nificantly correlated (0.10, p> 0.05). The internal consistency
reliability estimates (Cronbach alpha) of the three extracted
scales ranged from 0.90 for General paranormal belief to 0.84
for Traditional religious belief and 0.80 for Rituals and prac-
tices. The reliabilities of seven RPBS subscales calculated ac-
cording to Tobacyk (1988) were also within acceptable levels,
being the highest for Traditional religious beliefs (0.84) and
Psi (0.81) while Extraordinary life forms showed rather low
reliability (0.53). The Five Factor structure was replicated simi-
larly to previous studies (Mlačić & Goldberg, 2007) with the
five factors explaining 47.46% of variance. The reliabilities for
each of the Five Factor domains were high, ranging from 0.90
for Conscientiousness to 0.72 for Openness and are compara-
ble to those reported by Mlačić and Goldberg (2007).
Correlations of the two RPBS (Tobacyk, 1988)
factor solutions and the Five Factor Personality dimensions
The correlations of personality factors and the scales derived
from the seven factor solution (Table 2) show a significant, al-
beit weak, relationship. As presumed, Conscientiousness, Neu-
roticism and Openness show highest correlations with para-
normal beliefs. More specifically, Conscientiousness confirmed
the predictions of being related positively to Traditional reli-
giosity (0.19), and negatively to Psi belief (-0.13). Neuroticism
was shown to be positively correlated to Superstition (0.19),
Extraordinary life forms (0.16) and Precognition (0.14). Final-
ly, the correlations between personality and paranormal be-
liefs were the highest for the Openness factor. Its negative
relationship with Traditional religious beliefs (-0.25), and posi-
tive with belief in Psi (0.16) and Spiritualism (0.25) replicated,
to an extent, the findings by Smith et al. (2009). Agreeableness
has shown meaningful correlation only with Traditional reli-
gious beliefs (0.15).
RPBS – Seven scales
Personality factors
T REL
PSI
WITC SUPER SPIR
ELF
PREC
Extraversion
0.05
-0.11
-0.07
0.01
-0.10
-0.02
-0.00
Conscientiousness
0.19** -
0.13* -0.07
0.04
-0.11
-0.06
-0.01
Agreeableness
0.15*
-0.02
-0.04
-0.08
-0.02
-0.11
-0.06
Neuroticism
0.00
-0.04
0.08
0.19** 0.08
0.16**
0.14*
Openness
-
0.26**
0.16** 0.00
-0.02
0.25** 0.09
-0.02
Note. *p≤0.05; **p≤0.001 (shown in italics); for RPBS: T REL= Traditional religious belief, PSI= Psi,
WITC= Witchcraft, SUPER= Superstition, SPIR= Spiritualism; ELF= Extraordinary life forms,
PREC= Precognition
However, when examining the correlations of personali-
ty with the three factor structure of paranormal beliefs (Table 3)
190
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GOD. 21 (2012),
BR. 1 (115),
STR. 181-201
MIKLOUŠIĆ, I., MLAČIĆ,
B., MILAS, G.:
PARANORMAL BELIEFS...
TABLE 2
Correlations between
the Five Factor Model
and the RPBS seven
factor solution
the dynamic becomes more evident and easily interpretable.
Neuroticism was significantly related to Rituals and practices
(RAP) factor (0.23) since that factor subdued all its significant
correlates from the seven factor structure. Conscientiousness
retained its negative relationship to Psi through the General
paranormal belief (GPB) factor (-0.13), while the positive rela-
tionship with Traditional religious belief (TRB) remained near-
ly the same (0.17), as the new factor consisted of all the items
from Tobacyk's (1988) Traditional religious beliefs subscale. A-
greeableness and Openness preserved their relationship to TRB
as well, being 0.13 and -0.25 respectively. Openness was also
positively related to the GPB (0.19), presumably since GPB in-
cludes items from both Spirituality and Psi domains. Finally, a
significant correlation between Extraversion and GPB emerged
in this structure.
RPBS – Three factor solution
Personality factors
GEN PARA
TRAD REL
RIT PRACT
Extraversion
-0.11*
0.04
0.00
Conscientiousness
-0.13*
0.17**
-0.01
Agreeableness
-0.04
0.13*
-0.11
Neuroticism
0.03
0.01
0.23**
Openness
0.19**
-0.25**
0.02
Note. *p≤0.05; **p≤0.001 (shown in italics); for RPBS: GEN PARA = General paranormal belief;
TRAD REL = Traditional religious belief; RIT PRACT = Rituals and practices
DISCUSSION
In this paper we set out to explore the dimensionality of para-
normal beliefs in a Croatian student sample and examine the
relations between paranormal beliefs and personality using two
of the most widely used and validated measures from both
domains. Most of our initial hypotheses regarding relation be-
tween personality and paranormal beliefs were proven true,
with some of the previously non established relations open-
ing room for novel approaches to the subject. As in most of
the previous empirical research on the dimensionality of the
RPBS, we were able to replicate the seven factor structure sug-
gested by the authors (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983). The proble-
matic items mostly related to the previously criticized Pre-
cognition scale (Lawrence, 1995a) and other items that could
be easily misinterpreted as non-paranormal statements (e.g.
There is life on other planets). However, another, more parsimo-
nious structure of paranormal belief was shown to exist. This
finding is in accord with a large number of studies that either
presumed a lesser number of factors on the basis of the logi-
cal analysis (Lawrence, 1995a; 1995b), or empirical studies
191
DRU[. ISTRA@. ZAGREB
GOD. 21 (2012),
BR. 1 (115),
STR. 181-201
MIKLOUŠIĆ, I., MLAČIĆ,
B., MILAS, G.:
PARANORMAL BELIEFS...
TABLE 3
Correlations between
the Five Factor Model
and the RPBS three
factor solution