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Cognitive Deficit Hypothesis Examples

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Psychology in Action
Anomalistic: How useful is ‘the cognitive deficit hypothesis’ for understanding why people believe in the paranormal? Paranormal belief is defined as the belief in a phenomenon that cannot be explained by empirical or scientific research and does not follow the laws of nature, for example, the belief in the supernatural, extra-terrestrial life or psychic abilities. The cognitive deficit hypothesis is one explanation for why people believe in the paranormal. This associates the belief in the paranormal with relatively low cognitive abilities. In order to evaluate the usefulness of the cognitive deficit hypothesis as a tool to understand why people believe in the paranormal, this essay will examine what the cognitive …show more content…

Smith, Foster, & Stovin, 1998), poor understanding of probability (e.g. Blackmore, 1997) or a lack of scientific education (e.g. Otis & Alcock, 1982). One idea of the cognitive deficit hypothesis is that believers in the paranormal have cognitive biases that make them more susceptible to believe in the paranormal. The cognitive biases can distort our image of events or situations that non-believers may perceive in a more logical way, for example, many reports of experiencing 'cold chills' or shivers when in a supposedly haunted house, believing it is a ghost that has walked past them. However, non-believers may perceive this in as being an environmental factor, such as a draught from a window or door, as the trigger to these sensations. Another factor which may lead people to believe in the paranormal is the way in which believers may perceive and misinterpret situations with a lack of probabilistic reasoning. For example, believing in the paranormal explanation when in fact another explanation is possible. This is due to believers, believing that an even is much less probable than it actually is and then explaining the end result as something abnormal or paranormal. Reseach by Blackmore and Troscianko (1985) supports this with their findings that those who believe in the paranormal performed worse in the probabilistic …show more content…

It is found that people are much more likely to find a pattern in random displays when primed to see them. For example, seeing an image of a cat in a random arrangement of dots (van Prooijen, Douglas, & De Inocencio, 2017). This could help us in understanding why some people believe to have seen paranormal or abnormal things, such as objects appearing to move without reason or seeing ghosts in a haunted building if they had previously been told the building is haunted. This would be due to the fact they are expecting to see something abnormal. This could also work as an explanation to pareidolia, seeing faces in inanimate objects or strange places, as our brain is primed or predisposed to see faces, this is commonly seen as a type II error in cognition (Shermer, 2008). Environmental factors such as the way we are brought up, the beliefs of those in our social groups and the information we have access to could all prime us to believe in the paranormal, effectively leading us to believe the paranormal could be real therefore when we come across an event which is abnormal our mind could be deemed as paranormal. Seeing patterns in abnormal places and things could be seen as an evolutionary trait passed from our ancestors, rather than a cognitive

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When those beliefs are questioned, we find ourselves questioning the reliability of our senses and our memory of our experiences. Yes, there are times when our senses are called into question as well as our memory of experiences. For example, as a young child, I was able to see without glasses; however, now my eyesight is significantly worse and I require glasses to see everything. Without corrective lenses the world around me would be completely different (mostly blurry blobs of color), instead, I can see things almost perfect. Another example of how our beliefs come into question is our memories.

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Fowler’s (1981) Stage 3, Synthetic-Conventional faith is an optimum parallel to Erikson’s fifth psychosocial stage Identity versus Role Confusion (p. 113). Conformity would be the best way to characterize this stage as well as the beginning of placing one’s peers or social cliques ahead of the self. However, this is contingent on not only a healthy, adaptive acceptance of this stage’s tenets, but also successful completion of the previous stages. Considering that in Stage 2, Intuitive-Projective faith individuals are psychologically exposed and vulnerable as they continue to grow cognitively, failing to develop the ability to discern good from bad, fact from fiction, and reality from fantasy will produce a distorted lens in which a person will view the world (Fowler, 1981).

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People like to feel in control, so they will believe anything to make their world more stable. According to Jan-Willem van Prooijen, a psychology professor associate professor at VU University Amsterdam, “... if people feel they don 't have control over a situation, they’ll try to make sense of it and find out what happened.” People connect dots that do not connect in order to be in control of a situation. In this sense, are they really believing in anything other than themselves?

