DECEPTION, SELF DECEPTION, SUPERSTITION AND COINCIDENCE
1. DECEPTION. AO1
Making someone believe something that is not true. Randi believes that many
paranormal phenomena can be explained by deception e.g. Uri Geller.
Broad and Wade – deception depends not only on the deceiver but also the
characteristics of the people being deceived. Magicians believe scientists are easier to
deceive than other people, because they have confidence in their own objectivity. We
see what we expect to see – expectancy leads to self deception leading to propensity
to be deceived.
AO2 Wiseman Some deception maybe relatively harmless, but in some cases large
sums of money are handed over and in one case a young man committed suicide
when told by a psychic that he would die young
Many cases of anomalous experiences that don’t involve deception e.g. UFO’s, out of
body experiences.
Pinker – powers evolved as they gave powers to leaders e.g. priests, shaman.
(Machiavellian intelligence). Tricks include diverting attention. Theory of mind
2. SELF DECEPTION AO1
Denying or rationalizing away opposing evidence and argument. Psychodynamic – we
have emotional attachments to beliefs (consciously believe one thing while
unconsciously believing another) Trivers suggests it co-evolved with deception. If
deception practiced – individual who can spot it has an advantage – if deceivers can
mask deception they will have an advantage, one element of this is self deception.
AO2 This only relates to some anomalous experiences, does not explain out of body
experiences and UFO’s. Need Theory of Mind to deceive. Self deception can explain
some fraudulent research. Evolutionary theory – believe own lies could explain
fraudulent research. Psychodynamic – desire to find support pushes knowledge into
unconscious mind – believers more likely to have psychological problems due to
repressed thoughts – possibly leading to mental disorder – some evidence linking
neuroticism and paranormal beliefs.
Taylor – self deception may be positive as facing truth may be depressing i.e. cheers
people up
Self deception can be shaped by culture
Cognitive – contradiction between knowledge of reality and belief in yourself. Mele
suggests the cause of self deception can be seen by considering one’s own thoughts
and feelings. We acquire and use views that affect our motivation.
3. SUPERSTITION
AO1
Subjective belief that a behavior will have an effect on another area (positive or
negative) give e.g.’s
Tom Daley – has a toy monkey in sight
Breaking a mirror – bad luck
Lucky charms
Behaviourists – Skinner – it develops through operant conditioning(accidental
stimulus-response learned. Skinner placed very hungry pigeons in a cage for a few
mins each day, a mechanism delivered food pellets at regular intervals, their behavior
had no effect on delivery but certain random behaviours immediately preceded food
and these seen to persist as ritualistic behavior. E.g. one bird repeatedly turned anticlockwise, another a regular nodding movement. Explanation – the behaviours were
reinforced by the food. It didn’t cause the food but appeared to thus acting as a
reinforce.
Evolutionary – causal thinking evolved as it allows people to understand and control
their environments. Can lead to type 1 errors- believe something it true which really
isn’t. Foster and Kokko argue it’s adaptive advantage will persist as long as the
occasional correct response has a large adaptive advantage – type 1 errors tolerated
to avoid type 2 errors. People may be superstitious in some areas but not in others.
AO2
Skinners explanation of accidental learning has been challenged – Staddon and
Simmelhag repeated pigeon study and reaslised the behaviours were unrelated to
food I.e. just as likely to occur at other times- before and after reinforcement.
There are also culturally transmitted superstitions (not just personal ones) e.g number
7 considered lucky in UK. 9 in Thailand and 8 in China –Olympic Games in Beijing
started at 8 mins past 8 on 8th Aug (8th month) in 2008. People may adopt cultural
superstitions because they provide sense of control. Whitson and Galinsky – people
who were given a reduced sense of control were more likely to develop superstitions.
4. COINCIDENCE questionnaire on probability
AO1
Superstitions are learned because of coincidence – if 2 events occur at same time we
assume rightly or wrongly that one causes the other.
Probability misjudgement – some people are better than others at judging the
probability of coincidental events than others – believers tend to underestimate
statistical likelihood of probability judgement tasks. Increasing their desire for causal
explanations for coincidences
Coincidence explanations give some sense of order in the world and increases the
feelings of control. Believers show greater illusion of control – Ayeroff and Abelson
AO2
Kahneman and Tversy suggest an alternative to probability misjudgement – they
suggest people use various heuristics (strategies to solve problems) such as
representativeness. E.g. some understand that short run tossing a coin will not be
representative of 50:50 probability where others expect it to match ’gamblers fallacy’
if toss coin and get three heads in a row tails is more likely on next throw. (it isn’t)
Illusion of control – Whitson and Galinsky found reduced control led participants to
detect patterns where there were none and form illusory correlations between
unrelated events. The lack of control variable was manipulated so can conclude cause
and effect.