SPR Study Day - The Psychology of the Sceptic

[Limbo]

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FUNDAMENTALIST AND HUMANIST PERSONALITIES

Presented by
Dr. Khalid Sohail
Psychiatrist
Creative Psychotherapy Clinic
Whitby Ontario Canada L1N 4 P7

[...]

FOUR GROUPS OF PEOPLE

Ten years ago when I was writing my book From Islam to Secular Humanism…A Philosophical Journey I became aware that people’s belief systems may not be realistic reflections of their lifestyles, and I started exploring the relationship between people’s ideologies and attitudes, their philosophies and personalities. I realized that ideologies are like book covers and we all know that books should not be judged by their covers.

I am quite aware that each human being has a unique personality and lifestyle but to highlight the relationship between ideology and lifestyle, philosophy and personality and then identify interpersonal conflicts from a psychological point of view, we can divide people into four broad categories:

A…Religious Fundamentalists…People with a Religious Ideology and Fundamentalist Personality…

B…Atheist Fundamentalists…People with an Atheist Philosophy and Fundamentalist Personality

C…Secular Humanists…People with a Secular Humanist Philosophy and Humanist Personality

D…Religious Humanists…People with a Religious Ideology and Humanist Personality
<snip>

Edited for rule 4 violation. Do not paste articles in their entirity. Paste a significant selection and provide the link.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky

 

[Cuddles]

As I regard myself as intensely sceptical, and am not convinced by most "paranormal" claims i was amazed to find my score so much higher then the average.

I suspect this is what Linda was hinting at - you describe yourself as intensely skeptical, yet you also say that only "most" paranormal claims don't convince you, implying that there are some that do. Given that most people who are actually skeptical agree that there is no good evidence in favour of any paranormal phenomena, that suggests that you are not actually as skeptical as you think you are.

This is by no means unique to you, or to the paranormal for that matter, it seems to be a normal feature of being human. For example, if you ask people how good they are at driving compared to others, the vast majority of people will place themselves well into the better half, which is clearly impossible. When it comes to the paranormal, pretty much everyone describes themselves as a skeptic and claims people who doubt them or believe something else are stupid, unskeptical, government shills or whatever, yet clearly there are a lot of people who aren't skeptical at all.

There are two points to this. Specifically to your post, I would suggest that the reason you score so high is not because there's anything wrong with the test, but that there is something wrong with your perception of yourself. To the thread in general, this really highlights the futility of trying to talk about the behaviour and attitudes of skeptics as a monolithic group without first having an objective measure of skepticism. Self-identification does not work since practically everyone describes themselves as a skeptic, even if they don't use the exact word and may not even realise that is what they are describing.

 

[Ersby]

I don't describe myself as a skeptic, though I recognise that some (most?) people would consider me as such.

Anyway, I just found this, as a slightly less emotive addition to the debate.

TI: Paranormal beliefs and preference for games of chance.
AU: Tobacyk,-Jerome-J.; Wilkinson,-Lamar-V.
IN: Louisiana Tech U, Ruston, US
JN: Psychological-Reports; 1991 Jun Vol 68(3, Pt 2) 1088-1090
IS: 00332941
LA: English
PY: 1991
AB: Examined the relationship between paranormal beliefs (traditional religious belief, psi, witchcraft, superstition, spiritualism, extraordinary life forms, and precognition) and preferences for games of chance (GOC). 235 college students completed the Paranormal Belief Scale and 6 items concerning preference for GOC. Significant correlations were found for beliefs in superstition, psi, spiritualism, and precognition with preference for GOC. (PsycLIT Database Copyright 1992 American Psychological Assn, all rights reserved)

 

[fls]

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FUNDAMENTALIST AND HUMANIST PERSONALITIES

I am quite aware that each human being has a unique personality and lifestyle but to highlight the relationship between ideology and lifestyle, philosophy and personality and then identify interpersonal conflicts from a psychological point of view, we can divide people into four broad categories:

A…Religious Fundamentalists…People with a Religious Ideology and Fundamentalist Personality…

B…Atheist Fundamentalists…People with an Atheist Philosophy and Fundamentalist Personality

C…Secular Humanists…People with a Secular Humanist Philosophy and Humanist Personality

D…Religious Humanists…People with a Religious Ideology and Humanist Personality

That's what I find particularly cool about the benefits of using the scientific and skeptical approach in the search for knowledge - knowledge advances even in the face of hostility.

