Approved For Release 2000/08/11 Psychic Experiences in the Multinational Human Values Study: Who Reports Them? CIA-RDP96-00792ROO0400100003-0 ERLENDuR HARALDSSON AND JOOP M. HouTycooPERI ABSTRACT: Three items on personal psychic experiences (telepathy, clairvoyance, and contact with the dead) were included in a survey on human values that was conducted on large representative samples in 13 countries in Europe and in the U.S. (N = 18,607). The three items were originally formulated by Andrew Greeley and were translated into different European languages. In Europe, the percentage of persons reporting telepathy was 34%; clairvoyance was reported by 21%; and 25% reported contact with the dead. Percentages for the U.S. were considerably higher: 54%, 25% and 30%, respectively. There were great national differences; for example, 60% of Americans and Italians reported some psychic experience, but only 24% of the Norwegians made such claims. Looking into the question of how people who report psychic experiences differ from those who do not revealed little or no effect of education and age but rather striking effects of sex, marital status, reporting positive and negative affects on the Bradbum Affect Scale, and several other variables. The question of whether some of these associations could be due to a response bias effect was considered, and as far as could be ascertained, there was no response bias effect, meaning that the associations were quite specific. After national differences, the variables best predicting that one has had some psychic experience were sum of affect according to the Bradbum Affect Scale and belief in reincarnation. In the past 10- 15 years, surveys have been conducted in a few coun- tries that used large representative national samples and included items on psychic experiences and beliefs (Audience Selection, 1980; Greeley, 1975; Haraldsson, 1978, 1985; IMU 1978, 1980). It is interesting to note that most of these surveys were initiated by sociologists and journalists outside the field of parapsychology. These surveys have provided an op- portunity to make cross-national comparisons of the frequency of reports of various psychic experiences and beliefs. However, differences in the content and wording of items have made direct comparisons across coun- tries both difficult and highly tentative. Haraldsson (1985) has reported on such surveys in Iceland, Great Britain, Sweden, and the United States, and he has made a tentative comparison of findings across countries. Striking national differences were found in both the frequency of reported experiences and belief in various kinds of allegedly paranormal phe- nomena. I The authors gratefully acknowledge two research grants from the Parapsychology Foun- dation in the U.S., a travel grant from the Tiger Trust in Holland, and support from the University of Iceland. The Journal of the American Society for Approved For Release 2000/08/11 CIA-RDP94-00792ROO0400100003-0 Psychical Research Vol. 85, April 1991 146 Journal of the American Society./or Psychical Research BAcKGRouND OF THE EUROPEAN HumAN VALuEs SURVEY In 1981-1984 a multi-national survey- sometimes called the European Human Values Study-was conducted in most countries of Western Europe and in the United States. The survey should be of particular in- terest to readers of this Journal and all psi researchers because it con- tained three items on psychic experiences, and these same items were used in all the participating countries. c:, The European Value Systems Study Group (EVSSG), which organized c; the survey, was initiated by J. Kerkhofs of the University of Louvain in 00 Belgium. The group now has its center at the University of Tilburg in the CO Netherlands (directed by R. A. de Moor). The EVSSG consists mainly of European sociologists with long experience in research on values and CD 0 norms. They constructed the original questionnaire, but the paranormal 1v a items were originally devised by the well-known sociologist-priest-nov- CD a elist Andrew Greeley. Pi The central concern of the EVSSG was whether or not Western Euro- '4 cy) peans have one common value system. They were interested in the extent N 0 to which their norms and values might differ or be similar. Gallup or CD Gallup-affiliated companies carried out the survey on behalf of the a) EVSSG. In 1981, the survey was conducted in nine Western European countries. Later, several more countries in Europe, Asia, and the 1~ Americas joined the project. The survey has now been conducted in 16 < European countries and I I countries in the Americas and Asia, but the 3 data from some of the non-European countries have not been made avail able. Gallup International in London coordinated the fieldwork. This is the largest survey conducted to date that allows so many cross- cO cultural or cross-national comparisons on human beliefs and values. The 0 principal findings from a comparison of 10 selected Western European 0 0 countries are discussed in the book Contrasting Values in Western Europe CD 04 (Harding, Phillips, & Fogarty, 1986). Several books have been published on the findings in individual countries (e.g., Abrams, Gerard, & Timms, U ) cu 1985; Halman, Heunks, Moor, & Zanders, 1987; Noelle-Neumann & 4) K6cher, 1987). Numerous papers have been written on various aspects of this survey (see the European Value Systems Study Group's Information L_ 0 Bulletin 1987). E. Haraldsson was a member of a group of researchers who prepared the survey in Iceland, and he later obtained access to all the data files from Western Europe and the U.S. CL CL < METHOD The Samples The samples were representative of the adult population in all the partic ipating countries, and standard sampling methods were used to obtain Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 147 them (Harding, Phillips, & Fogarty, 1986). The mean sample size for the 14 countries that are included in most of our analyses is 1,329 persons. These samples are from Iceland (927), Denmark (1, 182), Finland (1,003), Norway (1,246), Sweden (954), Great Britain (1,231), Ireland (1,217), West Germany (1,305), the Netherlands (1,22 1), Belgium (1, 145), France (1,200), Italy (1,348), Spain (2,303) and the U.S. (2,325). A few results are given for South Korea (942). The total number of persons interviewed in the European and U.S. samples is 18,607. All of the interviews were conducted face-to-face. 9 Cl) The Questionnaire The EVSSG questionnaire consists of over 120 items, many with se4D 0 eral subitems. (For the full text of the basic English version of the ques 0 tionnaire, see Harding, Phillips, & Fogarty, 1986.) The same basic queaD tionnaire was used in all the participating countries with a few questions .9 local interest added to it in several of.the countries. The questionnai?, surveyed a variety of values, attitudes, and behaviors and was divided in1Z 04 the following six domains: CD 1. Leisure. There were 19 items on leisure, psychological well-bein6 etc. For example: "Thinking of the way you spend your leisure time, whR is more important to you, to relax as much as possible or doing thina being active?" 2. Work. There were 12 items on attitudes toward work and wok ethics; for example, which of 16 listed aspects in a job are important to t* respondent, such as good pay, pleasant people to work with, etc. 5 3. Meaning and purpose of life. There were 23 items dealing with r&- gious beliefs and practices but also with such questions as, "In the I 009 am run do you think that scientific advances we are making will help or h ~- mankind?" (The three paranornial items of Greeley were included in t9s section.) 4. Family life. There were 20 items dealing with various aspectsc9f relations to other people, such as how close your father and mother wre to you during the time when you were growing up. cc 0 5. Contemporary social issues. There were 21 items on politics atd various social issues, such as describing one's political interests. X 6. Demographic information. There were 17 items in this categoty, including sex, age, education, socioeconomic status, and other bal4k 'a ground variables. Of particular interest to us are the three items that deal with paranorld experiences. They were taken from a survey entitled The Ultimate Valts of the American Population by two University of Chica .go sociologist, William McCready and Andrew Greeley (1976). These items are so,%_-_ times referred to as the Greeley items because Andrew Greeley composed them. One of the Greeley items concerned spiritual/religious experiences and will not be dealt with in this paper. i48 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research The items are as follows: Did you ever have any of the following experiences: (1) Felt as though you were in touch with someone when they were far away from you; (2) Seen events that happened at a great distance as they were happening; (3) Felt as though you were really in touch with someone who had died; (4) Felt as though you were close to a powerful spiritual life force that seemed to lift you out of yourself. [The responses to this query were not included in our analyses.] 0 0 Response alternatives for the items were: no never, yes, don't know. 0 0 For convenience, the three Greeley items will hereafter be referred to as r- 0 telepathy, clairvoyance, and contact with the dead. 0 Limitations of the Data 04 There are some obvious limitations to the data elicited by the three a) N questions concerning telepathy, clairvoyance, and contact with the dead: CD 9) a) We are only dealing with reported experiences. No attempt was made to (0 investigate or verify/falsify any reported experiences. b) From the para- a) (L psychologist's point of view, these items are far from being worded in the ideal fashion. The wording "felt as though" (used in the first and third < items) is particularly critical because respondents may have reported in L) stances in which they were not sure that the experience was genuine, al . .though they may have "felt as though" they were having the experience. Ir- c) Exact translations of items from one language to another can be diffi Ir cult, and nuances of translations may in some cases provide a source of Go 9- error. 0 0 In spite of these limitations, there are relatively comparable representa- C' tive survey data from most countries of Western Europe and the U.S. N W Bearing the above limitations in mind, we still have a better opportunity U) than ever before to get answers to such questions as: How commonly in various countries do people report experiences of telepathy, clairvoyance, j2 and contact with the dead? Are there significant national differences in L_ reporting these experiences? What, if anything, characterizes those who 0 U_ report psychic experiences? Do they differ in any meaningful way from 'a those who report none? Does this huge amount of data give any support to 0) > the notion that there is a "psychic personality"? CL CL REsuLTs First, let us look at the overall results for each of the three types of experiences. For the combined 13 participating countries in Europe, telep- athy was reported more frequently than the other experiences. Weighing the figures by national population sizes, it can be estimated that 32% of Europeans from these 13 countries have experienced telepathy, 20% have Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 149 had a personal experience of clairvoyance, and that contact with the dead was experienced by 23%. The percentages for the U.S. are higher in all instances: telepathy, 54%; clairvoyance, 25%; and contact with the dead, 30%. The results for each country and Europe combined are given in Table 1. Telepathy The answers varied greatly from one country to another in regard to the number of persons who reported having "felt as though you were in touch with someone when they were far away from you." In the U.S., thib experience was reported by 54% of the respondents -which far exceedA any European nation surveyed. Italy, which was highest in Europe, can-' 1115 next with the considerably lower figure of 41%. Finland followed wite 40%, then West Germany with 39%, Great Britain (36%), and France an Iceland, who both reported 34%. Denmark had the lowest percentage I ing telepathy (15%). Second and