Some People Will Believe Anything

Posted by Ricki Sharpe on May 15, 2007
Filed Under Personality

Intuition is the ability to make instinctual decisions without apparent effort and seemingly independent of previous experience or rational analysis. People who are intuitive and in a good mood are prone to believe just about anything, according to Professor Laura King, Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia.

She tested the notion during a series of interesting studies that examined how mood and intuition can affect a person’s belief’s even under the most unique circumstances and scenarios. “When you’re in a good mood and more intuitive, you’re open minded, creative and engaged in what appears to be reality, yet you make non-rational associations,” King said.

In the first study, half the participants read a short story with a positive ending; participants were placed in the role of hero, making them feel good. The others read a neutral story about walking around campus. The researchers presented four short video clips; two featured UFO sightings and two focused on ghosts. Participants were asked whether they believed the video and wanted to be present at the UFO sighting. Participants who were in a good mood and who scored high on a measure of intuition were more likely to find the videos believable, as well as emotional and exciting, King said.

In the second study, participants were asked to throw darts at a photo of a baby. During the first part of the study, participants were led to believe they would be throwing darts at numerous shapes and would receive a quarter for each hit. They were given six practice throws. Following the practice shots, the baby’s photo was tacked to the dartboard. As expected, King said, while all participants had difficulty hitting the target with the baby’s face, these results were especially true of intuitive participants who were in a good mood. “It’s as if people believed that somewhere a baby was screaming because darts were hitting the baby in the face,” King said.

Study number three examined people’s feelings and beliefs about contamination through social interaction. Each of the 80 participants was led to believe they were being paired with another person to complete the study. That other person was fictitious. Through online messages, they became acquainted. Each shared an unusual circumstance from the past 24 hours. In one of the messages, the fictitious person discussed a repulsive experience from earlier that day. Shortly after, the participant was taken to a room to meet the fictitious person. Researchers asked the participant to arrange the chairs. However, before the meeting, the participant was told the fictitious person had to leave. King measured the distance between chairs and discovered that intuitive participants who had been put in a good mood (happy and intuitive) arranged their chairs farthest from the fictitious person, indicating a belief that they too could be contaminated.

King said psychologists have very often approached superstitious beliefs as the exception to the rule of rationality. The results of the three studies help with understanding that the capacity for belief is related to more general processes. “The capacity for faith is certainly strongly related to health and well-being,” King said. “As scientists, we don’t have to explain all belief away; instead, we can come to understand where and how belief happens.”

The research, ‘Ghosts, UFOs, and Magic: Positive Affect and the Experiential System’, is published in the May 2007 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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