Linda

 

[Limbo]

cj, it seems you're violating skeptic rules...

you describe yourself as intensely skeptical, yet you also say that only "most" paranormal claims don't convince you, implying that there are some that do.

Thou shalt not be convinced by ANY subjective experience or objective evidence.

Given that most people who are actually skeptical agree that there is no good evidence in favour of any paranormal phenomena, that suggests that you are not actually as skeptical as you think you are.

Thou must conform with the skeptic social norms, AGREE with your fellow skeptics. Never doubt the honesty of a skeptic, or you'll get an infraction. Conform, or else be cast out as a woo-woo...you don't want that do you?

Don't think for yourself, don't seek out "convincing" evidence. You shouldn't have read those boxes of journals. Avoid that stuff. Even though that will mean you aren't aware of ALL the available "evidence" out there, assume it isn't convincing. Take an a priori position. Don't look at the big picture. If there was any "convincing" evidence out there, Randi would have told you about it. Trust in Randi. He is Amazing.

CONFORM.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh, wait. Do skeptics celebrate Thanksgiving? Better find out before you celebrate. Don't want to violate another skeptic rule, do you?

 

[fls]

I suspect this is what Linda was hinting at - you describe yourself as intensely skeptical, yet you also say that only "most" paranormal claims don't convince you, implying that there are some that do. Given that most people who are actually skeptical agree that there is no good evidence in favour of any paranormal phenomena, that suggests that you are not actually as skeptical as you think you are.

I actually see cj.23 as pretty skeptical. I think he has more pre-existing beliefs than some others who identify as skeptics, but he also seems to clearly see the distinction between belief and the process of skeptical thinking. And I wonder if the sheep-goat thing is maybe set up to capture pre-existing belief to a greater extent than it captures the way that people think.

Even though the sole purpose of the article that Limbo just quoted seemed to be atheist-bashing, I think it had a good point - that belief can be considered separate from whether or not someone takes a skeptical approach to claims.

I also don't think that I am a better than average driver.

Linda

 

[fls]

cj, it seems you're violating skeptic rules...

Thou shalt not be convinced by ANY subjective experience or objective evidence.

Thou must conform with the skeptic social norms, AGREE with your fellow skeptics.

Don't think for yourself, don't seek out "convincing" evidence. Avoid it. Even though that will mean you aren't aware of ALL the available "evidence" out there, assume it isn't convincing. Take an a priori position. Don't look at the big picture. If there was any "convincing" evidence out there, Randi would have told you about it. Trust in Randi. He is Amazing.

CONFORM.

You're trying really hard to get something going here.

I'll think on it a bit and see if I can come up with something that helps you out (I have to go out and walk the dog anyway).

Linda

 

[blutoski]

Depends on the researcher and what they are researching. Some serious researchers do use the internet as a cost-effective way of collecting information on groups of people. With proper controls, it can be useful.

I appreciate that you're trying hard, here, but this isn't about generalizations. This is about specifically using anonymous online forums to armchair psychoanalyze a real population. It's an epic fail.

No, I’ve read the thread. I was just being flippant. I’ll try harder to avoid any attempts at humor in the future.

Park the sarcasm. You could have just written more clearly.

Who was claiming it was a credible sample of a real world community? I said it was a better sample than four famous skeptics, a sample which you appeared to take seriously. Do you disagree?

I do not think it's a better sample than four famous skeptics. It's "just as useless."

Have you read through any threads on what constitutes a ‘true skeptic’. There is no community standard. Instead, there is some fairly intense disagreement over things like whether someone who believes in god can be a skeptic. At the moment, community standards are not a viable method for distinguishing skeptics from non-skeptics.

A sad truth, to which I agree. That's germaine to my point that the original post has a fundamental weakness: the author has failed to define his terms, so in my opinoin it is impossible to have any response other than "the thesis needs a lot of work."

I think that being famous is what would allow people to accept them as ‘authentic skeptics’. However, you have a valid point. I hadn’t considered it from the perspective of other people agreeing that they are skeptics.

That's pretty much the way professions and societies are defined. Not necessarily social phenomena, though. As professions, the skeptical community probably has a high intra-survey correlation.

Seems to me you’re splitting a rather fine hair here. Would not a skeptical way of thinking be the way skeptics think?

Not in any way that has meaning. The opening post was presenting a theory that skeptics are different than believers (which is 90% of the population) because of the specified mental problems.

Only if the hypothesis was that it is a unique artifact of skeptical thinking. I’m not sure I would agree that was part of the hypothesis, though I’ll certainly agree that it isn’t unique to skeptics.

