Conflict and threat between pre-existing groups: An application of identity to bias, persuasion and belief perseverance

The current research examines the role of identity in the context of threat towards further understanding bias, persuasion, and belief perseverance in what is defined as IRT (Immediately Relevant Threat) conditions. Using pre, middle, and post measurements, four groups of differing ideological student organizations across 4 university or college campuses were presented critical messages that were varied by the source being either an in-group or out-group presenter of the message. Messages were also varied by either presenting a message that criticized the entire group or only a few of its members. With the use of hierarchical linear modeling and conventional ordinary least square statistics, results indicated general and specific effects of source of the message and the inclusiveness of criticism towards predicting bias, persuasion, and belief perseverance in environmental settings. Findings and their practical applications are discussed

Religion, prejudice, and authoritarianism : Is RWA a boon or bane to the psychology of religion?

In research on religiosity and prejudice, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) has been studied alongside variables such as fundamentalism and orthodoxy. Four concerns regarding research on the relationship between RWA and religiosity are identified: (1) the overlap of religiosity and prejudice within the RWA scale; (2) the inflation of relationships by correlating part-whole measures; (3) covariation in the extremes of the construct hiding the possible independence of components within RWA; and (4) statistical artifacts arising in multiple regression from the combination of these factors. We elaborate these four issues and then demonstrate how they can lead to different interpretations of some previously published data. The article concludes with suggestions for the management and resolution of these issues that may allow RWA to continue to be used in religiosity and prejudice research and how it might evolve to become the boon to researchers that they seek.PostprintPeer reviewe

Dead Reckoning: A Multiteam System Approach to Commentaries on the Drake-S Equation for Survival

We used a multiteam system approach (MTS) to map the critical and constructive feedback from four invited Commentaries on Rock et al.’s (2023) probabilistic analysis of purported evidence for postmortem survival. The goal was to mine actionable insights to guide future research with the potential for important learnings or breakthroughs about the nature or limits of human consciousness and their relation to transpersonal psychology. The commentators’ input identified only a few measurable variables or empirical tactics that conceivably challenge or refine our latest Drake-S Equation for survival. However, a review of these suggestions using logical and statistical criteria revealed that none immediately upend our previous conclusion that the published effect sizes for various Known Confounds (including hypothetical living agent psi ) do not fully account for the published prevalence rates of Anomalous Experiences traditionally interpretated as survival. However, the commentators proposed several good recommendations for new studies that could eventually alter this calculus. Accordingly, we outline the architecture of a proposed cross-disciplinary research program that extends the present MTS approach and its collected insights and focuses strictly on empiricism over rhetoric in this domain. The results of this coordinated effort should likewise help to clarify a range of psychological and biomedical phenomena that speak to the nature and limits of human consciousness

Is Biological Death Final? Recomputing the Drake-S Equation for Postmortem Survival of Consciousness

This participatory team science project extended Laythe and Houran’s (2022) prior application of a famous probabilistic argument known as the ‘Drake equation’ to the question of postmortem survival. Specifically, we evaluated effect sizes from peer-reviewed, empirical studies to determine the maximum average percentage effect that ostensibly supports (i.e., anomalous effects ) or refutes (i.e., known confounds ) the survival hypothesis. But unlike the earlier application, this research included a study-specific estimate of the hypothesized variable of ‘living agent psi’ via a new meta-analysis of empirical studies (N = 17) with exceptional subjects vs participants from the general population. Our updated analysis found that putative psi was a meaningful variable, although it along with other known confounds still did not account for 30.3% of survival-related phenomena that appear to attest directly to human consciousness continuing after physical (biological) death. Thus, the popular conventional variables that we measured here are seemingly insufficient to account for a sizable portion of the purported empirical data that has been interpreted as evidence of survival. Our conclusion is nonetheless tempered by several assumptions and limitations of our speculative exercise, which ultimately does not affirm the existence of an ‘afterlife’ but rather highlights the need for measurements with greater precision and/ or a more comprehensive set of quantifiable variables. Therefore, we discuss how our probabilistic approach provides important heuristics to guide future research in this highly controversial domain that touches both parapsychology and transpersonal psychology

Is Biological Death Final? Recomputing the Drake-S Equation for Postmortem Survival of Consciousness

