In the minds of those who believe in the paranormal

The "paranormal" generally refers to phenomena such as apparitions, clairvoyance, and other behaviors that contradict the basic tenets of scientific understanding.

Although there is a perception that these ghosts

more in times of crisis like the current one, the truth is that there must be a breeding ground in human psychology that allows them to emerge.

Twenty years ago, the CIS asked the Spanish and 20% claimed to believe in spirits and 9% in clairvoyance.

At a time when conspiracy theories and other irrational explanations are on the rise, understanding the minds of those who believe in the paranormal may be the first step in unraveling that skein.

To try to narrow down the issue, a team of British researchers has reviewed the 71 scientific studies that have been published in the last three decades with the idea of ​​finding robust patterns that explain how they think.

Among all these works, which ask about factors as disparate as education, intelligence or perception, there are few coincidences, according to the study published in

.

But three conclusions emerge that allow us to better understand why there are those who see a blur in a photo and consider that it may be the great-great-grandfather demonstrating.

One of the traits that defines these people is that they are worse at perceiving randomness: that is, they have a greater tendency to observe patterns where there are only a few randomly placed dots, to see a face where there are only a few shadows.

"The results show greater consistency when perceptual decision-making tasks involve face identification, with believers committing significantly more misidentifications and false positives than skeptics," the study concludes.

This factor is self-explanatory: if, faced with an ambiguous stimulus, we believe we are observing something concrete and defined, such as a face, it is easier for inexplicable phenomena to appear in our environment.

"Our brain is always trying to connect cause and effect or is always trying to find explanations and attribute meaning to things that do not have it"

Susana Martínez-Conde, State University of New York

The neuroscientist Susana Martínez-Conde clearly sees the mechanism that explains it: "Our brain is always trying to connect cause and effect or is always trying to find explanations and attribute meaning to things that do not have it."

“Much of the information that surrounds us is random, chaotic, disordered and our brain tries to impose order.

That has served us well throughout evolution, but of course, we can also connect causes and effects in the wrong way,” she explains.

This generates both superstitions and paranormal thoughts, according to Martínez-Conde, or even the illusions that we experience every time we go to a magic show and see that the magician makes a gesture with his wand and the rabbit disappears.

Reviewing the studies, researchers at the University of Hertfordshire, led by Charlotte Dean, found that this belief in the paranormal is also more prevalent among those who jump straight to conclusions, even though there is a lot of data missing to substantiate a possibility.

In these cases there would be a stronger natural tendency to confirm or reject an option without studying other alternatives.

For example, if the mentalist levitates, it is because he has powers.

Professor of Psychology Helena Matute has studied this phenomenon with her group and they also observed this mechanism.

For example, they showed subjects files of patients who were given or not given a medicine, with which they were cured or not.

Those who believe in the paranormal saw more clearly that the drug works, although half of the patients did not cure them or they had not taken it.

“They pay much more attention when cause and effect coincide.

It's not that you see a ghost, it's that you think very fast, which is a tendency that we all have”, explains Matute, from the University of Deusto.

The pattern that best describes these subjects is their way of thinking, more intuitive than analytical.

This aspect would be closely related to the previous one, since there is a tendency to trust the first impression, to trust instinct, instead of basing the conclusions with a more analytical thought.

A recent study showed that those who believe in parapsychology tend to be more satisfied with their lives than skeptics.

The author of this work, David Gallo, explained that it is a difference that had already been observed in previous research and that "it could indicate that processing information more intuitively has advantages, perhaps it makes people happier in general."

The paranormal and the conspiracy

An interesting aspect of this work is its relationship with conspiratorial thinking, which has even caused episodes of political violence, and which it could help to better frame, at least from a cognitive point of view.

“Conspiratorial beliefs are similarly associated with a greater perception of delusional patterns, a decreased need for cognitive reflection, and biases against confirmatory and non-confirmatory evidence,” they write in the study.

“What they have in common”, explains Martínez-Conde, “conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomena is that we lack the objective evidence to support them”.

“In addition, they arise from an experience that is more emotional than intellectual.

So, if a person is emotionally convinced that this is the case, it will be very difficult for them to change their opinion, even with objective evidence, and it becomes a matter of faith”, adds the director of the Integrated Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of the State of New York.

In the current study, many factors that have been associated with paranormal thinking are either denied or questioned, because the relationship is negative, contradictory or weak.

For example, neither academic results, nor critical thinking, nor intelligence, nor memory (which could be at the origin of distortions and biases) explain the belief in these phenomena.

The authors regret that there is no theoretical framework to describe the mosaic of small explanations that their review provides.

Matute agrees that "there is still much to do."

“Many of us are studying paranormal beliefs, pseudomedicines, post-truth, hoaxes.

There are many related things that until now have been studied very separately.

Perhaps it is true that we have to take the bull by the horns and unify all this information: it is absolutely necessary to delve into all this, ”he defends.

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