It was the central thesis for the post: skeptics are different than believers because skeptical thinking is defective.

It suffers from the weaknesses I outlined earlier in the thread. Specifically, it's opinion 'backed by' opinion, and doesn't really speak to what 'skeptic' or 'believer' mean for the sake of even the essay.

I read polemics against nonbelievers all the time, and I mentally file this one in the same place as Coulter or Browne's screeds.

 

[blutoski]

If parapsychologists sincerely wish to persuade scientists and other skeptics that their evaluations are reliable and valid, they should provide examples of beliefs that they discarded and how they discovered that they weren't true.

Another aspect of this type of debate that I have always found confusing is that the paranormal view is somehow held to be the 'new' idea. The essay in the opening post portrayed scientists as an analogue to priests defending orthodoxy.

No: priests are priests defending orthodoxy. The orthodoxy is the antique view in cartesian duality, the existence of 'something' beyond the material. Scientists are the new guy trying to make headway against fifty thousand years of entrenched belief in the paranormal.

Taking the ancient belief in mind-reading magic and renaming it 'telepathy through unknown means' does not turn it into the 'new concept'. What it is is [syncretism]. Scientology is a case study in stapling technological lingo onto prehistoric paranormal concepts.

 

[Limbo]

You're trying really hard to get something going here.

Not really. In terms of effort, it's pretty easy. A half-assed effort. A few links, no biggie. Hell, I'm just a nobody. Just one person, an interested layman. Imagine if interest in the psychology of skepticism, in particular organized skepticism, really took off.

Oh, wait. It can't. The skeptics rule psychology don't they? It would be a betrayal.

 

[eirik]

Even though the sole purpose of the article that Limbo just quoted seemed to be atheist-bashing, I think it had a good point - that belief can be considered separate from whether or not someone takes a skeptical approach to claims.

I also don't think that I am a better than average driver.

Oh no!! That means your driving SERIOUSLY sucks!! BTW- enjoy your posts.

Limbo: you are contradicting yourself. Your whole proposed idea is that there is a distinct psychology for skeptical people. A popular definition of a skeptic, and the only usefull one I've encountered, is one who is skeptic of the paranormal.

(Climateskeptics, holocaust skeptics or 911-truthers has nothing to do with skeptics in general, even though they are in their own way skeptical)

Reminds me of the famous Dawkins saying - we are all, in one way or the other, atheists or agnostics. To this I'll add that we are also all, in one way or the other, skeptics or agnostics.

If one can be a skeptic AND believe in parapsychology/ religion/general woo woo, like you proposed- how do you even begin to define a skeptic, much less postulate that there exists a common psychology?

 

[Jeff Corey]

The Polarization of Psi Beliefs: Rational, Controlling, Masculine Skepticism versus Interconnected, Spiritual, Feminine Belief

ABSTRACT: Anecdotal observations suggest that the extreme skeptics of paranormal phenomena tend to be males who place great value on rational thinking and control, and often feel threatened by and hostile toward those with different beliefs and values. These characteristics are consistent with the emerging evidence that males have genetic tendencies for social dominance and rational thinking. Research on the relationship between religion and belief in psi has given mixed results but suggests that belief may be more related to personal spirituality than to institutionalized religion. As a first step in understanding the polarization of psi beliefs, gender and spirituality were examined for extreme skeptics and extreme believers in psi from a Canadian representative national survey. For the extreme skeptics, 72% were male and 62% did not consider spirituality important. For the extreme believers, 64% were females and 86% considered spirituality important. These and other findings suggest that skepticism and belief in psi may be associated with genetic, sex-related personality factors. Research on paranormal beliefs may be hindered by the failure to distinguish belief in psi as a human ability versus as divine intervention.

From the Discussion, "These findings are consistent with the emerging evidence for genetic psychological differences between males and females as described in the introduction. It is likely that many extreme skeptics have strong innate drives for rational thinking, control, and social dominance. The worldviews associated with psi phenomena and spirituality may not conform to their mode of thinking and need for control. "
These people should have learned the mantra,"Correlation does not imply causation." somewhere.

 

[Limbo]

Limbo: you are contradicting yourself. Your whole proposed idea is that there is a distinct psychology for skeptical people. A popular definition of a skeptic, and the only usefull one I've encountered, is one who is skeptic of the paranormal.

You are naive about human nature.

 

[eirik]

You are naive about human nature.

