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Paranormal beliefs and cognitive function: A systematic review and assessment of study quality across four decades of research

Charlotte E. Dean

Department of Psychology, School of Life and Medical Sciences, Sport and Geography, University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

Shazia Akhtar

Tim m. gale, karen irvine, dominique grohmann, keith r. laws, associated data.

All data files relating to the quality assessment are available from the OSF repository ( https://osf.io/7bthg/ ). Data relating to the 71 reviewed studies can be found within the paper's Supporting Information files.

Research into paranormal beliefs and cognitive functioning has expanded considerably since the last review almost 30 years ago, prompting the need for a comprehensive review. The current systematic review aims to identify the reported associations between paranormal beliefs and cognitive functioning, and to assess study quality.

We searched four databases (Scopus, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, and OpenGrey) from inception until May 2021. Inclusion criteria comprised papers published in English that contained original data assessing paranormal beliefs and cognitive function in healthy adult samples. Study quality and risk of bias was assessed using the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS) and results were synthesised through narrative review. The review adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and was preregistered as part of a larger registration on the Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/uzm5v ).

From 475 identified studies, 71 (n = 20,993) met our inclusion criteria. Studies were subsequently divided into the following six categories: perceptual and cognitive biases (k = 19, n = 3,397), reasoning (k = 17, n = 9,661), intelligence, critical thinking, and academic ability (k = 12, n = 2,657), thinking style (k = 13, n = 4,100), executive function and memory (k = 6, n = 810), and other cognitive functions (k = 4, n = 368). Study quality was rated as good-to-strong for 75% of studies and appears to be improving across time. Nonetheless, we identified areas of methodological weakness including: the lack of preregistration, discussion of limitations, a-priori justification of sample size, assessment of nonrespondents, and the failure to adjust for multiple testing. Over 60% of studies have recruited undergraduates and 30% exclusively psychology undergraduates, which raises doubt about external validity. Our narrative synthesis indicates high heterogeneity of study findings. The most consistent associations emerge for paranormal beliefs with increased intuitive thinking and confirmatory bias, and reduced conditional reasoning ability and perception of randomness.

Conclusions

Although study quality is good, areas of methodological weakness exist. In addressing these methodological issues, we propose that authors engage with preregistration of data collection and analysis procedures. At a conceptual level, we argue poorer cognitive performance across seemingly disparate cognitive domains might reflect the influence of an over-arching executive dysfunction.

Introduction

The term “paranormal” typically refers to phenomena, such as psychokinesis, hauntings, and clairvoyance, which contradict the basic limiting principles of current scientific understanding [ 1 ]. Surveys consistently indicate paranormal beliefs are prevalent within the general population. For example, a representative survey of British adults conducted by the market-research company BMG Research [ 2 ] found that a third of their sample believed in paranormal phenomena, and a further 21% were ‘unsure’. Of those who either believed in the paranormal or were unsure, 40% indicated they had seen or felt the presence of a supernatural entity. Similarly, Pechey and Halligan [ 3 ] found 30% of participants held at least one strong paranormal belief, and 79% held at least one paranormal belief at any strength (weak, moderate, or strong belief). Comparable levels of belief have been documented across various cultures over recent decades [ 4 – 7 ].

The most frequently used scales to measure paranormal beliefs include Tobacyk’s Paranormal Belief Scale in both original (PBS) [ 8 ] and revised form (RPBS) [ 9 ], and the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale (ASGS) [ 10 ]. Despite widespread use, some concerns exist about both the content and the factor structures of these measures [ 11 – 13 ]. Nonetheless, both the RPBS and ASGS have demonstrated excellent internal reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha values around .93 for the RPBS [ 14 – 16 ], and around .95 for the ASGS [ 17 , 18 ].

Scores on paranormal belief measures have been linked to various personal and demographic characteristics. For example, higher belief scores have been noted for individuals high in extraversion and neuroticism [ 19 – 21 ], while lower belief scores have been seen for those with higher levels of education [ 22 – 24 ]. Paranormal belief levels also appear to vary across academic disciplines; with those engaged in hard (or natural) sciences, medicine, and psychology showing significantly lower paranormal belief scores than those in education, theology, or artistic disciplines [ 25 , 26 ]. Higher levels of paranormal beliefs have been documented in women and younger individuals [ 27 – 32 ], though these sex and age effects are inconsistently reported [ 33 ] and have generated substantial debate [ 34 – 36 ].

Paranormal beliefs and cognitive function

The association between cognitive functioning and paranormal beliefs has been researched over several decades. Such functions include memory, attention, language, and executive function (the umbrella term used to describe set-shifting ability, inhibitory control, and working memory updating; for a full description of executive function, see Miyake et al.’s work [ 37 ]).

