doi:10.5559/di.21.1.10
PARANORMAL BELIEFS
AND PERSONALITY TRAITS
IN CROATIA
Igor MIKLOUŠIĆ, Boris MLAČIĆ, Goran MILAS
Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb
UDK: 159.923.2(497.5):133
Izvorni znanstveni rad
Primljeno: 27. 9. 2010.
The goal of this study was to assess the relationship
between the Five Factor Model of personality and the belief
in the paranormal. Participants (N=307) were students
from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. The measures used
were the IPIP version of the Five Factor Model questionnaire
(Goldberg et al., 2006) along with the Revised Paranormal
Belief Scale (Tobacyk, 1988). The factor analysis of the
latter yielded three previously unreported paranormal
belief dimensions named: General paranormal belief,
Traditional religious belief and Rituals and practices. The
most significant personality correlations with all three factors
were found for Openness, Conscientiousness and
Neuroticism, respectively. Results to an extent confirmed
previous findings, suggesting that open individuals accept
more General paranormal beliefs, while rejecting
Traditional religious belief. Conscientiousness displayed
an opposite trend being positively related to Traditional
religious beliefs and negatively to General paranormal
beliefs. Finally, Neuroticism was related to Rituals and
practices, i.e. superstitions, divinations and occult control
of life outcomes. The relations are however modest
ranging from 0.11 to 0.25. Both the novel paranormal
belief structure and its significance to personality are
discussed within an evolutionary perspective, with
guidelines for further research highlighted in
the end.
Keywords: paranormal beliefs, personality traits, Tobacyk,
Five Factor Model, evolution
Igor Mikloušić, Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar,
Marulićev trg 19/1, P. O. Box 277,
10 000 Zagreb, Croatia.
E-mail: Igor.Miklousic
@
pilar.hr
181
INTRODUCTION
From ghosts to haunted houses and lucky rabbit paws, para-
normal beliefs are fascinating phenomena. Gallup polls show
that about three in four Americans profess at least one para-
normal belief (Moore, 2005) with possession by the devil (41%),
extra sensory perception (41%) and haunting (37%) being cur-
rently most popular. In Croatia, although more moderate, the
results differ only slightly, with one out of four people belie-
ving in the possession by the devil, lucky charms and ghosts
(Marinović-Jerolimov, 2005). However, despite a rather large
body of research dealing with these phenomena (for overview
see Irwin, 1993, 2009), the contribution of personality to for-
mation and persistence of paranormal beliefs has not been a-
dequately explored. Studies on this subject have been hindered
by conceptual and methodological issues, making the avail-
able findings for the most part uninterpretable and inconclu-
sive. The aim of our study was therefore to explore the dimen-
sionality of paranormal beliefs in a Croatian student sample
and examine the relations between paranormal beliefs and
personality dimensions using two of the most widely used
and validated measures from both fields.
Paranormal beliefs; Defining and measuring an elusive concept
Psychological research into the paranormal is as old as psy-
chology itself, with William James, known as the father of North
American psychology, being a prominent researcher into the
supernatural (Coon, 1992). Regardless of its historic roots how-
ever, the progress of paranormal belief research has been
slow, hindered mostly by the lack of consensus on the object
of the study. What started as an exploration of superstitions
(Irwin, 2009), soon grew to include various other constructs,
but without any agreement over exactly what should be con-
sidered paranormal belief. The latest definition suggested they
pertain to phenomena not empirically attested to the satisfac-
tion of the scientific establishment, with the addition of arising
in a broader community as a non-scientific commonsense en-
deavor to account for anomalous experiences (Irwin, 2009). Ne-
vertheless, a consensus is far from being reached, making it a
source of significant confusion between the researchers, and
causing the construct of paranormal beliefs to be considered a
methodological nightmare. A plethora of available questio-
nnaires (e.g. Gallagher et al., 1994; Thalbourne & Delin, 1993;
Tobacyk, 1988) also differ significantly in their views on di-
mensionality and the scope of paranormal beliefs. This in turn
makes comparison of the findings from studies using diffe-
rent measures extremely questionable. Fortunately, a some-
what informal agreement has been achieved with the (Revised)
182
Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS) conceived by Tobacyk and
Milford (1983; Tobacyk, 1988) and used in most of the studies
on paranormal belief since the mid eighties (Irwin, 1993, 2009;
Lawrence, 1995a). Out of a variety of items included, the au-
thors (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983) extracted seven broad factors
they considered to represent seven distinct dimensions of pa-
ranormal belief. The factors were named; Traditional religious
beliefs, Psi, Witchcraft, Superstition, Spiritualism, Extraordina-
ry life forms and Precognition. Although still accepted by some
researchers, the seven dimensions were later thoroughly cri-
ticized for being logically and empirically unfounded (Law-
rence, 1995a; 1995b). However, the liberal criteria of inclusion
allowed for the scale to be considered a reliable taxonomy of
paranormal beliefs, enabling various other researchers to ex-
plore the structure of the RPBS in search of broader and the-
oretically more valid dimensions. The suggestions varied from
five (Lawrence & De Cicco, 1997; Lawrence et al., 1997), four
(Hartman, 1999) and two (Lange et al., 2000), to even one la-
tent factor (Thalbourne et al., 1995). Unfortunately, all of these
proposed structures have been poorly empirically tested, and
for the most part without any theoretical explanation. This
made the dimensionality of paranormal beliefs still an open is-
sue. Especially since there have been indications that the struc-
ture of paranormal beliefs, assessed with RPBS, is culturally de-
pendent (Díaz-Vilela & Álvarez-González, 2004; Tobacyk &
Thomas, 1997).
Origins of paranormal beliefs and the role of personality
Besides the dimensionality, another significant issue in under-
standing paranormal beliefs are the highly inconsistent results
regarding the relationship with various personality characte-
ristics. Five major factors of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1992)
are amongst the most neglected domains in that aspect. Much
of the early research with personality correlations of paranor-
mal belief focused on smaller scope constructs such as locus
of control (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983), and sensation seeking (To-
bacyk & Milford, 1983) dogmatism (Alcock & Otis, 1980; Thal-
bourne et al., 1995), narcissism (Tobacyk & Mitchell, 1987) and
even psychopathological indices like schizotipy (Goulding,
2005; Tobacyk and Wilkinson, 1990), manic-depression (Thal-
bourne & French, 1995) and schizophrenia (Thalbourne, 1994).
However, with regard to the now widely accepted and almost
paradigmatic, Five Factor Model of personality (Costa & Mc-
Crae, 1992), there hasn't been much research that we could re-
late to or draw instances from. Even studies dealing with some-
what comparable dimensions of personality (e.g. Eysenck's
PEN, 1991) have been few in between, and their findings were
183
DRU[. ISTRA@. ZAGREB
GOD. 21 (2012),
BR. 1 (115),
STR. 181-201
MIKLOUŠIĆ, I., MLAČIĆ,
B., MILAS, G.:
PARANORMAL BELIEFS...
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