The paranormal field is full of names and labels.  Are you a ghost hunter or a paranormal investigator?  Are you a sceptic or a believer?  Maybe you are a sceptical believer?  A believer is considered to be someone who believes in the paranormal.  A sceptic is someone who does not.  A sceptical believer is somewhere in between.  They believe, but they usually need a bit of evidence to support it.  Who cares you may be thinking?  Well, research tells us that just by believing in the paranormal, we are more likely to think we have experienced something paranormal.  This fact becomes even more important in the world of parapsychology and ESP (Extra Sensory Perception).  

Parapsychology is a field of study that investigates psychic phenomena. Psychology refers to the study of human behaviours and the mental process. Parapsychology is an extension of this and looks at the mental process and human behaviour which are inexplicable by orthodox science.  The term parapsychology was coined in 1889 by German philosopher Max Dessoir.  He wrote a paper in the German periodical 'Sphinx' where he used the German translation of the term ‘parapsychologie’.  He went on to say

“If one ... characterizes by para- something going beyond or besides the ordinary, than one could perhaps call the phenomena that step outside the usual process of the inner life parapsychical, and the science dealing with them parapsychology. The word is not nice, yet in my opinion it has the advantage to denote a hitherto unknown fringe area between the average and the pathological states; however, more than the limited value of practical usefulness such neologisms do not demand.”

In the 1930's famous researcher and parapsychologist J.B Rhine adopted the English translation of this term to replace the phrase ‘physical research’.  He is thought to have founded parapsychology as we know it today.  Rhine himself is well known for establishing parapsychology institutes.  Rhine founded the Parapsychology lab at Duke University, the Journal of Parapsychology and the Parapsychology Institute, now known today as the Rhine Research Centre.  People don’t generally think of Australia when it comes to parapsychology, however we have unique ties in this area.  We have a parapsychology institute in NSW, and many Australian parapsychologists have made significant contributions to the field. In fact, an Australian was behind creating a scale that parapsychologists use all over the world to measure a person’s belief in the paranormal. 

In 1958, Professor of Psychology at City University in New York, Gertrude R. Schmeidler coined the term sheep-goat effect, which relates to the effect that a person's belief and attitude play on how successful they are when testing ESP.  She categorised people into two different areas.  Sheep were those who believed in ESP and PSI abilities.  Goats were those who did not believe.  You may be wondering why a sheep and a goat?  This comes from the New Testament where Christ separates the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-33).  In paranormal studies, those who were sheep (believers), actually performed better in ESP experiments.  Sure, you can label someone a sceptic or believer, but we all know it is not as simple as a black-or-white answer.  There is a whole lot of grey to be explored in the middle.  With this in mind, Australian parapsychologist Michael Thalbourne created a questionnaire so that a person’s level of belief could be measured. The Australian Sheep Goat scale or (ASGS) was created in Adelaide and named after its home country to distance it from other scales that were being used at the time (such as the Icelandic scale).

One of Thalbourne's tests was given to a test group of 241 University students, 86 manic-depressives and 38 schizophrenics.  The aim was to establish what psychological characteristics make up those who believe in the paranormal and those who do not. Findings suggest that belief in the paranormal is associated with a range of psychological constructs that include anxiety, locus of control, suggestion, fantasy prone, critical thinking, religion and creativity, among other things. Further studies have also suggested that a belief in the paranormal can be a positive benefit to a person when helping them cope with trauma and stress, as well as gaining emotional clarity about themselves and the wider world.

So how would you rate yourself? Sceptic or believer? Maybe you are somewhere in the middle?  Let’s find out!

Read more about the Sheet Goat Effect 

References:

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01594/full

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Two-factor-bifactor-model-of-the-Australian-Sheep-Goat-Scale-Latent-variables-are_fig1_327266876

https://www.aiprinc.org/documents/ASGS_Ruler.pdf