As important for cognitive function is an individual’s belief system. Religious and spiritual beliefs have been associated with slower cognitive decline in older adults [ 38 , 39 ] but have also been shown to have an inverse relationship with memory performance [ 40 ] and intelligence [ 41 , 42 ]. Similarly, so-called “epistemically unwarranted beliefs” [ 19 ], which includes belief in conspiracy theories, has been linked with lower educational attainment and reduced analytical thinking [ 43 , 44 ]. Conspiracist beliefs are similarly associated with increased illusory pattern perception [ 45 , 46 ], decreased need for cognition and cognitive reflection [ 47 – 49 ], biases against confirmatory and disconfirmatory evidence [ 50 ], and hindsight bias (for discussions on this topic see [ 51 – 53 ]).

The last published review to examine the relationships between paranormal beliefs and various aspects of cognition was conducted by Irwin in 1993 [ 53 ]. That non-systematic narrative review of 43 studies is now almost 30 years old and may have introduced bias by “…citing null results only when these form a substantial proportion of the available data on a given relationship” (p.6). At the time of his review, Irwin [ 53 ] concluded that, owing to the variable findings, support for the cognitive deficits hypothesis remained uncertain.

Research has grown considerably since Irwin’s [ 53 ] review and an updated and systematic review is timely. The current review has two key aims: first, to provide the first assessment of study quality [ 54 ] in this area and second, to systematically review and summarise key associations between paranormal beliefs and a range of cognitive functions.

This review was conducted within the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [ 55 ] (see S2 Appendix for PRISMA checklist). The systematic review was preregistered at the Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/uzm5v ) as part of a larger study (also assessing the relationships between paranormal beliefs and schizotypal personality traits). Data used for the descriptive and inferential analyses presented in the results section are available at the OSF preregistration. One author (CED) conducted the search strategy, article eligibility assessment, and data extraction.

Search strategy

A systematic literature review was chosen for this area owing to its strength as a method to synthesise relevant evidence from large bodies of research [ 56 , 57 ]. Our searches included both peer-reviewed articles published in scholarly journals and “grey literature” (concerning unpublished works such as doctoral theses).

We searched the electronic databases Scopus, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, and OpenGrey from inception to May 2021. Our search terms were: (1) “paranormal belief” AND cogni*, (2) “paranormal belief” AND thinking, and (3) “paranormal belief” AND (memory OR “executive function”). For databases that did not permit wildcard Boolean operators (ScienceDirect), one of the above search terms was amended and entered as: “paranormal belief” AND (cognition OR cognitive), to best replicate the effect of the Boolean operator. Following exclusion of duplicate articles across databases, titles and abstracts were assessed to identify studies relevant to the review. Full-text assessment of eligible studies was performed to determine final inclusion. Full-text copies were unavailable for five studies, which were subsequently sought for retrieval. Finally, we hand-searched reference lists for each included article to identify any additional relevant articles. The PRISMA flow diagram presented in Fig 1 illustrates the full screening and selection process. The PRISMA checklist for abstracts is presented in S1 Appendix , and the full PRISMA checklist is presented in S2 Appendix .

Inclusion/Exclusion criteria

Studies were eligible for inclusion if they were: published in the English language, conducted with a healthy adult sample (age 18 or over) and presented original data involving both a measure of paranormal belief and a measure of cognitive function. As cognitive functions have been shown to peak at different ages (for a detailed discussion on this topic, see [ 58 ]), we excluded samples that included children and adolescents under the age of 18 as some cognitive functions are still developing in these younger individuals.

Data extraction

We used a detailed data extraction form to collate the following information from included studies: sample sizes and demographic details (including sex, age and education), the measures of self-rated paranormal belief, the aspect of cognition assessed, the tests of cognitive functions used, and findings relating to the relationship between paranormal beliefs and cognitive function. We categorised eligible outcome measures broadly to include both global cognitive function and domain-specific cognitive functions. Any measure of cognitive function was eligible for inclusion (e.g., neuropsychological tests, self-report measures). Results for both paranormal beliefs and cognitive functioning could be reported as an overall test score that provides a composite measure, subscale scores that provide domain-specific measures, or a combination of the two. When multiple cognitive outcomes were investigated, we included all measures. To assess the strength of the relationships between paranormal beliefs and various cognitive functions, we calculated the number of positive, negative, or null findings reported by each study included in the review. Measures of paranormal belief were examined to determine the extent to which established questionnaires have been used.

In line with our preregistered protocol, we synthesised evidence narratively. Meta-analyses could not be undertaken because of the heterogeneity of study designs and outcome measures. We did, however, develop summary tables that include information relating to: sample size, gender composition, mean sample age, cognitive domain, outcome measure, and key findings. Given the range of outcome measures, we attempted to categorise the included studies by common cognitive domains. As the review took an explorative approach, and did not specify domains of interest, categorisation took place after full-text evaluation of included studies.

Electronic and hand searches identified 902 papers, of which 475 were unique. Most articles (k = 391) were excluded from the review following title and abstract screening, leaving 84 eligible for full-text evaluation. We removed 13 studies that included participants under the age of 18 (see S1 Table for details of these studies). Seventy-one papers met our inclusion criteria (see Fig 1 ), which included 70 published between 1980 and 2020 and one unpublished doctoral thesis [ 59 ].

