Meta-analyses of 10 experiments on perceptual defensiveness and ESP - ESP scoring patterns and experimenter and decline effects

Author(s): Houtkooper, J. M.

Journal/Book: J Parapsychol. 1995; 59: PO Box 6847, College Station, Durham, NC 27708. Parapsychology Press. 251-271.

Abstract: Ten experiments (N = 462) on perceptual defensiveness (as measured by the Defense Mechanism Test (DMT)) and ESP performance were carried out in Iceland between 1977 and 1991. The ESP-DMI relationship again proved significant. There was also a sizeable correlation between ESP performance and religiosity, although religiosity showed only a negligible correlation with perceptual defensiveness. We explored the possible influence by the experimenters who conducted the ESP tests on the strength of the DMT-ESP relationship, but no such influence was found. We also looked for indications of a decline effect in the DMT-ESP correlation. In the 10 Icelandic DMT-ESP experiments, there was a significant drop in the DMT-ESP correlation after the first application of meta-analysis to these data (called the ''Meta-analysis Demolition (MAD) effect''). The pattern of belief in ESP among subjects in different faculties corresponds with the findings of an earlier study of belief in ESP among U.S. college professors, in which professors in the humanities reported the highest level of belief. In our study, the strongest relationship of ESP with the DMT, religiosity, and the sheep-goat variable was found among students in the humanities. The possibility of a DMT-correlated scoring pattern within the ESP task, such as a position effect, was explored. No such pattern was found, and therefore there appears to be no better indicator of ESP performance than the overall z score.

Note: Article E Haraldsson, Univ Iceland, Fac Social Sci, IS-101 Reykjavik, Iceland

Keyword(s): DEFENSE-MECHANISM TEST; PREDICTOR

Zurück | Weiter