Belief in Exceptional Experience

BELIEF IN EXCEPTIONAL EXPERIENCE To read up on belief in exceptional experience, refer to pages 678–685 of Eysenck’s A2 Level Psychology. Ask yourself  How can we explain psychic healing?  What is an out-of-body experience?  What is psychic mediumship? What you need to RESEARCH INTO RESEARCH INTO RESEARCH INTO RESEARCH INTO PSYCHIC HEALING OUT-OF-BODY NEAR-DEATH PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES EXPERIENCES MEDIUMSHIP  The  Research into  Research into  Research importance of common near-death into using characteristics experiences psychic randomised of out-of-body including mediumshi and double- experiences themes and p including blind trials to  Evaluation of stages hypothese conduct research  Evaluation of s such as research into research the psychic survival healing as hypothesis opposed to and the anecdotal Sceptical accounts Hypothesis  Evaluation of  Evaluation research of research and hypothese s

RESEARCH INTO PSYCHIC HEALING Psychic healing refers to the passing of some form of energy from one person to another living being with the aim of treating the individual. This can be the laying of hands on an individual or through prayer. There are many anecdotal accounts about how healers have performed “miracles” and cured people of a variety of ailments. Is this reliable or valid evidence? Scientific research requires randomised and double-blind trials; that is, participants have an equal chance of being in the healing or non-healing group and neither they, nor the doctors who examine them to see if their condition has improved, know which condition they are in. RESEARCH EVIDENCE INTO PSYCHIC HEALING  Byrd (1998, see A2 Level Psychology page 678): Over a period of 10 months, 393 patients who were admitted to a coronary care unit were randomly allocated into two groups—one received prayer healing (n = 192) and the remainder acted as a control group (n = 201). The study was double blind because the participants did not know if they had experienced directed prayers or not. Significant differences were found in favour of the prayer- healing group, as they recovered better from their conditions.  Sicher et al. (1998, see A2 Level Psychology page 679) also conducted a double-blind randomised trial on the effects of healing on advanced AIDS patients. Forty patients were randomly allocated to the healing or control group. Both groups received 10 weeks of standard medical care. In addition, the healing group received distant healing (meaning the patient and healers never met so completely double blind) for 1 hour per day, 6 days per week for the 10-week period of study. Significant differences were found; the healing group experienced fewer AIDS-defining illnesses, fewer doctor visits, fewer hospitalisations, and much improved mood.  Abbott et al. (2001, see A2 Level Psychology page 679) compared face-to-face healing versus simulated face-to-face healing and distant healing in sufferers of chronic pain versus a control group of approximately 25 participants per group. Participants were randomly allocated and the single-blind design was used (participants did not know which condition they were in). All participants had 30 minutes of “healing” per week for 8 weeks. No significant differences in pain reduction were found across all groups. The face-to-face, simulated face-to-face, and control groups all reported significant reductions in pain; the distant healing group did not. This study does not support the use of healing for the sufferers of chronic pain. EVALUATION OF RESEARCH INTO PSYCHIC HEALING  Double-blind design. This design controls for researcher and participant effects: in the studies that involved directed prayer and distant healing the healers and patients did not meet. Therefore these studies are well-designed in that they control for researcher effects (healer expectations affecting the participant—this was prevented as they did not meet) and participant effects (participants being more motivated to get better if they knew they were in the healing group—this was prevented because they did not know they were in the healing groups).  placebo>placebo>Many psychologists would claim that “positive results” from psychic healing studies are due to the placebo effect. That is, it is the fact that the “patients” are expecting something to happen, or believing it will work, that brings about positive changes, and not the healing procedure itself. So the mere suggestion from a healer that the healing process will work results in the person receiving the healing—believing, acting, behaving, and thinking in a different way from usual. However, the use of double-blind designs can counter this criticism.  confounding style="font-weight: bold;">confounding>Confounding variables. It should be noted that even in randomised trials there still could be other variables (like participant variables such as belief or current mental health state) that could be affecting the outcome measures in conjunction with, or instead of, the healing that participants received.  