Assessment of study quality and risk of bias

The preregistration for this review specified using a bespoke series of questions to assess study quality, but we subsequently decided to use a more well-established and validated measure of study quality in the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS) tool [ 60 ]. Of the 20 AXIS items, seven assess reporting quality (items: 1, 4, 10, 11, 12, 16 and 18), seven relate to study design (items: 2, 3, 5, 8, 17, 19 and 20), and six to possible biases (items: 6, 7, 9, 13, 14 and 15). Two authors (DG and CED) independently rated each study, and these two sets of ratings had almost-perfect agreement (93%) with Kappa = .84.

Following previous research [ 61 ], we classified AXIS quality scores according to the number of "Yes" responses for the 20 items for each study—poor quality for scores <50%, fair quality for scores between 50 to 69%, good quality for scores of 70% to 79%, strong quality for scores of 80% and higher. Three in four studies were rated as either ‘strong’ (26/71: 37%) or ‘good’ (27/71: 39%). By contrast, 17/71 (24%) were rated as ‘fair’ and only 1/71 (1%) was rated as ‘poor’. The mean quality rating score across all 71 studies was in the ‘good’ range; however individual AXIS items are not weighted and so this total score provides a general, but limited, classification that should be interpreted with some caution. The number of papers meeting each AXIS criterion (‘Yes’) is presented in Table 1 . The number of papers meeting the criteria for each AXIS domain (reporting quality, study design quality, and potential biases) is presented in Figs ​ Figs2 2 – 4 respectively.

All studies scored positively for items concerning: clear objectives, appropriate study design, appropriate measurement of outcome variables, internal consistency of presented results, and appropriate conclusions justified by the results. Study quality correlated with year of publication ( r = .64, p < .001), and appears to be improving with time (see Fig 5 ). Nonetheless, three main areas for study quality improvement were highlighted throughout the AXIS assessment: sample size justification, nonrespondents, and discussion of limitations.

Sample size justification, sample representativeness and open science

Only 5 of 71 (7%) papers included a-priori power analyses to justify their sample sizes. Although power analyses are rarely conducted in this research area, the mean sample size is large at 211 (median = 124), suggesting that both simple correlational and between-subject comparisons are well-powered to detect large (.99 and .98), moderate (.94 and .88) and potentially for small effect sizes (.72 and .72)–large, moderate and small effects being 0.7, 0.5 and 0.2 respectively [ 62 ]. Despite this, many studies have assessed multiple outcomes and/or multiple metrics derived from the same tests and so, a simple power analysis will mislead. As a rough metric on this issue, we calculated the number of p -values presented in the results section for each of the 71 papers. This revealed a mean number of p -values per study of 43 (median = 30) with a range from 1 [ 63 ] to over 200 [ 64 ]. So, despite relatively large samples, the possibility of type-1 errors remains high, especially when studies fail to adjust alpha levels for high levels of multiple testing. Only 12/71 studies employed some correction; eleven used a Bonferroni correction [ 15 , 25 , 64 – 72 ], and one used the Newman–Keuls adjustment [ 73 ]. Those studies that adjusted alpha levels tended to report more p -values than those that did not adjust (means 57 vs. 40). So, adjustment was made in fewer than one-in-five studies, most being published recently.

Despite good-strong quality ratings, some core features of open science practice including preregistration have yet to be embraced in this literature. Admittedly, we are assessing forty years of research and preregistration is a relatively recent innovation in psychology. Nonetheless, the Open Science Framework (OSF) began in 2013 as a repository for preregistrations–so potentially up to half of the 71 studies could have preregistered, yet only 2 (<3%) have done so [ 71 , 74 ], with both published in 2020. The issue about preregistration is fundamental in this area of research. First, studies are characterised by large numbers of analyses often involving multiple outcome measures and/or multiple metrics derived from smaller numbers of tests. We have also seen that up to one-third of studies (25/71) have assessed relationships between cognitive function and paranormal test subscale scores (often with few items). This approach consciously or unconsciously increases the likelihood of reporting bias and HARKing ( hypothesizing after results are known ), often perhaps with little chance of, or interest in, replicating such findings (see Laws [ 75 ] for a discussion). Second, the preregistration of future trials will also help to assess whether null results remain unpublished. Third, preregistration would identify both the primary outcome and the sample size required to achieve an acceptable level of statistical power. Ironically, the lack of attention to pre-registration and justifying sample sizes contrasts with research on paranormal phenomena, where study registration and a priori power calculations have been employed for many years [ 76 ].

