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ESP
and LOC 1
Running
head: BELIEF IN ESP AND LOCUS OF CONTROL
Belief
in ESP and its Relationship to
Locus
of Control
Adam
Dean
Ryan
Olson
Michael
Reynolds
Chas
Swanson
MaryAnne
Walace
Rowland
Hall-St. Mark’s Upper School
Salt
Lake City, Utah
ESP
and LOC 2
Belief
in ESP and its Relationship to
Locus
of Control
ESP, or extrasensory perception, has always caught mankind's curiosity.
Extrasensory perception is the belief that humans can perceive things outside
the normal realm of existence. Telepathy,
clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis are all different forms of ESP.
Telepathy is "mind to mind communication" between two people,
whether it be the perception of another's thoughts or sending one’s thoughts
to another person (Myers, 2000, p. 234). Clairvoyance
is the ability to perceive "remote events, such as sensing that a friend's
house is on fire" (Myers, 2000, p. 234).
Precognition is the ability to perceive "future events, such as a
political leader's death or a sporting event's outcome" (Myers, 2000, p.
234). In 1983, Myers, Austrin,
Grisso and Nikeson defined an out of body experience, as "a subjective
event in which an individual experiences the world from a location outside his
physical body" (p. 131). There
are those who believe so strongly in ESP that they have made it a profession.
A psychic, for example, is an individual who claims to have the ability
to predict the future from an out of body experience (OBE).
While most researches believe this psychic ability to be
ESP
and LOC 3
"hallucinatory
fantasies" (Blackmore as cited in Myers et al, 1983), many members of the
general public still believe in extrasensory perception or ESP.
Psychologists
have proposed that a belief in ESP corresponds to locus of control, or the
extent to which humans feel that they control their own fate.
Bronzaft (1972) defined two aspects of locus of control as “external”
or “internal”. Externals are
characterized as people who believe that the outcome of a situation is
controlled primarily by luck, fate, or other external forces. Internals are
characterized as people who believe that their own behavior is most responsible
in determining the outcome of a particular situation.
Bronzaft found that externals believed in ESP more than internals on the
ESP questionnaire. In another study, Brugger, Regard, and Landis (1992) found
that people who believed in an "illusion of control" were more
inclined to believe in ESP. The
"illusion of control" is defined as “attributing personal
involvement in randomly determined processes” (Myers, 2000, p. 246).
Psychologists have also tested whether belief in the occult or paranormal
corresponds to a belief in ESP. McGarry,
James, Newberry, and Benjamin (1981) conducted a study that found
ESP
and LOC 4
that
people who believed in ESP also believed
in the paranormal or extraordinary.
Following
the results of previous studies, the present project will examine the
relationship between subjects’ beliefs in ESP and their locus of control.
We plan to execute our study by use of a questionnaire that measures both
belief in ESP and defines whether the subject has an internal or an external
locus of control. We hypothesize that subjects with an external locus of
control will have stronger beliefs in the existence of ESP than those subjects
with an internal locus of control.
ESP and LOC
5
References
Bronzaft, A.L. (1973). Internal-external scores and success on
an ESP
task. Psychological Reports, 31(1), 41-42.
Brugger,
P., Regard, M., & Landis, T. (1992). Belief in
extrasensory perception and
illusory control: A replication.
Journal of Psychology, 125(4), 501-502.
McGarry, J.J, Newberry, H.,
& Benjamin H. (1982). Beliefs in
paranormal phenomena and locus of control:
A field study.
Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 41(4),
735-736.
Myers,
D. (2000). Psychology. 6th
ed. New York: Worth Publishers.
Myers,
S.A, Austrin, H.R, Grisso, J.T, & Nikeson, R.C. (1984).
Personality
characteristics as related to the out-of-body
experience. Journal of
Parapsychology, 47(2), 131-144.
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