Exploring differences and similarities in tolerance for ambiguity and associative creativity among sceptics, moderate and strong paranormal believers

Abstract

The relationship between paranormal beliefs and tolerance of ambiguity was explored in sceptics, moderate and strong paranormal believers. Those groups were de ned for New Age Philosophy (NAP) and Traditional Paranormal Belief (TPB) separately. The relationship between paranormal beliefs and associative processing was also investigated by comparing those six groups of believers on the originality of their word associations. A total of 186 participants completed questionnaire measures of paranormal beliefs (Tobacyk's Revised Paranormal Belief Scale - RPBS) and tolerance for ambiguity (Norton's - MAT-50), as well as a word association task (Brugger et al. Bridge-the-Associative-Gap { BAG). Sceptics and strong paranormal believers were found to display a similar intolerance of ambiguity in relation to moderate paranormal believers who were more tolerant of ambiguity. This result was signi cant for NAP groups (F( 2, 183) = 3.7, p < 0.05), and a consistent trend was observed for TPB groups (p > 0.05). The results suggest that both scepticism and NAP beliefs represent a di erent means to overcome a low tolerance for ambiguity. The disparity in signi cance between NAP and TPB groups supports the distinction between the two belief clusters, and is speculated to be further mediated by other individual variables. No di erence in the originality of associations was found to separate either sceptics, moderate or strong paranormal believers (p < 0.05).