Representativeness

Another issue concerns the sampling frame and its representativeness. Almost two-thirds of all samples are undergraduates (45/71: 63%) and of those, 21 (30%) consisted wholly of, or a majority of, psychology undergraduates. Only one-third of all samples consisted of: non-undergraduates (15/71: 21%), mixed undergraduate and general population samples (8/71: 11%) or other non-undergraduate samples (2/71: 3%). One non-undergraduate study by Blackmore in 1997 [ 77 ] consisted of a national newspaper-based study (Daily Telegraph) and recruited an exceptionally large sample (n = 6238). If we exclude this outlier, then 60% of all participants in the 70 remaining studies have been completely (k = 41) or majority undergraduate (k = 5) samples, with 16 involving only psychology graduates. Amongst the non-undergraduate samples, this includes visitors to a paranormal fair [ 29 , 66 ], members of the Society for Psychical Research [ 78 ], Mechanical Turk participants [ 79 ], and some used Crowdflower, a crowdsourcing website [ 64 , 80 , 81 ]. So, even the non-undergraduate samples may not necessarily represent the wider population (see Stroebe et al. [ 82 ] for a discussion). Studies testing undergraduates and non-undergraduates did not differ in mean sample size (196 vs 215, with the exclusion of Blackmore [ 77 ], t (68) = .29, p = .78, d = .08) or in quality ratings (14.73 vs 15.19: t (69) = -.90, p = .37: d = .23). The profile of sampling, however, is pertinent because paranormal beliefs are inversely related to educational levels [ 22 – 24 ], and those studying sciences, medicine, and psychology exhibit lower levels of paranormal beliefs [ 25 , 26 ]. Such samples are unrepresentative and may bias findings because they may combine lower levels of paranormal beliefs and higher cognitive functioning than occurs in the general population.

In addition to samples comprising more highly educated university students, most participants are female (>60%). The importance of this latter aspect of sampling is underscored for at least two reasons. First, some authors have documented greater levels of paranormal beliefs in women [ 27 – 32 ]. Indeed, the last literature review by Irwin in 1993 [ 53 ] stated that “the endorsement of most, but certainly not all, paranormal beliefs is stronger among women than among men” (p.8). Second, gender (and age) effects are not consistently reported [ 33 ] and have resulted in substantial debate [ 34 – 36 ]. This debate largely results from differences in psychological test theories (see Dean et al. 2021 [ 83 ] for a discussion). Classical test theory—used to develop common paranormal belief measures, such as the RPBS—does not test for the presence of differential item functioning (DIF). DIF refers to when individuals with the same latent ability (e.g., paranormal beliefs), but from different groups, have an unequal probability of giving a response. By contrast, modern test theory, including the use of Rasch scaling, can produce unbiased interval measures focused on the hierarchical properties of questionnaire items. This has resulted in the revision of older paranormal belief measures using modern test theory, to create scales that accurately capture fluctuations in levels of belief rather than differences in item functioning [ 84 , 85 ]. When these problematic items are removed from scales such as the RPBS and ASGS, paranormal belief scores are no longer associated with sex, but small differences remain for age [ 84 , 85 ]. Although these effect sizes seem to be small (e.g., 0.15 [ 84 ], identified by Cohen [ 62 ] as a small effect size), they are more likely to reflect a true and meaningful fluctuation in paranormal belief levels, compared to findings reported using scales developed through classical test theory.

Nonrespondents

Most studies (52/71) failed to state whether measures were undertaken to address and categorise nonrespondents. As such, response rates and risk of nonresponse bias could not be calculated. Nonresponse bias arises when respondents differ from nonrespondents beyond sampling error and may reduce external validity [ 86 , 87 ]. Survey-based approaches are at a greater risk of nonresponse bias owing to their high nonresponse rates, with those relying on self-administered online surveys suffering from higher nonresponse rates than those using face-to-face methods [ 88 ]. Most studies have been conducted in face-to-face settings (k = 59), however the past few years has seen a rise in online data capture (k = 12). Compared to face-to-face studies, online studies rated more highly on study quality (16.50 vs 14.49: t (69) = -3.87, p < .001, d = 1.32) and had larger mean sample sizes (482 vs 155: t (11.83) = -3.12, p = .008, d = -1.69, equal variances not assumed), but also report larger numbers of statistical comparisons (96.42 vs 31.58,: t (12) = -3.47, p = .005, d = 1.33, equal variances not assumed).

Of the 19 papers that did provide nonresponse rates, seven had response rates < 70% and so raise concerns about potential nonresponse bias [ 89 ]. Only one of 19 papers [ 90 ] presented any information about nonrespondents, reporting that they had marginally lower educational attainment than respondents. Similar findings for nonrespondents have been reported in other research areas [ 91 – 94 ]. Finally, we note that online studies more often have records of nonrespondents. Guidance has been developed on detailing non-response details in online survey-type studies e.g., the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES) [ 95 ] and should routinely be reported.

Limitations

Surprisingly, up to 40% of the included papers (29 of 71) did not include a discussion of study limitations. Discussion of study limitations forms a fundamental part of scientific discourse and is crucial for genuine scientific progress, allowing a reader to contextualise research findings [ 96 ]. The failure to discuss limitations might be viewed partly as a failure of the peer review process [ 97 ], but responsibility ultimately resides with authors. Detailing limitations allows other researchers to consider methodological improvements, identify gaps in the literature and has an ethical element by aiding research transparency. The inclusion of limitations not only helps increase research quality, but facilitates directions for future research and crucially, replications.

