ABSTRACT

Recent survey data show that belief in the paranormal – including aliens, ghosts, telepathy, mind reading, and unlucky numbers – is widespread in the United States. Given the ubiquitous nature of paranormal beliefs in society, insight into why individuals believe in the paranormal is surprisingly limited. Although the few studies that do exist on this topic show that paranormal beliefs vary somewhat by race/ethnicity, gender, and social class, few studies have applied a rigorous test of theory to quantitatively understand why individuals believe in the paranormal. To address this key gap in research, we use an original dataset and apply the theory of self-control to the understanding of paranormal beliefs. Overall, the data demonstrates that the majority of respondents in our sample report belief in at least one paranormal phenomenon. Multivariate analyses show that individuals with lower levels of self-control report significantly greater belief in the paranormal than those with higher self-control, even after controlling for a range of variables. The characteristics of low self-control – a tendency to choose immediately gratifying courses of action while ignoring long-term consequences – may predispose people to endorse high levels of paranormal beliefs.

摘要

最近的调查数据显示，对超自然现象的信仰——包括外星人、鬼魂、心灵感应、读心术和不吉利的数字——在美国很普遍。鉴于超自然信仰在社会中无处不在，对个人为什么相信超自然现象的洞察力令人惊讶地有限。尽管关于这个主题的少数研究表明，超自然信仰会因种族/民族、性别和社会阶层而有所不同，但很少有研究应用严格的理论检验来定量地理解个人为什么相信超自然现象。为了解决研究中的这一关键差距，我们使用原始数据集并将自我控制理论应用于对超自然信念的理解。总体而言，数据表明，我们样本中的大多数受访者表示相信至少一种超自然现象。多变量分析表明，即使在控制了一系列变量之后，自我控制水平较低的人也比自我控制水平较高的人更相信超自然现象。低自我控制的特征——倾向于选择立即令人满意的行动方针而忽略长期后果——可能使人们倾向于认可高水平的超自然信念。