third among the lowest aZ persons report Norway and Ireland, with 17% and 19%, respectively. The Danish resuls are reminiscent of the earlier finding that only I I% of respondents r ported a paranormal experience in a 2-item survey initiated by the Danit Society for Psychical Research in 1957 (Gallup Markedsanalyse, 195t We have this figure for one Asian country, South Korea, where 48% F1 the respondents reported telepathy (Gallup International, 1984). M Nationality is evidently an important and significant factor in the porting of telepathic experiences. Table I PERCENTAGE OF PERSONS IN THE HUMAN VALuEs SuRvEy REPoRTING EXPERIENC9Z , deg Telepathy Clairvoyance th France 34 24 24 c,4 Italy 41 39 34 W Spain 21 14 16 18 Belgium 21 14 - Great Britain36 14 26 w West Germany39 17 24r Holland 29 12 2L- 10 Ireland 19 11 1 C Denmark 15 12 1~0 Finland 40 15 14Q) Iceland 34 7 4 > 16 Norway 17 7 9-- Sweden 24 7 IR EUROPE 34 21 24C U.S. 54 25 30 South Korea48 25 23 Contact -1 9 Cl) 0 W C*4 CY) 9 (D a) (L 0 W Ir- Ir- 00 2- 0 C*4 a) L_ 0 LL 'D a) 0 L_ CL CL 150 Journal qf the American Societ.y.for Psychical Research Clairvoyance For clairvoyance, national differences range from 7-39%. The Italians lead in a prominent way with 39% of respondents -more than every third person -reporting having "seen events that happened at a great distance as they were happening." Americans came second with 25% and were closely followed by the French (24%). Then came West Germany (17%) and Finland (15%). Great Britain, Spain, and Belgium each reported 14%. The lowest percentages are found in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, with 7% each. It is worth noting that in every country people are considerably less likely to report clairvoyant than telepathic experiences. Contact with the Dead Having "felt as though you were really in touch with someone who had died" was the second most often reported experience in Europe as well as in the U.S. Again, large national differences are found, with the per- centages ranging from 9%-41%. Iceland leads with 41% of the respon- dents reporting a personal experience of contact with the dead. Italy is second with 34%, and the U.S. had 30%. West Germany and Great Britain follow closely with 28% and 26%, respectively. Denmark and Norway have the lowest percentages, with 10% and 9%, respectively. In Europe as a whole, every fourth person polled reports having felt them- selves to have been in actual touch with someone who had died. Any Paranormal Experience For Europe as a whole, nearly half of the population (46%) reported one or more of the three types of paranormal experiences. It is also quite evi- dent that the percentage differs widely within the group of countries, as can be seen in Table 2. The U.S. and Italy lead with 60% of respondents reporting some psychic experience. Iceland is third with 52%; Germany, France, Finland, and Britain follow with 49%, 48%, 45%, and 44%, re- spectively. Nor-way and Denmark, the two countries culturally closest to Iceland, have the lowest percentages, with about a quarter of the respon- dents reporting any experience. Number of Paranormal Experiences Of those who report any paranormal experience at all, 49% in Europe and 47% in the U.S. profess to have had only one kind of experience, whereas 8 % and I I%, respectively, reported having had all three kinds of experiences. The three items correlate significantly with one another. In the com- bined countries in Europe, the highest corTelation (Kendall tau) is between telepathic experience and clairvoyance at .46. The correlation between Psychic rxperiences: A Multinational Study 151 Table 2 PERCENTAGE OF PERSONS IN THE HUMAN VALUES SuRvEy RFPoRTiNc, PsYcHic ExPERIENCES Any psychic Number of experiences experience0 1 2 3 U.S 60 40 28 21 11 Italy 60 40 24 22 14 Iceland 52 48 27 22 3 West Germany49 51 27 17 5 France 48 52 25 15 Finland 45 55 28 12 Great 44 56 21 16 W Britain Holland 34 66 21 11 Spain 32 68 19 9 0 Sweden 31 69 20 9 Ireland 30 70 18 9 QD Belgium 29 71 16 8 Denmark 25 75 18 6 CD Norway 24 76 15 7 EUROPE 46 54 23 16 9 telepathy and contact with the dead is .40 and between clairvoyance anO 2 contact with the dead it is .34. In the U.S., these numbers were .29, . 3C and .28, respectively. Thus, for the U.S., the relationship between teleIR athy and contact with the dead is the most prominent. Who Reports Psychic Experiences? The great number and variety of variables in this survey provide a unique opportunity to search for the characteristics of those who repcQ psychic experiences. For brevity's sake, let us call them the psychicg keeping in mind the inherent limitations of the data, particularly the queR tion of validity, and the extent to which the reported instances are indeej dealing with genuine psychic experiences. Can the psychics be distirg guished from the noripsychics? Because there are large samples froI2 many countries, the generality of the findings of one country sample c?1 easily be tested across countries, but here again, it must be kept in mind that the survey reveals national differences. 0 Y_ Sex. In Europe, many more women (38%) reported telepathic expert5 ences than men (30%), and a comparable difference was found in the U.9 0 L_ CL CL 2 Throughout this paper, the Kendall tau is used as a measure of association. It is also .96 in the case of dichotomous variables in which we present the strengths of the associations in a uniform manner, rather than test their significances. Nevertheless, r can be used provided, as we do, that the correction for ties is applied. In general, the correlations were calculated across individuals. 