contradictory style="font-weight: bold;">contradictory>Contradictory findings. The effects of healing are contradictory and therefore not reliable, as some research reports significant effects and other research does not. Such inconsistencies may be due to the effect of confounding variables. However, the lack of reliability means we cannot be sure what the true effects of healing are. RESEARCH INTO OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES An out-of-body experience (OoBE) is said to occur when individuals believe that they have had a sensation of floating out of their own body and being able to see their own body and the environment surrounding it. Very little research has tested the validity of OoBEs due to the obvious problem of the impossibility of testing the truth of self-report. Instead, research has focused on common characteristics across OoBEs. RESEARCH EVIDENCE INTO OoBEs  Alvarado (2000, see A2 Level Psychology page 680) reviewed the phenomenology of OoBEs to examine if there were any key similarities. Common characteristics include the experience of separation from the body; others report seeing themselves come out of their own body and then return to it. A minority (about 7%) experience an “astral cord”. This is a rope-like structure that links the OoBE with the physical body to help it return. About 50% experience being in a body that is not their own, or experience a different form of being, for example they claim to be “pure consciousness”, or a ball of light or a cloud.  Taking this further, Irwin and Watt (2007, see A2 Level Psychology page 680) reviewed the circumstances of OoBEs and found a number of common characteristics. For example, the mental state before and during the event tends to be calm. The amount of sensory stimulation seems to have no clear effect as some experience an OoBE after minimal sensory input such as lying down in a dark room, whereas others have experienced a lot of sensory stimulation. There can be some profound after-effects of an OoBE, particularly if it happened in conjunction with a near-death experience (see below). A final common experience is that the vast majority of experients are happy to have another one! Evaluation of research into OoBEs  self-report>self-report>The fact that research into OoBE has to rely on self-report means that it has low scientific validity as such research is open to a number of biases, including researcher expectancy, when the researchers’ expectations cue the participants. This leads to participant effects, such as demand characteristics, where participants report what they think the researcher expects to hear. All of this questions the truth and therefore the validity of the self-report. RESEARCH INTO NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES Generally, a near-death experience (NDE) is the perception reported by someone who was clinically dead but revived or nearly died (this is the crucial difference between this and out-of-body experiences—the latter can occur in non-life threatening situations). RESEARCH EVIDENCE INTO NDEs  The early work of Moody (1975, see A2 Level Psychology page 681) identified 15 themes that were quite common in NDE reports. These included finding difficulty putting the experience into words, overhearing the news of their own death, a dark tunnel, meeting others—usually family members, and a review of their own life.  Roe (2001, see A2 Level Psychology page 681) highlighted five stages of an NDE, which could happen in any order: feelings of deep peace and well- being; a sense of separation from the body; entering darkness/passing through a tunnel; seeing the light; and entering the light/beautiful garden.  van Lommel et al. (2001, see A2 Level Psychology page 681) examined NDEs in survivors of cardiac arrest. They examined 244 cardiac patients who were successfully resuscitated. Over 60 patients reported an NDE and these individuals were compared to a control group who did not report one. There were no differences between the groups on duration of cardiac arrest, medication taken, or fear of death before the arrest. The NDE group reported positive emotions (56%), awareness of being dead (50%), meeting with deceased people (32%), and moving through a tunnel (31%). Some of the NDE experients and control group were followed-up 2 years later. There were many differences between these groups as the NDE experients were found to be more loving, empathic (i.e. understood others better), got more involved in their family, believed more in life after death, and appreciated the ordinary things in life more so than the control non-NDE group.  Parnia et al. (2001, see A2 Level Psychology page 681) interviewed all survivors of cardiac arrest in a South of England hospital over a 1-year period; just over 11% of the sample reported an NDE. The main features included coming to a point of no return, feelings of joy and peace, and seeing a bright light (interestingly, all of the NDE were non-practising Christians). When comparing the NDE group with the other survivors, there were no physiological differences between the groups except that the NDE had levels of oxygen in their system that were twice as high as the other group.  Greyson (2003, see A2 Level Psychology page 682) also examined NDEs in a cardiac care unit. He conducted a 30-month survey on 1595 patients admitted to a cardiac care unit. 10% of the entire sample reported having an NDE and these were matched to controls based on medical diagnosis, gender, and age. Members of the NDE group were more likely to have lost consciousness, have had prior paranormal experiences, and to have an approach-oriented death acceptance. This means that they perceive death as a passage to a pleasant state (it should be noted that there were no differences between the groups on fear of death). Evaluation of research into NDEs  prospective>prospective>A strong positive of van Lommel et al’s (2001) study is that it was prospective in nature and not retrospective. That is, they examined the NDE just after it happened and followed it over time (a retrospective study examines the events after they have happened and can be years later so has the problems of memory recall).  self-report.><>self-report.><>The research on NDE is of course self-report and so there is no way of being sure exactly how valid (true) it is. &  Sample drop-off. In van Lommel et al’s study only some of the participants were followed up 2 years later. This is likely due to sample drop-off, which refers to the fact some of the participants will have dropped out, which means the sample that is left is even less representative and so the differences found between the NDE experients and the control group may be exaggerated by the small sample and so lack validity.  