Oh, if you put it THAT way.. (ignoring personal attacks)

Well, my question, and many others- what is a skeptic? Can you provide a functional definition for your case?

(anticipating more evasions..)

 

[cj.23]

I suspect this is what Linda was hinting at - you describe yourself as intensely skeptical, yet you also say that only "most" paranormal claims don't convince you, implying that there are some that do. Given that most people who are actually skeptical agree that there is no good evidence in favour of any paranormal phenomena, that suggests that you are not actually as skeptical as you think you are.

Right, allow me to explain -- and I'm sorry if this has come up further down the thread, I'm responding as I go as I'm working. (Yes I know one should always read the thread first!)

I see scepticism as a process, a methodology, that one applies to claims to establish a degree of confidence in any given claim. So I am not an a priori sceptic; while for example i think it absurdly unlikely that anything will overturn the Michelson Morley experiments, I accept that it is possible in theory. While i don't think the Third Law of Thermodynamics is up for debate, I certainly think we might refine it at some point,or discover oddities about it. In short I think knowledge, even knowledge we are most certain about, is provisional. Given new data it will change.

Now I must admit i can not imagine anything that would make me consider "werewolves live in Soho" true - unless i was perhaps eaten by said beastie. Still the principle holds - the claim there is no such thing as werewolves i based upon my experience, my understanding of morphology and biology, and my logical critique. I just ascribe an incredibly high degree of confidence to the "no werewolves" hypothesis -- far, far higher than I ascribe say to my own religious beliefs.

So I act upon the basis of that which I have a really high degree of confidence in. Bizarrely, and counter intuitively I put more faith in randomized statistical studies and double blind testing than I do in my own observations. Yes I know, I'm nuts. I should reject say Ersby's ganzfeld metanalysis because the results are counter intuitive right, and it can't be that ganzfeld is possibly producing an effect?

So to me scepticism is a process: it provides data, evidence, useful in forming an informed opinion. I then will decide how much i trust the studies, and try to fit what I find in to my existing understanding. This recent study that says religious observance is linked to longevity - I accept what it says, because a lot of other studies have said the same thing. I question what it actually means "on the ground" -- I see no evidence of anything "supernatural" at work, and possibly not even psychological. I have confidence in the result, because I think i trust the methodology - though I am too ignorant to be sure, as my stats skill is abysmal despite an honest effort to equip myself - (I can use SPSS, and have books i can refer to check the right measures are employed, but I miss the bleedin' obvious nine times out of ten) but I still need to interpret the results.

So scepticism is not to CJ just saying no: it's simply part of the scientific method.

Secondly, I think the whole concept of the category paranormal is nonsense: any claim can be declared paranormal, and junked therein. I see no connection between say homeopathy and poltergeists - either could stand on its own merits, if the evidence supported it. So when I declare myself a sceptic, I mean that a) I make claims based on my assessment of the evidence, usually hedged with qualifiers, but expect the methodology those claims were reached by to be subject to scrutiny: and expect to revise them as new data comes in and b) that individual claims should be considered on their own merits, as the evidence dictates. Hence my interest in say the Robertson/Roy experiments -- my worldview dictates heavily against "mediumship", but I was fascinated by the trials, and keen to understand how they could be flawed, and to consider the implications. An a priori sceptic would simply note that it was impossible, and leave it at that?

This is by no means unique to you, or to the paranormal for that matter, it seems to be a normal feature of being human. For example, if you ask people how good they are at driving compared to others, the vast majority of people will place themselves well into the better half, which is clearly impossible. When it comes to the paranormal, pretty much everyone describes themselves as a skeptic and claims people who doubt them or believe something else are stupid, unskeptical, government shills or whatever, yet clearly there are a lot of people who aren't skeptical at all.

Yes, but compared with the average Most Haunted viewer I thought I might be rather more sceptical, given that I have spent rather a long time familiarising myself with the parapsychological and sceptical literature!

There are two points to this. Specifically to your post, I would suggest that the reason you score so high is not because there's anything wrong with the test, but that there is something wrong with your perception of yourself. To the thread in general, this really highlights the futility of trying to talk about the behaviour and attitudes of skeptics as a monolithic group without first having an objective measure of skepticism. Self-identification does not work since practically everyone describes themselves as a skeptic, even if they don't use the exact word and may not even realize that is what they are describing.