This participatory team science project extended Laythe and Houran’s (2022) prior application of a famous probabilistic argument known as the Drake equation to the question of postmortem survival. Specifically, we evaluated effect sizes from peer-reviewed, empirical studies to determine the maximum average percentage effect that ostensibly supports (i.e., anomalous effects ) or refutes (i.e., known confounds ) the survival hypothesis. But unlike the earlier application, this research included a study-specific estimate of the hypothesized variable of living agent psi via a new meta-analysis of empirical studies (N = 17) with exceptional subjects vs participants from the general population. Our updated analysis found that putative psi was a meaningful variable, although it along with other known confounds still did not account for 30.3% of survival-related phenomena that appear to attest directly to human consciousness continuing after physical (biological) death. Thus, the popular conventional variables that we measured here are seemingly insufficient to account for a sizable portion of the purported empirical data that has been interpreted as evidence of survival. Our conclusion is nonetheless tempered by several assumptions and limitations of our speculative exercise, which ultimately does not affirm the existence of an ‘afterlife’ but rather highlights the need for measurements with greater precision and/ or a more comprehensive set of quantifiable variables. Therefore, we discuss how our probabilistic approach provides important heuristics to guide future research in this highly controversial domain that touches both parapsychology and transpersonal psychology

Conceptual and clinical implications of a “Haunted People Syndrome”.

Evidence suggests that subjective and objective anomalies associated with ghostlyepisodes form a unidimensional Rasch scale and that these interconnected“signs orsymptoms”arguably describe a syndrome model. This view predicts that symptomperception—that is, the phenomenology of these anomalous episodes—can be markedlyskewed by an experient’s psychological set. This is impacted, in turn, by psychosocialvariables that affect attentional, perceptual, and interpretational processes. Therefore, wepresent an overview that discusses how (a) Belief in the Paranormal, (b) ReligiousIdeology, (c) Ideological Practice, (d) Social Desirability, (e) Latency, and (f) Environ-mental Setting ostensibly influence the contents or interpretations of accounts. Theseexperiential details are similarly expected to reveal insights into the psychodynamicsbeing expressed or contextualized via these narratives. Future research in this area shouldhelp to validate and clarify the proposed syndrome model, as well as explore whichnuances in the phenomenology of ghostly episodes reflect idiosyncrasies of experients’psychological set versus the nature of the core phenomenon itself

Haunted people syndrome revisited: empirical parallels between subjective paranormal episodes and group-stalking accounts

Research suggests a Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) is defined by the recurrent perception of anomalous subjective and objective events. Occurrences are traditionally attributed to supernatural agencies, but we argue that such interpretations have morphed into themes of “surveillance and stalking” in group-stalking reports. We tested a series of related hypotheses by re-analyzing survey data from the 2015 Sheridan and James study to explore statistical patterns in “delusional” group-stalking accounts (N=128) versus“non-delusional” (control) accounts of lone-culprit stalking (N=128). As expected, we found that (i) account types had different Rasch hierachies, (ii) the Rasch hierarchy of group-stalking experiences showed a robust unidimensional model, and (iii) this group-stalking hierarchy correlated significantly with spontanous “ghost“ experiences. However, we found no clear evidence for “event clustering” that might signify contagious processes in symptom perception. Findings support the viability of the HP-S construct and the idea that experiences of group-stalking and haunts share common sources

Relationships Between Religion and Intolerance Towards Muslims and Immigrants in Europe:A Multilevel Analysis

This paper examines relationships between religiosity and intolerance towards Muslims and immigrants among Europeans living in non-Muslim majority countries by applying multilevel modeling to European Values Study data (wave four, 2010). Thus relationships across 44 national contexts are analyzed. The analysis found large between-country differences in the overall levels of intolerance towards immigrants and Muslims. Eastern Europeans tend to be more intolerant than Western Europeans. In most countries Muslims are less accepted than immigrants,—a finding which reflects that in post-9/11 Europe Islamophobia is prevalent and many still see Muslims with suspicion. A key result is that believing matters for the citizen’s attitudes towards Muslims and immigrants. Across Europe, traditional and modern fuzzy beliefs in a Higher Being are strongly negatively related to intolerance towards immigrants and Muslims, while fundamentalism is positively related to both targets of intolerance. Religious practice and denominational belonging on the other hand matter far less for the citizen’s propensity to dislike the two out-groups. With the only exception of non-devout Protestants who do not practice their religion, members of religious denominations are not more intolerant than non-members. The findings are valid for the vast majority of countries although countries differ in the magnitude of the effects