9 M 0 00 0 V_ 0 C14 01) 9 (D a) CL 0 152 Journal qf the American Society.for Psychical Research (59% vs. 47%). Only in Holland and Norway do equal proportions of the sexes report telepathy, and in no country did men report it more frequently than women. It can be firmly stated that in most countries women have a greater tendency than men to report telepathy. This sex difference is not equal for the three kinds of experiences. For clairvoyance this difference is generally very slight, and it was even re- versed in five countries where more men than women report clairvoyance, although this difference is not significant in any country. In five countries there is no difference, as in the U.S. The sex difference becomes strongest when reporting contact with the dead. In Europe, 30% of the women and 20% of the men report such an experience; the difference is comparable in the U.S. (34% vs. 25%). When. we look at the results in regard to reporting some psychic experi- ence (see Table 3), we find that in all countries but one-Holland-there are more psychics among women than men, and there the difference is small (35% vs. 34%). Education. Is the reporting of paranormal experiences a deficiency syn- drome of some kind that shows a lack of education? For Europe as a whole, 37% of the college-educated report telepathic experiences, as do 32% of those who finished their education immediately after primary school. Again, there are national differences. In I I countries, relatively more college-educated than only primary-school-educated respondents re- ported telepathy. This tendency was reversed only in Great Britain and there only marginally so. In the U.S., the telepaths were found in equal numbers among the primary- and college-educated. Clairvoyance was generally not affected by education in Europe or the U.S., whereas the less educated reported more contact with the dead. In Europe as well as in the U.S., the length of formal education has no effect on the reporting of some paranormal experience. The correlation with the reporting of some paranormal experience is .00 for Europe and .02 for the U.S. Marital status. Probably most people would not expect marital status to be related in any way to how likely people are to report paranormal experim ences, but that is incorrect (see Table 4). In Europe, about a third of the married and the single respondents, 3 1 % and 36%, respectively, report an experience of telepathy. For other groups the situation is different. Almost half of those living together as married (i.e., not legally married) (44%), the separated (53%), and the divorced (47%) report telepathic experi- ences. The same trend is evident in the U.S. Of the married and single respondents, about half (5 1 % and 53%, respectively) profess to have had telepathic experiences, against almost two-thirds of those who are living as married, separated, or divorced and widowed (65%, 66%, 64%). It should be pointed out that the number of respondents in what we might call the broken-relationship groups is relatively small in all countries. In all 15 countries, relatively fewer single and married persons report telepathy than the combined broken-relationship group of those living as Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study CIA Iq eq Cq z 't Cq n A 4 4 0 1 > < -'r '4 4 0 z 04 R LU -'s 01 4 a, CD 9 10, C) 5 ~t' 6 V'_ P. zZ~ 153 154 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Table 4 PERCENTAGE oF PERsoNs REPoRTiNG ANY Psycnic EXPERIENCE BY MARITAL STATUS Living as Single Married Married Separated Divorced Widowed France 46 47 51 56 63 56 Italy 65 54 60 74 85 75 Spain 33 30 46 46 50 41 Belgium 33 24 27 42 55 44 Great Britain 41 42 58 66 51 65 West Germany 41 48 55 63 49 60 0Holland 39 32 41 41 47 32 AIreland 25 33 32 29 - 32 0Denmark 26 23 31 27 39 27 0Finland 43 43 47 - 64 67 0Iceland 41 54 50 71 59 T_ 63 oNorway 21 23 24 20 46 28 0Sweden 37 28 25 29 48 43 14 0EUROPE 46 43 52 60 53 58 U.S. 60 57 71 81 70 68 04 a) 1~_ 0married, separated, divorced or widowed. The same effect is evident in 9regard to contact with the dead, and also-but to a lesser extent-for (D a) clairvoyance. Psychological Well-Being The Bradburn Affect Scale was devised as a measure of psychological well-being and has been widely used by sociologists for that purpose (Bradbum, 1969). It consists of 10 items, all of which were included in 00 the EVSSG questionnaire. For the wording of the scale, see Appendix A, 0 Three indicators are calculated: one positive, one negative, and one that is othe balance of the two. The positive indicator is found by adding the 0 c4number of positive feelings reported: being particularly excited or inter- Wested in something, being proud because someone complimented you, to mbeing pleased about having accomplished something, feeling that life is 4) 0woriderful, and feeling that life is going your way. The negative indicator D~is found by adding the items of feeling restless, lonely, bored, depressed, - r upset. 0 0 U- The balance indicator, namely, the value that is obtained when the 'Snumber of reported negative feelings is subtracted from the number of :~Ipositive feelings, is considered a fair indicator of psychological well- 0 ,2teing, rather than the values of positive and negative indicators taken sep- carately. We calculated the Kendall tau (T) correlation between the Brad- 40urn Affect Scale and the three types of psychic experiences. In Europe it was - . 0 1 for telepathy and - .03 for both clairvoyance and contact with the dead, and - .02 for all psi experiences combined. In the U.S. the correlation was .05 for telepathy, -.02 for clairvoyance, -.03 for con- Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 155 tact with the dead, and .02 for reporting any experience. The psychics evidently enjoy neither more nor less psychological well-being than the nonpsychics. An examination of the subscales on negative feelings among Europeans showed that 12% of those who express no negative feeling report telep- athy, 24% of those expressing one negative feeling report telepathy, and there follows a gradual but steady increase up to 44% of those reporting telepathy who experience all five ne ative feelings in the Bradburn Scale. 