Quality summary

Of the 71 studies published since 1980, three-quarters were rated as ‘good’ or ‘strong’ in quality, and only one received a ‘poor’ quality rating. Indeed, study quality also indicates a continuous improvement in study quality across four decades of research. Despite the high levels of study quality and evidence of improving quality, we identified areas of methodological weakness: justifying sample size, providing more detail about non-respondents, and discussing study limitations.

One issue of note is the sampling, where almost two in three studies have relied on exclusively undergraduate samples (46/71: 65%), with many being psychology undergraduates. Future recruitment needs to move beyond the highly educated and address the bias towards female participants. Despite recruiting large samples, studies use large numbers of analyses, with a mean of 43 p -values reported in results sections, and rarely report appropriate adjustment of significance levels (12/71: 17%). These methodological issues are compounded by the fact that so few studies pre-register their primary hypotheses and analyses in advance (2/71: 3%).

Cognitive functioning

The 71 studies were grouped into six sections: (1) perceptual and cognitive biases, (2) reasoning, (3) intelligence, critical thinking, and academic performance, (4) thinking style, (5) executive function, and (6) other cognitive functions. Whenever possible, categories were classified according to the focus identified by the authors in each study. Such classifications are necessarily a simplification and not intended to provide a definitive organisation. Moreover, many studies could receive multiple classifications owing to the breadth of testing conducted (see S9 Table ). In this context, S9 Table shows that two in three (48/71) studies might be classified as assessing executive function.

Articles presented in the first section (perceptual and cognitive biases) included scenarios aimed at measuring cognitive biases towards confirmatory evidence, and the impact of visually degraded stimuli on biases in perceptual decision-making. Examples of tasks used in the second section (reasoning) include the mental dice task [ 63 ] aimed at measuring probabilistic reasoning, and the Reasoning Tasks Questionnaire (RTQ) [ 98 ] to assess both probabilistic and conditional reasoning. Studies in the third category (intelligence, critical thinking, and academic performance) included published measures such as the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) [ 99 ] and variations of Raven’s matrices (e.g., the Advanced Progressive Matrices Test [ 100 ]; Raven’s Progressive Matrices [ 101 ], and measures of academic achievement such as grade point average. In the fourth section (thinking style), papers used measures such as the Rational Experiential Inventory (REI) [ 102 ] and the Cognitive Reflection Test [ 103 ], aimed at assessing intuitive and analytical thinking. Studies in the fifth section (executive function and memory) included tasks such as the Deese-Roediger-McDermott task (DRM) [ 104 ] and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test [ 105 , 106 ]. The final cognitive section (other cognitive functions) included tasks to measure indirect semantic priming (using prime-target word pairs) and implicit sequence learning.

Perceptual and cognitive biases

Nineteen articles (n = 3,397) assessed perceptual and cognitive biases. Perceptual decision-making with high visual noise stimuli has produced inconsistent findings (k = 7). For example, in 2014 Simmonds-Moore [ 67 ] found believers made more misidentifications of degraded black and white images of objects and animals (e.g., shark, umbrella), despite having faster response latencies than sceptics (suggesting a potential speed-error trade-off, with believers favouring speed over accuracy). By contrast, Van Elk [ 66 ] found sceptics mis-categorised degraded black and white images of face stimuli as houses more frequently than believers. The findings from both studies, however, contradict those from Blackmore and Moore’s 1994 study [ 107 ], which reported no difference in the accurate identification of degraded monochrome images for believers and sceptics.

Two studies assessed perceptual decision-making relating to faces within degraded and artifact stimuli. Using black and grey images of faces and “nonfaces” (scrambled eyes-nose-mouth configurations), Krummenacher and colleagues [ 73 ] found believers made significantly more Type I errors than sceptics, favouring “false alarms” over “misses” (i.e., believers had a lower response criterion when classifying images as faces, with a bias towards “yes” responses). Similarly, Riekki et al. [ 108 ] presented participants with 98 artifact face pictures (containing a face-like area where eyes and a mouth could be perceived, e.g., a tree trunk) and 87 theme-matched non-face pictures (e.g., a tree trunk with no face-like areas). Believers rated the non-face pictures as more face-like and assigned more extreme positive and negative emotions to non-faces than sceptics.

A study conducted by Caputo [ 109 ] employed the strange-face illusion paradigm, in which pairs of participants are instructed to gaze into each other’s eyes for 10 minutes in a dimly-lit room. This paradigm induces the experience of seeing face-related illusions and is assessed on a self-report measure (Strange Face Questionnaire; SFQ [ 110 ]). No association was found for paranormal beliefs and the experience of strange-face illusions. A final study of perceptual decision-making conducted by Van Elk [ 111 ] used point-light-walker displays (an animated-point-set of 12 points, representing a human walking on a treadmill), randomly scrambling the location of each individual dot across the display; and participants had to detect if a human agent was present. Paranormal believers were more prone to illusory agency detection than sceptics, being biased towards ‘yes’ responses when no agent was present.

