Psychic Mediumship

Question 1

What is the explanation for mediumship?

Answer 1

Self deception

Question 2

What is self-deception?

Answer 2

Where people’s cognitive biases prevail and they draw the wrong conclusions from the available evidence because they want to believe.

Question 3

What theory is linked to self-deception?

Answer 3

The sheep-goat effect

Question 4

In what ways do people self-decisive?

Answer 4

Seeing significance in things that are just coincidence
Having an uncritical approach to research which undermines mediums
Remembering elements that support our beliefs and rejecting those that don’t

Question 5

Why is it easy for mediums to make people believe in them?

Answer 5

Because some people believe in paranormal phenomena or want to believe. They are highly motivated to accept paranormal existence and it’s easier for mediums to manipulate this

Question 6

What is psychic mediumship?

Answer 6

Where mediums claim to be able to communicate with the spirits of dead people, they then pass on these messages to the living.

Question 7

Why do psychics make people in believe in them?

Answer 7

It gives them a sense of purpose or power
Fraudulent mediums may do it for money or fame
They may genuinely believe they have special powers

Question 8

Why do clients believe in mediums?

Answer 8

Because it may bring them comfort, particularly to those who are grieving

Question 9

Briefly, what are the problems with mediumship?

Answer 9

Cheating
Techniques used by the medium
Difficult for a sitter to be objective
Sitters opinions are often bias in some way

Question 10

What are some of the techniques used by mediums?

Answer 10

Barnum statements
Fishing for details
Cold reading
Cheating

Question 11

How do mediums cheat?

Answer 11

If they have the name of the person they will be reading they can research them in advance

Question 12

What are Barnum statements?

Answer 12

General statements which could likely apply to anyone

Question 13

What clues may the sitter provide?

Answer 13

Body language

Verbal cues

Question 14

What is the main problem of research into psychic mediumship?

Answer 14

It can be very difficult for the sitter to objectively asses whether the statements are correct because they can be quite general. Most people also have some sort of opinion on the matter so they may be more or less likely to say if they are relatable

Question 15

What studies are relevant to psychic mediumship?

Answer 15

Schwartz et al

O’keefe and wiseman

Question 16

What were Schwartz et als findings?

Answer 16

The sitters judges 80% of the statements as being definitely true compared with only 36% accuracy in the control group

Question 17

What is concluded from Schwartz et als findings?

Answer 17

That these findings do support the accuracy of psychic mediumship

Question 18

What are the problems with Schwartz et als findings?

Answer 18

The sitters were allowed to respond with yes or no but this still allowed for verbal cues which could guide the psychic
It has been widely criticised for the lack of relevance the tasks both groups had to complete. It’s suggested they’re so different they do not support the results of the study

Question 19

What were O’keefe and Wisemans findings?

Answer 19

The sitters rated the decoy statements as more accurate than their own readings. ADD TOO