We report the results of an empirical investigation of the extent to which supernatural believers endorse a porous conception of the mind, i.e., the belief that one’s thoughts can be directly perceived by others. We developed a porous theory of mind (PToM) scale, tested its factor structure by using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and showed its relation with supernatural beliefs in three studies in the Netherlands and one study with North-American participants. We found that endorsement of a PToM is positively related to paranormal beliefs. We also showed that the endorsement of a porous view of the mind differs in meaningful ways between people from different religious backgrounds (i.e., Protestants vs. Catholics; spiritualists vs. religious believers). The finding that supernatural believers endorse a porous conception of the mind fits well with recent work in the field of the anthropology of religion and the psychology of paranormal beliefs. We propose that our PToM scale provides a parsimonious measurement tool (i.e., consisting only of 4 items) that circumvents socially desirable responding, while providing direct insight in the endorsement of paranormal beliefs.

我们报告了关于超自然信徒在多大程度上认可心灵的多孔概念（即，认为自己的思想可以被他人直接理解的信念）的程度的实证研究结果。我们开发了一个多孔心智理论（PToM）量表，通过探索性和验证性因素分析测试了其因素结构，并在荷兰的三项研究和一项北美参与者的研究中显示了其与超自然信念的关系。我们发现，对PToM的认可与超自然信念成正相关。我们还表明，来自不同宗教背景的人（即，新教徒与天主教徒；唯心论者与宗教信徒）在不同的思想观点上的认可在有意义的方式上也有所不同。超自然的信徒们支持一个疏松的思想观念的发现，与宗教人类学和超自然信念心理学领域的最新研究非常吻合。我们建议，我们的PToM量表提供一种简化的测量工具（即，仅由4个项目组成），可以规避社会期望的响应，同时提供对超自然信念的认可的直接见解。