Cognitive biases have been assessed in 11 papers. These include reports of significant associations between paranormal belief and illusion of control or differences in causation judgements [ 65 , 112 – 114 ] and risk perception [ 115 ]. Two studies, however, report no significant relationships [ 29 , 116 ]. Further work shows that paranormal beliefs positively correlated with biases towards: anthropomorphism, dualism, teleology, and mentalising, but were not predicted by mentalising [ 15 ].

Proneness to jump to conclusions was assessed by Irwin and colleagues [ 68 ] using a computerised task [ 117 ]. Participants were informed of proportions of beads in two jars (e.g., 70 black and 30 red beads in jar one, but 30 black and 70 red beads in jar two), then shown a sequence of beads drawn one at a time from one of the jars and asked to identify whether beads were drawn from jar one or two, and to indicate when they are certain. Those who require fewer draws before being certain of their decision are identified as being prone to “jump to conclusions”. A significant negative correlation emerged for jumping to conclusions, but only with the Traditional Religious Beliefs (TRB) subscale of the Rasch-devised RPBS [ 85 ]. A significant positive correlation was also found between TRB scores and self-report indices of jumping to conclusions as measured with the Cognitive Biases Questionnaire [ 118 , 119 ] (e.g., “imagine you hear that a friend is having a party and you have not been invited”, 1 = little or no inclination to jump to a premature conclusion, 2 = inclination to make a cautious inference, 3 = inclination to jump to a dramatic inference).

Prike et al. [ 64 ] assessed proneness to jumping to conclusions using both a neutral (beads task) and an emotional draws-to-decision task (where participants decide whether positive or negative words are more likely a description of “Person A” or “Person B”–for a full description see Dudley et al.’s work [ 120 ]). Participants also saw a series of 24 scenarios to assess bias towards confirmatory and disconfirmatory evidence, as well as liberal acceptance. Each scenario consisted of three statements presented one at a time, e.g., (a) “Eric often carries binoculars with him”, (b) “Eric always has an unpredictable schedule”, (c) “Eric tries to solve mysteries”. Participants rated the likelihood of the same four response options after each statement, e.g., (a) “Eric is a private detective”, (b) “Eric is a bird expert”, (c) “Eric is a stalker”, (d) “Eric is an astronaut”. Each scenario presented an absurd interpretation (implausible for all three statements), a neutral lure, an emotional lure, and a true interpretation (less or equally as plausible as the lure options after the first statement but became the most plausible by the third statement). Paranormal beliefs were related to both disconfirmitory and confirmatory biases, but not to jumping-to-conclusions. Liberal acceptance predicted belief in the paranormal, but not after controlling for delusion proneness (as measured by the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory; PDI [ 121 ]). Lesaffre et al. [ 122 ] exposed participants to a magic performance and asked whether it was accomplished through: (1) paranormal, psychic, or supernatural powers, (2) ordinary magic trickery, or (3) religious miracles. Confirmation bias (i.e., explaining the magic performance in terms of paranormal powers) was associated with higher levels of paranormal beliefs. Barberia and colleagues [ 123 ] demonstrated that educating participants about confirmatory bias reduced scores on the Precognition subscale of the RPBS (but did not reduce global belief scores).

The studies assessing perceptual and cognitive biases are somewhat inconsistent regarding perceptual decision-making errors in response to degraded or ambiguous stimuli. Of the studies exploring perceptual decision-making, four suggest an inverse relationship between paranormal belief and perceptual decision-making, two found no relationship, and one reported more perceptual decision-making errors from sceptics. Results show greater consistency when perceptual decision-making tasks involve identifying a human face/agent (rather than inanimate objects or animals), with believers making significantly more false-positive misidentifications than sceptics. In the 11 studies exploring cognitive biases, paranormal believers show a consistent bias towards both confirmatory and disconfirmatory evidence. The evidence that paranormal belief links to the tendency to “jump to conclusions” is weaker, but only two studies present findings related to this outcome.

Seventeen papers have focussed on reasoning ability (n = 9,661), with the majority (12/17) reporting significant inverse relationships with paranormal beliefs and probabilistic reasoning. Perception of randomness and the conjunction fallacy have also been associated with paranormal beliefs on tasks with both neutral and paranormal content [ 69 , 80 , 124 – 128 ].

In 2007, Dagnall et al. [ 126 ] presented 17 reasoning problems across four categories: perception of randomness, base rate, conjunction fallacy, and probability. Perception of randomness problems required participants to determine the likelihood of obtaining particular strings (e.g., “Imagine a coin was tossed six times. Which pattern of results do you think is most likely? (a) HHHHHH, (b) HHHTTT, (c) HTHHTT, (d) all equally likely”). Performance on these problems significantly predicted paranormal belief, with believers making more errors than sceptics. No significant differences or predictive effects emerged for the three other problem categories. In a later study, Dagnall and colleagues [ 127 ] presented 20 reasoning problems across five categories of: perception of randomness, base rate, conjunction fallacy, paranormal conjunction fallacy, and probability. The authors again reported perception of randomness to be the sole predictor of paranormal beliefs, with high belief associated with fewer correct responses. While these papers report no effects in relation to conjunction fallacy, Rogers et al. [ 128 ] demonstrated a significant main effect of paranormal belief on conjunction errors, with believers making more errors than sceptics. In later studies, both Prike et al. [ 80 ] and Rogers et al. [ 129 ] reported an association between paranormal belief and conjunction fallacy, but this association was only significant for scenarios with confirmatory outcomes in the latter study.

