attend-church.html

http://www.sleepdex.org/paralysis.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hypnagogic-state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_the_pigeon

http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics1981/A1981LF07000001.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

https://carusvenustas.wordpress.com/university-papers/operant-conditioning-and-superstitions/

http://www.ehow.com/info_8428774_behaviors-learned-through-classical-conditioning.html

http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics1981/A1981LF07000001.pdf

"Derren Brown: Trick or Treat - 4oD". Channel 4. Retrieved September 30, 2016.

http://www.celiagreen.com/charlesmccreery/dreams-and-psychosis.pdf

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hypnagogic-state

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22380449

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22686500[

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Extended Project Katherine Grace White

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The Principles of Learning and Behaviour: Active Learning Edition by Michael P. Domjan

February 1995, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp 3-18, Superstitious learning and induction A. P. White, W. Z. Liu

Extended Project Katherine Grace White

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