Small samples. Parnia et al. (2001) noted that the NDE sample was only four people. Therefore, generalisability is low to other NDE groups and the findings about the high oxygen levels may be skewed data from such a small sample (e.g. it happened to have four people with high oxygen levels). This means we cannot be sure about the role of oxygen in NDE experiences.  Correlational data. The “causality” between the NDEs and the after-effects cannot be inferred. Many believe that the experience changes your views; however, we cannot be sure this is the case if we do not measure this before and after a NDE. Similarly, nor can we conclude that high oxygen causes NDE experiences as oxygen level has not been manipulated and so associations only can be identified. RESEARCH INTO PSYCHIC MEDIUMSHIP Psychic mediumship refers to a type of relationship that a living person says they have with spirits. Mediums tend to claim that they can communicate with spirits and pass on messages to loved ones “left behind” in the “earthly” world. It is practised as part of many religions across the globe. There are many hypotheses about mediumship, ranging from the survival hypothesis (i.e. our spirit survives after death and can communicate) to the Sceptical Hypothesis (which predicts that the mediums’ messages are so general that they can apply to anyone). RESEARCH EVIDENCE INTO PSYCHIC MEDIUMSHIP  The Sceptical Hypothesis was tested out in a series of studies run by Robertson and Roy (2001; 2004, see A2 Level Psychology pages 682–683). 44 recipients of information were compared with 407 non-recipients. The control group was used to see if any information from the medium was so general that it could be accepted by them. The researchers recorded non- general readings as a “hit target”. The average “hit target” score for a recipient was hugely significantly larger than the non-recipient group. Robertson and Roy rejected the Sceptical Hypothesis; however, they wanted to test it again.  In a follow-up study Robertson and Roy (2004, see A2 Level Psychology page 683) tested 10 mediums whom they ensured had no prior knowledge of the recipients. They again found that the scores for recipients were much higher than those of the non-recipients. The probability of this happening by chance was one in one million. They added in further controls be ensuring that factors like body language (medium and recipients in separate rooms) and verbal responses of the recipients (recipient instructed to give no verbal responses) could not influence the medium. The scores for recipients were again higher than for non-recipients, and so again Robertson and Roy rejected the Sceptical Hypothesis.  O’Keeffe and Wiseman (2005 see A2 Level Psychology page 683) tested five mediums and controlled for sensory leakage, which occurs when the mediums pre-search via the internet or telephone directories for information on their recipients. In addition, how quickly the recipient answers “yes” or “no” can be very useful feedback for a medium.  O’Keeffe and Wiseman controlled for this by making sure all participants were unknown to the medium prior to the study and that they did not respond with “yes” or “no” answers. They also tested for the generality of mediums’ statements by asking recipients to rate the accuracy of their own reading and to then assess if readings from other recipients apply to them too (called a decoy). The findings showed that not one recipient had their highest score when they were a recipient. This means that for each recipient a decoy set of statements was rated as more accurate than their own. This naturally led O’Keeffe and Wiseman to accept the Sceptical Hypothesis. EVALUATION OF RESERACH INTO PSYCHIC MEDIUMSHIP  Lack of standardisation. In conclusion, there is conflicting evidence for the genuineness of mediumship but the studies described here used different techniques to score accuracy. Therefore, it is hard to rule out that it was the technique causing the conclusions, not the ability of the mediums. This is another example in which a set protocol ought to be agreed by researchers and then studies can be comparable.  Participant effects. The recipients in Robertson and Roy’s research may have been biased in favour of reporting that the messages were more relevant than they actually were. For all the controls the method still relies on participants’ self-report on how relevant the messages were, and therefore may be open to demand characteristics, the bias in which participants give the researcher the results they expect to find. So what does this mean? Research into exceptional experience is difficult because there is no scientific way to test OoBE or NDE; instead, self-report has to be used as evidence and this is subject to a number of biases that question validity. However, not all exceptional experiences are completely lacking in scientific validity as psychic healing has been tested using double-blind designs and findings do show that the healing had some effect. Psychic mediumship has also been tested in a controlled manner, e.g. ensuring the medium did not know the recipients and that they could not be influenced by body language or participants’ responses. However, such research does still rely on participants’ self-report on how relevant the messages were, and therefore may be open to demand characteristics, so the validity of any evidence for psychic mediumship can be questioned. Over to you 1. Outline and evaluate research into psychic healing, out-of-body, and/or near-death experience and psychic mediumship. (25 marks)