Probabilistic reasoning ability has been consistently associated with paranormal beliefs across five studies. In one paper [ 130 ], participants received a probabilistic reasoning test battery comprised of six tasks. For example, one task was a variant of the birthday paradox (from Blackmore and Troscianko [ 97 ]), in which participants are asked: “How many people would you need to have at a party to have a 50:50 chance that two of them will have the same birthday (regardless of year of birth)”. Possible answers for this task were 22 (correct), 43, or 98. Significant positive correlations emerged between paranormal beliefs and errors on three of the six tasks (dice sequences, dice throws, and sample size estimates). In the second study [ 63 ], participants received written descriptions of two hypothetical events: throwing 10 dice once to get 10 sixes and throwing one die 10 times to get 10 successive sixes; and had to identify whether one event was more probable or both equally probable. The authors reported 64% of believers and 80% of sceptics correctly identified that both events were equally probable. Brugger et al. [ 131 ] assessed differences in repetition avoidance between believers and sceptics on a mental dice task (where participants imagined throwing a die and had to write down the number they imagined being on top of the die), finding significantly fewer repetitions in believers than sceptics. Similarly, Bressan et al. [ 132 ] used a probabilistic reasoning questionnaire with problems concerning the comprehension of sampling issues, sensitivity to sample size, representative bias (as applied to sample size or random sequences) and the generation of random sequences. Believers made more probabilistic errors on two of four generation of random sequences problems: (1) simulated coin toss problem, in which participants were asked to fill in 66 empty cells by writing ‘H’ (heads) or ‘T’ (tails) randomly to make a resulting sequence that was indistinguishable from that of an actually tossed coin), and (2) an adapted version of Brugger et al.’s [ 131 ] mental dice task. Finally, Blackmore [ 77 ] asked participants whether a list of 10 statements (as might be produced by a psychic, e.g., “there is someone called Jack in my family”) were true for them, and to estimate the number of these statements that might be true for a stranger in the street. The number of ‘true’ statements was greater for believers than sceptics (significantly on five of the ten questions), however no significant differences emerged when estimating the number of statements true for a stranger.

The final four papers in this section found non-significant correlations between paranormal belief and probabilistic reasoning, but significant correlations with conditional reasoning tasks. Using the Reasoning Tasks Questionnaire (RTQ) [ 97 ], one study [ 4 ] found neither probabilistic reasoning nor neutral conditional reasoning were associated with paranormal beliefs. However, conditional reasoning was associated with paranormal beliefs when conditional reasoning tasks contained paranormal content rather than neutral content, with believers making fewer errors on these tasks. The second paper [ 133 ] measured reasoning using a test that combined probabilistic reasoning questions (seven in total, four of which were derived from the RTQ), conditional reasoning questions with abstract content (e.g., “if C is true, then D will be observed. D is observed. Therefore, C is true: True or False?”), and conditional reasoning questions with paranormal content (e.g., “if people are aware of hidden objects, then clairvoyance exists. People are aware of hidden objects. Therefore, clairvoyance does exist: True or False?”). Overall, paranormal beliefs correlated negatively with reasoning ability and conditional reasoning ability, but not with probabilistic reasoning ability. When comparing the two types of conditional reasoning questions, the authors reported no difference between the correlations for paranormal beliefs and either the abstract or paranormal conditions. Following a similar format, Wierzbicki [ 134 ] assessed reasoning ability using 16 conditional reasoning statements with either parapsychological or abstract content, finding paranormal belief scores and number of reasoning errors correlated positively. The final paper in this section [ 78 ] employed 32 statements conditional reasoning statements and found participants with strong paranormal beliefs made more reasoning errors than those with weak paranormal beliefs.

In general, evidence suggests paranormal beliefs are associated with poorer reasoning, however this line of research is characterised by inconsistent findings. Two studies report that the perception of randomness is a significant predictor of paranormal belief and provide some evidence of replicability [ 126 , 127 ]. Despite this, evidence regarding the association between paranormal belief and the conjunction fallacy are conflicting, with two studies [ 127 , 128 ] reporting no effect, and three [ 80 , 128 , 129 ] reporting significant associations. This may be due, in part, to the different statistical techniques used within each study, as those reporting no effect [ 126 , 127 ] used multiple regression analyses with all probabilistic tasks entered as predictor variables, while studies reporting significant associations [ 80 , 128 , 129 ] only included conjunction fallacy tasks in their predictive models. Similar inconsistency emerges for probabilistic reasoning, with nearly equal numbers of studies reporting significant and nonsignificant associations with paranormal beliefs.