9 0 The same trend is found in the U.S. sample. The percentage of persRs reporting telepathy rises steadily from 33% reporting no negative feel 9 to 64% reporting all the negative feelings. The trend is about similar Ir contact with the dead, but it is less noticeable for clairvoyance. Q For all the psychic experiences combined, this trend is steady for b8h Europe and the U.S. In Europe, the rise is from 37% for no negatge feeling to 61% for them all. In the U.S., reporting of any psychic exp 181 ences increases steadily frorn 52% among those experiencing no negattYp C*4 feeling to 89% among those who experience all the negative feelings. (P Among the Europeans who report no positive feeling, only 24% clairts;1 telepathic experience. There is gradual and steady increase up to 442X among those who report all five positive feelings. This finding is rels cated in the U.S. data. The more that people report positive feelings, ta more likely they are to report telepathic experiences. The increase ri;g steadily from 33% to 64%. The same trend-to a lesser e: for clairvoyance and contact with the dead. With the three items cola bined, there is a steady increase with increased affect from 42% to 69% of the persons reporting at least one or more psychic experiences. Ir- We combined the positive and negative subscales by adding th(M"" scores, thus creating a new variable that we called the sum of affe pa which we correlated with the Greeley items. (See our discussion of ro sponse bias in Appendix B.) The sum of affect correlated significang with telepathy in all countries as can be seen in Table 6. For Europe as 41 whole, the Kendall correlation coefficient is .19, and for the U.S. it is .29 For clairvoyance and contact with the dead, the coefficients were low but significant. For any psychic experience, the correlation was .20 fqJ Europe and .29 for the U.S, L_ 0 To find out to what extent the reporting of psychic experiences can hE predicted from other variables in this study (biographical data, attitudeV.. and values), regression analysis was carried out for each of the countrie with the number of psychic experiences as the dependent variable and representative ' subset of other variables as independent variables. ThCL same analysis was run for Europe as a whole. 4 The result (see Table 7) is that the number of psychic experiences can be predicted only to a limited extent. The percentage of the variance that can be explained ranges from 6% in Spain to 23% in Italy. Although there is substantial variation between nations regarding which variables play the most important role, several are often found among the five best pre- 156 Q 14 C14 a) P_ 0 Q (L 01 (L 00 Q C*4 0 LL ,a 4) > 0 &_ Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research < U Z 0 < Z Z < C15 Z U Z Z 7 R Z 0 In Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 157 Table 6 KENDALL TAU CORRELAMN BETwEFN Sum or, AFFEc-r AND TELEPATHY, CLArRvoYANcE, CoNTAcr WrrH THE DEAD AND ANY ExPERrENcE Contact with Any Telepathy Clairvoyance the dead Experience France .16** '10** .12** .20** Italy .27** .28** .28** .32** Spain .11** .10** .04** .15*57? Belgium .17** .13** .11** .21*8 Great Britain 20** ~05** .11** .21*0 West Germany .17** .01 .03* .1 Holland lg** .07** .04** Ireland .17** .07** .()9** Denmark .14** .11** .01 .17*** 19*Q Finland .15** .12** .10** Iceland '15** .02 .15** .14*CD ** ** 4*& ** 1 0 - .09 . 8 Norway .10 ' 4 Sweden 13" ~01 ~07** 13 * *Cm- EUROPE .19** .10** .09** .20"P- 0 .28** .13** .15** .29*-o U S . . p < .05 (two-tailed) (D M p < .01 (two-tailed) CL C1 in dicting variables. Sum of affect occurs in 12 of the 13 analyses for vidual countries. The second most prevalent variable is belief in reincameLf. which occurs in 10 of 13 analyses. The responsembias vari- tion (V315) , able occurs in 7 analyses and is the second best predictor in the combine& European data. More details about this variable, which consists of the suie of 50 variables associated with reporter bias, can be found in Appendix 1P. The fourth best variable is sex, with four occurrences. There follow thr?, variables each with three occurrences. These are broken versus unbroke% marital relationships, belief in some sort of spirit or life force (as oppose(e Z. to belief in a personal god, no belief in any sort of spirit, god, or lif42 force, and not knowing what to think about such matters), and spending some moments in prayer (V319). 0 LL a DisCUSSION 4) > 0 Sixty percent of the American sample reported one or more of the psy-&- chic experiences assessed by the items originally designed by Greeley. Forao Europeans, the figure was 46% when the samples had been weighted ac-< cording to the size of the national populations. These are relatively high percentages. Based as they are on large representative national samples, as 145 million Americans and s as man allow us to infer that erha the p p y y ver 100 million Western Europeans report at least one of the three kinds in, the survey. When interpreting these 10 of psychic experiences as defi - 15 . li g 4 data, we must keep in mind their limitations. We are dealing with LL A 0 t~ -8 Zo reported 9 Cl) 0 0 0 0 T_ 0 0 Iq 0 0 0 W 04 a) I- a) 0- 00 0 0 0 0 04 4) 4) 0 LL p CL CL < 158 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research Table 7 REsuLTs OF REGRESsioN ANALYsis FOR F-AcH CouNmy % of variance Country explained Var Var Var 4 Var I Var 2 3 5 France 13 NEGAFF V315 RBV BALAFF SEX Italy 23 SUMAFF RBV BROKENWORKRLZ V319 Spain 6 V315 V253 SELFJUSSUMAFF V317 Belgium 20 V317 SUMAFF V315 SPIRLIF RBV Great Britain 16 V315 AGE SPIRLIF V211 SUMAFF West Germany 20 AGE V315TRADFAMV319 SEX Holland 5 RBV SUMAFF SPIRLIFV253 V315 1 Ireland RBV CONFINS 13 SUMAFF V311 TRADRLG Denmark 13 V315 RBV SUMAFFV253 SOCACT Iceland 18 V253 POSAFF V315 V319 V449 Norway 8 V253 SUMAFF SEX V156 V233 Sweden 21 V315 SHAPRTN V314 SUMAFF SEX EUROPE 13 SUMAFF RBV V315 SPIRLIF V319 U.S. 16 SUMAFF V315 BROKENSOCACF RBV NOTE: Regression analysis the dependent was run with number variable of psychic experiences and a as representative subset included. of other variables as Var I indicates independent, which were the stepwise variable that best predictsreported, the number of psychic Var experiences 2 is second best, etc. BALAFF balance of affect on the Bradburn Scale BROKEN marital status CONFINS confidence in institutions NEGAFF negative affect POSAFF positive affect RBV response bias SELFJUS justifying ininor immoral acts (tax evasion, lying, etc.) SHAPRTN sharing attitudes with partner SOCACr take pan in