Um, maybe - Personal Construct Theory. If I had come out as a believer i would not have been surprised - I believe in some things after all. I have long argued the sceptic/believer binary opposition is a steaming pile of dingoes kidneys. I'm deeply suspicious of psychometric tests unless I can see how they repeat over time, as i have no idea what they measure. Clearly they do not measure belief, but ones self perception of belief. Still, this result fascinated me.

cj x

 

[cj.23]

And just before someone asks why I trust "lies, damn lies and statistics" rather than my own brain and intuitive observations, the answer is natural selection. Presumably the brain evolved for adaptive advantage: that is probably not the same as "understanding objective truth". That suspicion, long held by me, gained weight when I read that paper (the first one) I linked in athon's interesting confirmation bias thread.

I still have to interpret the results: but at least large scale number crunching does not suffer from millions of years of evolution designed to find me a mate, reproduce and not be an *******.so I can get along with my fellow humans, aims far more likely to be higher on the old noggins list of developmental influences than being able to accurately discern the truth about telepathic doggies in the window... .

cj x

 

[godless dave]

Hmm.. what you did was accuse me of being a liar. Yet neither in that original post or any following ones did you attempt to substantiate the claim.

Because we all know that you already know that evolutionary biologists never supported eugenics. There were posts on that very thread refuting your unsupported assertion, not to mention the ones on all the other threads you've made that assertion on. It's your claim that's never been substantiated.

Also, if you're so 'hostile to dishonesty' why would you have used the dishonest tactic of quoting me while changing my words to make it appear I wrote something of a contrary meaning to that which I intended?

I didn't do that. I used the common internet phrase "fixed it for you" to indicate that I had changed your quote. It was abundantly clear that I was changing it to make a point about what you said, not trying to make it look like you'd said something you hadn't.

It seems like you're gonna try to get out of your current bind by simply labeling whatever challenges your own most dearly held beliefs about reality as examples of dishonesty.

No, I only label blatantly false statements as examples of dishonesty.

 

[godless dave]

cj, it seems you're violating skeptic rules...





Thou shalt not be convinced by ANY subjective experience or objective evidence.

Thou must conform with the skeptic social norms, AGREE with your fellow skeptics. Never doubt the honesty of a skeptic, or you'll get an infraction. Conform, or else be cast out as a woo-woo...you don't want that do you?

Don't think for yourself, don't seek out "convincing" evidence. You shouldn't have read those boxes of journals. Avoid that stuff. Even though that will mean you aren't aware of ALL the available "evidence" out there, assume it isn't convincing. Take an a priori position. Don't look at the big picture. If there was any "convincing" evidence out there, Randi would have told you about it. Trust in Randi. He is Amazing.

CONFORM.

That's the antitheses of skepticism.

So Limbo, any evidence that I'm a control freak who is hostile to values different than my own? I have already clarified that I'm hostile to people who value dishonesty. I also have little tolerance for people who value conformity, obedience, or "racial" purity. I think I have good historical reasons for taking a dim view of those values. So there are certainly specific values that I'm hostile too.

 

[blutoski]

Not really. In terms of effort, it's pretty easy. A half-assed effort. A few links, no biggie. Hell, I'm just a nobody. Just one person, an interested layman. Imagine if interest in the psychology of skepticism, in particular organized skepticism, really took off.

Oh, wait. It can't. The skeptics rule psychology don't they? It would be a betrayal.

Limbo, at this point, you're just throwing around personal insults to people on the forum, and I'm not sure why.

I've personally contributed my thoughts about skeptical psychology in this thread, and the reason I have this interest is because I coordinate a skeptical organization. Knowledge about skeptics and their personality type is of interest if for no other reason that managing membership tasks such as mitigating churn rate.

In addition, many of the studies submitted and cited were done by skeptics. eg: Shermer's and Blackmore's research.

Your posts have evolved from neutral to unproductive and now even downright un-called-for.

I also have some concerns about some recent citations you have presented. For example, The Polarization of Psi Beliefs was pretty blatant bigotry, and it's not clear if you were serious when you posted it. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that it was some kind of joke, but it's becoming more difficult to assume good intentions.

 

[fls]

Not really. In terms of effort, it's pretty easy. A half-assed effort. A few links, no biggie. Hell, I'm just a nobody. Just one person, an interested layman. Imagine if interest in the psychology of skepticism, in particular organized skepticism, really took off.

Oh, wait. It can't. The skeptics rule psychology don't they? It would be a betrayal.

Hey, instead of trying to incite us into rabid behaviour, can you put your psychic powers to some good use and tell me where the hell my turkey baster went to?

Linda