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The author utilizes inductive reasoning and provides sufficient and accurate mix of relevant evidence to support his claims. In addition, the tone of the paper allows her to properly connect with the audience and effectively communicate her assertions. Furthermore, the author possesses the necessary skills, knowledge, education, and expertise and refrains from letting her postmodernism world view cause biased or unwarranted assumptions. Therefore, I conclude that the author adequately supports her claims and attains her objective of fostering an understanding of the role of the brain in promoting superstitious phenomena to the

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So, when it comes to existential reason people believe that believing these conspiracy theories will make them have control and feel safer. In a study, it was found that people believe in conspiracies when they are experiencing

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The individual is often under emotional, psychological or physical stress. No one knows for certain what ghosts are, some believe that they are spirits of the dead who for whatever reason get “lost” on their way to the afterworld; others think that ghosts are souls of people whose deaths were violent and premature. The brain is a very imaginative thing, it makes up the boogeyman that hides under your bed the bumps and creaks in the house while everyone is asleep . Psychokinesis is defined as the brain levitating an object. While no one believes that it is realistically possible to move things with the brain, it can occur and this is what a fearful person would associate with paranormal

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A great number of people do not believe in these practices, however they do not consider superstitions harmful to themselves. Although lots of people do not regard these beliefs and stories as damaging, Sagan and Dawkins agree on the point that superstitions and pseudoscience cannot be innocent anymore. Dawkins remarks a popular practice which is about communicating with dead people and examines psychics’ language used when he talks to his visitors. Dawkins believes that this superstitious nonsense can be far from harmless fun for some people (Enemies of Reason). Because, making anguished people believe that dead people still can communicate with the ones who are alive does not give anything these people except for fear and psychological disorder.

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I believe that Alexander the Great was a very good leader. He had the attributes many leaders would love to have. Attributes including his personality, war style, and intelligence. He was certaintly destined to be aa leader and on top of it all, a great and influencing leader that has ever been mentioned in history. In the next paragraph we will see exactly what I speak about, the evidence one cannot deny.

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Thus, there is sought not only some kind of explanation as cause, but a selected and preferred kind of explanation, the kind by means of which the feeling of the strange, new, unexperienced is most speedily and most frequently abolished." (Nietzsche, 228). People use psychological explanation as part of their imaginary cause for the reason that something occurred. When something happened to someone that is unfamiliar to them they tend to pull something from their memory as a cause to why this event happened. They take something from their memory and say that it is the cause of the consequence of this action and the new or unexperienced event is excluded from being the cause.

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People find simple coincidences, and have a need to make sense of them. Then, they turn to mystical forces (page 14, lines 87-91). “Maybe you made this thing happen or the universe made this thing happen as a sign to you to improve your life” (page 15, lines 97-100). Furthermore, renowned biologist Kevin Foster suggests, in the article New Scientist, that people learned superstitious practices based on survival needs. “In general, an animal must balance the cost of being right with the cost of being wrong” (page 15, lines 107-109).

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When Swiss scientists electrically stimulated an epileptic patient’s brain, things turned really spooky. The patient reported a shadow person sitting behind her, copying her every move. This leads us to the knowledge that the energy on the brain has a dpside effect that can make us see delusions. This phenomena, is closely related to a psychological term: the Fundamental Attribution Error.

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They consider superstitious beliefs to be a gathering of cultural traditions developed in pre-scientific societies used to keep doubts and uncertainties about the future under control. Superstitious rituals or beliefs are generally invoked either tokeep away bad luck, or to bringabout good luck, and even if a lot of superstitions have cultural and social connotations and are passed on from one generation to another, others comprise more peculiar beliefs or rituals. Various research has been done to shed light upon the foundation and function of such beliefs identifying several factors that are linked to superstition and magical beliefs, such as motivation, personality traits, and cognition, as well as emotional instability, demographics, and social influences. Scientists also mention people 's unjustified emotions, thinking and ignorance, which can be very subjective as they depend on the individual. They explain different types of superstition which include:Belief in unspecific bad consequences; like for example- spilling salt or opening an umbrella indoors.

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