social activities SPIRLIF belief in some sort of spirit or life force SUMAFF sum of affect on the Bradbum Scale TRADFAM traditional attitude to family TRADRLG traditional religious views V 156 state of health V211 having choice and control over one's life V233 taking pride in one's work V2.53 thinking about the meaning and purpose of life V311 belief in the devil V315 belief in reincarnation V314 belief in sin V317 God important in one's life V319 take some moments for prayer, mediation etc. V449 take interest in politics WORKRLZ finding realization in one's work experiences only, and the phrasing of the questions is not ideal for as- sessing potentially paranormal experiences. It should, however, not be unreasonable to estimate that the figures roughly indicate the frequency with which people in the samples have interpreted some personal experi- ences as paranormal in nature. The most outstanding finding is the national differences in reporting every kind of psychic experience. Taking the extremes, we find that Americans report telepathic experiences 3.6 times more often than the Danes (54% vs. 15%), Italians report clairvoyance 5.6 times more often Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 159 than Icelanders, Norwegians, and Swedes (39% vs. 7%), and Icelanders report contact with the dead 4.5 times more often than the Norwegians (41% vs. 9%). Americans and Italians, whom we find to be the most "psychic" nations in this survey, are 2.5 times more likely to report any psychic experiences than are the least "psychic" Danes (60% vs. 24%). Before Haraldsson started this project (Houtkooper joined it at a later stage) and calculated the results, he did not state any explicit hypotheses, but based on the results from earlier surveys, he expected the percentages of re orted experiences to be highest for the U.S. and Iceland, with Gr&t p 1 Britain, Italy, and Germany nearby. He also expected Denmark, Norwal these c and Sweden to be among the least "psychic." As far as oun S are concerned, the findings come as no surprise. What remains puzzli1g, however, is the finding that so many French people report psychic exp9_ ences and that they report them slightly more frequently than the Briffis. Our surprise probably reflects our ignorance of the French people. Sli t 9 differences in the translation of the items may also affect the results. 5 Nationality emerges as a very powerful factor indeed, and this evogs many questions. What is the active ingredient that causes the national ferences? Is it in the genes? Is it due to differences in dominant philoso Igy or life styles? Or is it due to the degree of favorable coverage by press It TV? McClenon's (1982) survey of elite, scientists in the U.S. showed t a they get most of their knowledge of psychic phenomena and research lrffl popular sources, not from scientific publications. This clearly reveals W powerful effect of the popular media. An important question is: What,4f any, impact does the quantity and quality of research conducted and po- lished have on the various nations surveyed? Our findings open up maX questions. There is a notable difference between France and Great Britain in ~e reporting of clairvoyance. A total of 24% report it in France, but only 14go report it in Britain, whereas the figure for telepathy is about equal for b9i countries. As early as around the turn of the century, French researchvs tended to give more support to the clairvoyance hypothesis, whereas British overwhelmingly favored telepathy as a leading explanation of pt chic phenomena. Perhaps these differing conceptions of early French aWd British researchers still exist among the general populations of the coA- tries involved. Or, were the conceptions of those researchers simply jo- flections of the dominating views of the populations of which they werY-a part? In a representative survey of psychic experiences conducted in Icela& in the mid- 1970s, 3 1 % reported experience of the dead (Haraldsson, 197t 1985). Why do we now find an increase up to 41%? It is possible that t _~t higher figure is due to very slight differences in the wording of the ques- tions. The results of Haraldsson's survey were widely publicized in Ice- land when they were released to the media (Haraldsson, 1975), and this may well have made people more ready to report contact with the dead when they knew that almost every third person had done so. A British 160 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research survey among widows and widowers revealed that many of those who report experiences of encounters with the dead are reluctant to do so for fear of ridicule (Rees, 197 1). The fact that Icelanders top the list in regard to contact with the dead calls for some discussion. It brings to mind some other findings of Har- aldsson's 1975 survey in that country. It was noteworthy that about every third respondent (32%) had attended mediumistic s6ances. For the age bracket 50-59, the figure rose to 47% and was even a surprising 29% for the college-educated group. Furthermore, it was found that respondents Mexpressed a relatively strong belief in communication with the dead at 0sdances, with 2 1 % being certain of such communication and a further 21 % thinking it likely, as opposed to I I % who thought it impossible or un likely. Concerning the high figure of 30% of Americans reporting contact with the dead in the present survey, we should recall the relevant fact that 0the United States was the soil from which spiritualism grew and spread to 0 0other countries. ly- In the U.S., Greeley (1987) has found a steady increase of reports of C14 a) contact with the dead: 27% in 1973, 30% in 198 1, and exceeding even r- 0 Iceland in 1987 with 42%. (See Table 1.) Greeley interprets this increase Q as an indication of increased readiness to admit experiences of contact with the dead. He also suggests that the writings of actress Shirley Ma cLaine and the wide publicity she has received may have affected that Q~change. < Many more "psychics" are found among women than among men. The Uresults concerning reporting some psychic experience indicate that in 0 ,-countries but Holland many more psychics are found among women than -among men. Further, this sex difference is more prominent for contact *60with the dead and telepathy than for clairvoyance. Why? Experiences of Btelepathy and contact with the dead involve contact with persons, whereas &Iairvoyance concerns perceptions of events. Rightly or wrongly, women Otre often believed to be more person-oriented than men. If this old stereo- aype is true, it would seem reasonable to expect more women to report aelepathic experiences (with living and dead) and for men to report rela- Zively more clairvoyant experiences, which is what the results indicated. L44owever, this effect of sex is very slight: Reporting some psychic experi- ance correlated only .08 with sex in Europe and A I in the U.S., both L~oefficients being significant because of huge sample sizes. a) A notable absence in the data is a relationship with age, except for a 8light increase in experiences of contact with the dead. In the U.S. as well as in Europe, education has no effect on whether ople report psychic experiences. It should be mentioned, however, that ' te data have the limitation that we cannot distinguish between those who hold the European "student" examination or a U.S. college degree and those who hold higher university degrees. Findings by McClenon (1982) indicate that this distinction may be more important than the traditional classification of formal education as primary, secondary, and college. Be Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 161 that as it may, there is no evidence in the results for the "deficiency syn- drome," that is, that psychic experiences tend to be reported because of lack of education. Rather striking are the differences in reporting psychic experiences as regards marital status (see Table 4). The single and married are less likely to report psychic experiences than those living in what we termed "broken relationships" (those living as married, separated, divorced, or widowe§. Are psychics more likely than nonpsychics to have marital difficulties'.0ts Q an unstable or broken relationship psi-conducive? Are people who a= under emotional strain that may accompany broken relationships m& likely to have psychic experiences? Or do people in such relationshig have a greater need for psychic experiences? Or-taking a more skepti approach-do those living as married, separated, divorced, or widows more often "feel as though" or imagine that they have psychic expeO ences? The data give no answers to these questions. ix C14 Still more striking is the finding that the "psychics" report significant more positive as well as negative feelings and emotions than the nonpsp, chics, yet the "psychics" enjoy neither higher nor lower psychologi C& well-being (as measured by the Bradburn Scale) than the rest of the pop 9! lation. This is in line, with what Greeley (1975) found in his first U.Zj survey. What conclusions can be drawn from the much more frequel* simultaneous presence of both positive and negative feelings ("sum affect") among the psychics? Could this effect be due to a general r&) sponse bias of the yes/no-sayer type because all the items of the BradburIL Scale are so worded that the respondent is asked if he or she has had thr, particular feel ing/experience and then is requested to respond with a yes (9 no? Analyses reveal that the findings are not due to response bias. A d' tailed statistical analysis of this problem is given in Appendix B. 0 Are the psychics more emotionally unstable? Apparently people arv more likely to report psi experiences when experiencing either very diffith cult or very pleasant times. Are the psychics more sensitive to their envicu ronment and hence experience more negative as well as positive feelingsz We can surmise that they are more sensitive, and they probably hav5 richer emotional lives and react emotionally more strongly to event' around them than do the noripsychics. OLL The Human Values Study contains a great number of variables from aw variety of highly different domains. Nationality is evidentl t-'00 y the stronges xpenences,CL factor determining the frequency of the reporting of psychic e followed by the "sum of affect." In addition to the factors already men-0- tioned in this discussion, it is of interest that regression analyses revealed three other variables from the religious domain that affect the frequency of reporting psi experiences: namely, belief in reincarnation, belief in some sort of spirit or life force, and taking moments for prayer or meditation. This result is in line with earlier findings (Haraldsson, 1981; Tobacyk & Milford, 1983) that show some religious variables to be mildly but signifi- cantly related to belief in psychic phenomena in general. 162 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research The Human Values Survey was repeated in 1990 in all the countries of Western Europe and a number of countries in Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Americas. To our disappointment, the EVSSG committee decided to drop the Greeley items from the new questionnaire. REFERENCES ABRAMS, M., GERARD, D., & Timms, N. (EDS.). (1985). Values and 9 Social Change in Britain. London: Macmillan. Cl) AUDIENCE SELECTION. (1980). Psychic Phenomena in Britain. London. 0 (Mimeographed.) BRADBURN, N. M. (1969). The Structure of Psychological Well-Being. C) Chicago, IL: Aldine. EUROPEAN VALUE SYSTEMS STUDY GROUP. (1987). Information Bulletin 1987. Tilburg, The Netherlands: Tilburg University. (Mimeographed.) GALLUP INTERNATIONAL (EUROPEAN VALUE SYSTEMS STUDY GROUP). W C*4 (1984). Human Values and Beliefs. Tabulations. London: Gallup Inter- M I- national. 0 GALLUP MARKEDSANALYSE. (1957, August). Befolknings Indstilling til 9 (D Paranormale Oplevelser. Copenhagen, Denmark. a) am GREELEY, A. M. (1975). The Sociology of the Paranormal: A Reconnais- a sance. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. GREELEY, A. M. (1987, January/February). Mysticism goes mainstream. < 4merican Health, 6, 47 -49. HALmAN, L., HEuNKs, F., MOOR, R. DE, & ZANDERS, H. (1987). Tra ditie, Secularisatie en Individualisering: Een Studie naar de Waarden van de Nederlanders in een Europese Context. Tilburg, The Nether 00 0 lands: Tilburg University Press. HARALDSSON, E. (1975). Keinnun a dulranni reynslu, vidhorfum til dulr&nna fyrirbwra ofl. Hand-out given to Icelandic media, June 6. C*4 4) Reykjavik, Iceland: University of Iceland, Department of Psychology. 0 HARALDSSON, E. (1978). Thessa Heims og Annars. Reykjavik, Iceland: (I) Bokaforlagid Saga. HARALDSSON, E. (1981). Some determinants of belief in psychical phe nomena. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 75, 0 297-309. LL HARALDsSON, E. (1985). Representative national surveys of psychic phem nomena: Iceland, Great Britain, Sweden, USA and Gallup's multina- 0 tional survey. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 53, CL 145-158. CL < HARDING, S., PmLLips, D., & FOGARTY, M. (1986). Contrasting Values in Western Europe. London: Macmillan, in association with the Euro- pean Value Systems Study Group. IMU [INsTn=T F6R MARYNADSUNDERS6KNINGAR]. (1979, OktobeT). Rapport 6ver en Unders6kning betrf&rekomsten av "Ockulta Upple- velser" i Sverige. Stockholm, Sweden: The Institute. Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 163 IMU [INSTITUTET F6R MAR-KNADSUNDERS6KNINGAR]. (1980, June). Rap- port 5ver en Unders5kning ang "Annorlunda Upplevelser" i Ans- lutning till Konsumentindex vecka 21, 1980. Stockholm, Sweden: The Institute. MCCLENON, J. (1982). A survey of elite scientists: Their attitudes toward ESP and parapsychology. Journal of Parapsychology, 46, 127-152. MCCREADY, W. C., & GREELEY, A. M. (1976). The Ultimate Values of the American Population. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. NOELLE-NEUMANN, E., & K6CHER, R. (1987). Die Verletzte Nat4?n. Stuttgart, Germany: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. M REES, W. D. (197 1). The hallucinations of widowhood. British Med&I 0 Journal, 4, 209-221. 0 TOBACYK, J., & MILFORD, G. (1983). Belief in paranormal phenomea: Assessment instrument development and implications for person4y functioning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1029-1037. W 04 Faculty of Social Science Houtkooper Software EngineerR9 University of Iceland De Maalkom 7 101 Reykjavik, Iceland 1191 LP Ouderkerk ald Amstel The Netherlands W APPENDix A The Bradburn Affect Balance Scale We are interested in the way people are feeling these days. During the Imt 00 few weeks, did you ever feel: 0 Yes No 0 Particularly excited or interested in something C*4 So restless you couldn't sit long in a chair 4) Proud because someone had complimentedW you on something you had done Very lonely or remote from other people Pleased about having accomplished something Bored 0 LL On top of the world/feeling that life is wonderful Depressed or very unhappy That things are going your way 0 Upset because somebody criticizedCL you APPENDLx B Response Bias The finding of a correlation between the sum-ofmaffect variable from the Bradbum Scale items and reported psychic experiences has caused some 0 c,I) 0 0 0 0 Ir- 0 0 (:) 0 W 04 a) 00 0 0 C14 0 LL > 0 L_ CL CL 164 Journal (?f the American Society.for Psychical Research concern about its being explainable by response bias. In this case, re- sponse bias would be defined as the tendency to respond affin-natively on questions asking whether something applies to the subject or not. Subjects who possess this tendency to a large degree are called "reporters," whereas those who respond generally negatively to such questions are called " nonreporters. " Of course, it is important for the interpretation of a correlation to know whether it can be regarded as due to a general effect or to the specific content of the questions whose responses show this correla- tion. To decide this issue, we are fortunate in having a sizeable collection of questions available. We were able to find a set of 50 questions that asked for responses that could be regarded as distinguishing "reporters" from 11 nonreporters," if such a distinction has any grounds. The questions are found in various parts of the questionnaire so that specific meaning gets diffused when the set is treated as a whole. To obtain a variable to repre- sent response bias, in the set of 50 questions we counted 0 responses of 11 yes," '4very," "often," or where a specific item was marked as appli- cable to the subject. This provided the rather diffuse variable representing response bias needed to distinguish between our finding being due to a specific, rather than a diffuse, effect. The response-bias variable (RBV) has been correlated with both sum of affect (SUMAFF) and the reporting of one or more psychic experiences (Any Exp). This allows the calculation of a partial correlation coefficient in which the correlation is controlled for the effect of a third variable, RBV, in this case. The results are shown in Table 8 for Europe combined and for the U.S. The conclusion is that response bias plays a negligible role in the corre- lation and does not explain the high positive and negative affect scores and sum of affect of those who respond affirmatively to the three Greeley items. The regression analyses (see Table 7) corroborate this conclusion. Table 8 INFLUENCE OF RESPONSE BiAs ON THE CORRELATIONS BETWEEN ANY PSYCHIC ExPERiENCFs AND BRADBURN'S Sum OF AFFEcTs Any Exp X SUMAFF Any Exp Any Exp SUMAFF X X X controlled Country RBV RBV SUMAFF for RBV Europe .04 .15 .19 .19 U.S. .03 .12 .22 .22 Note: Kendall rank correlation coefficients and Kendall rank partial coefficient (last column) are given. Psychic Experiences: A Multinational Study 165 Though part of the variance in "Number of Psychic Experiences" is ex- plained by the RBV, another larger part of it is explained by SUMAFF. A better way to detect response bias is by including items that are asked twice, but in an opposite sense, so that an affirmative response in one instance should correspond with a negation in the other. Lack of consis- tency then reveals response bias. Because no items of this sort were in- cluded in the questionnaire used in the Human Values Survey, we could not perform this analysis.