Page 29 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2023 Edition
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We Shouldn’t Believe in the Supernatural 29
Why We Believe in the
Supernatural, but
Shouldn’t
Why we fall prey to fortune
tellers, psychics, and hucksters.
Ronald E Riggio Ph.D.
Do you believe in the paranormal?
As a research psychologist, I am trained
to be skeptical. As much as I might like to
believe in supernatural phenomena, I
know that research doesn’t support the
existence of mental telepathy (mind
reading), clairvoyance (predicting the
future), telekinesis (moving things with
your mind), or ghosts. Often, what we
believe is supernatural is actually caused
Confirmation Bias. In actuality, these biases work hand-in-
by natural phenomena.
hand to lead us to believe in supernatural
I’m not here to tell you what you should Have you ever gone to a fortune phenomena, even though systematic
believe in—some of my friends and teller or seen a show featuring a mind research suggests that these forces don’t
family members believe in ghosts, reader? They seem to have some really exist.
astrology, and fortune-telling—but it supernatural ability to know us, and our
does concern me when people ignore future. The fortune-teller, for example, Is the belief in the supernatural
natural, often-psychological explanations tells you that you will meet a “tall, dark dangerous? In most instances, not at all.
for happenings and immediately believe stranger,” and a few days later someone However, when unscrupulous characters
they are supernatural. Even worse, it is meeting that description waltzes into try to trick us, telling us that they have
our desire to believe in the supernatural your life. The reality is that confirmation some power to predict the future or
that can make us victims of charlatans bias makes us believe in fortune-telling protect us from harm, and then offering to
and con artists, and we need to be able to because of confirmation bias—our provide supernatural services for a hefty
defend ourselves. tendency to look for information that fee, then we need to be on our guard. In
confirms initial beliefs (e.g., meeting the these cases, healthy skepticism is called
So, if science tells us that supernatural stranger), and to ignore disconfirming for.
phenomena are not real, why do people evidence (e.g., all of the other people we
still believe in them? Part of the reason is met who don’t fit the description). About the Author:
due to cognitive biases that fool us into
believing that we have solid evidence for Confirmation bias may also lead us to Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D., is the
the paranormal. believe that we have psychic powers as Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership
things that we predict will happen, and Organizational Psychology at
Hindsight Bias. actually happen—but we ignore and/or Claremont McKenna College. []
tend to forget all the times we predict an
outcome that doesn’t occur.
Have you ever had a premonition
that something was going to happen? Say
Correlation and Causality.
that a family member was sick. Then, a
day or two later, you find out that your
father has come down with pneumonia. This is a bias that occurs when
You tell yourself, “I knew it all along!” Is events that are actually unrelated occur
this evidence that you have clairvoyance, together. Our bias tends to make a causal
or is it simply hindsight bias? Hindsight connection, believing that one thing
bias is the human tendency to believe that actually caused the other. For example,
we knew something was going to happen, we read an astrological forecast that
but only after hearing about the event’s foretells that we will have a difficult few
occurrence. Hindsight bias makes us days ahead, and then bad things happen
think that we (or others) can actually tell to us. We see the two as connected, even
the future. though they aren't, and it strengthens our
belief in astrology.