Intelligence, critical thinking, and academic performance

Twelve studies explored intelligence, critical thinking, and academic performance (n = 2,657). Seven papers focused on critical thinking ability, with two finding significant reductions in paranormal belief following a course in critical thinking [ 70 , 135 ]. Alcock and Otis’ 1980 study [ 136 ] employed the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) [ 137 ] significantly higher levels of critical thinking ability in sceptics than believers. In 1998, Morgan and Morgan [ 138 ] conducted a similar study, measuring critical thinking using a revised version of the WGCTA [ 98 ], finding significant negative correlations between critical thinking ability and three subscales of the PBS (Superstition, Traditional Religious Belief, and Spiritualism). No significant correlation between paranormal belief and critical thinking emerged in the remaining three papers [ 139 – 141 ]. One did, however, report significant negative correlations between reasoning ability (measured using the Winer Matrizen-Test [ 142 ]) and three subscales of the PBS: Traditional Paranormal Beliefs, Traditional Religiosity, and Superstition [ 139 ].

The links between paranormal beliefs and academic achievement, or general intelligence are both mixed and weak. Two papers report significant negative correlations, one between overall paranormal belief scores and mean academic grade [ 25 ] and one between grade point average and the Witchcraft and Superstition subscales of the PBS [ 143 ]. Turning to intelligence, Betsch et al. [ 71 ] found a significant inverse relationship between IQ and paranormal beliefs, but only when controlling for sex, supporting similar findings from Smith et al.’s 1998 study [ 144 ] which reported a significant negative correlation between paranormal beliefs and intelligence (using the Advanced Progressive Matrices Test, Set 1 [ 100 ]). Nevertheless, two studies found no association between paranormal beliefs and intelligence. Royalty [ 141 ] used the information subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale [ 145 ] as an estimate of full-scale IQ, and the vocabulary subtest of the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery [ 146 ] as a measure of verbal intelligence. Stuart-Hamilton et al. [ 147 ] found no relationship with fluid intelligence using Raven’s Progressive Matrices [ 101 ]; however, this sample were older (mean age of 71).

Conflicting findings emerge from studies of intelligence, critical thinking, and academic performance, with an almost equal number of significant and non-significant associations to paranormal beliefs. Some of this heterogeneity, however, appears to reflect whether studies used crystallised or fluid intelligence tasks and the age of the sample (e.g., Stuart-Hamilton et al. [ 147 ] failed to find a relationship between fluid IQ and paranormal beliefs in an older sample, but Smith et al. [ 144 ] found a significant negative association in a younger sample). The precise relationship of paranormal belief with intelligence requires further investigation, both by considering the age of the sample and assessing relationships with fluid and crystallised intelligence separately.

Thinking style

Thirteen studies (n = 4,100) examined aspects of thinking style. One consistent finding is a significant association between paranormal belief and an intuitive thinking style, which is characterised as being quick and guided by emotion [ 148 – 152 ]. A further study [ 153 ] also reports a significant partial correlation after controlling for sample type (online versus recruited face-to-face recruitment) owing to significantly higher levels of paranormal beliefs and intuitive thinking, and significantly lower rational/analytical thinking, in the online sample versus the face-to-face sample.

Contradictory findings, however, have emerged concerning paranormal beliefs and an analytical thinking style, which is thought to be more effortful and driven by logic. A positive relationship emerged in two studies [ 149 , 150 ] while two [ 72 , 152 ] found no relationship between paranormal beliefs and analytical thinking as assessed by the Rational Experiential Inventory (REI [ 102 ]). Four further studies report significant negative relationships between paranormal beliefs and analytical thinking using various measures: two [ 81 , 154 ] used different versions of the Cognitive Reflection Test [ 103 ]; one [ 90 ] used the Rational Experiential Multimodal Inventory [ 155 ]; and one [ 153 ] used both the Argument Evaluation Test [ 156 ] and the Actively Open-Minded Thinking scale [ 156 , 157 ]. A further study reported a significant negative relationship between paranormal beliefs and analytical thinking but could not replicate the finding [ 74 ].

The final two papers in this section document relationships between paranormal belief and other cognitive styles. Gianotti et al. [ 158 ] presented participants with 80 word-pairs (40 semantically indirectly related, 40 semantically unrelated), and they had to state if a third noun was semantically related to both words. Believers showed increased verbal creativity, making significantly more rare associations than sceptics for unrelated word-pairs, but not for indirectly related word-pairs. Hergovich [ 159 ] used the Gestaltwahrnehmungstest [ 160 ] to assess degree of field dependence, by presenting participants with figures in which they needed to find an embedded figure in the form of a house and reported a significant positive relationship between paranormal beliefs and field dependence.

Eight papers report positive associations between an intuitive thinking style and paranormal belief (although it should be noted that one study reported only a partial correlation after controlling for sample type). By contrast, evidence concerning an analytical thinking style is inconsistent, with reports of a negative relationship with belief (k = 4), a positive relationship (k = 2), and no relationship (k = 2). An additional study did report a negative relationship between analytical thinking and paranormal belief, but this was not replicated in a follow-up study. The final two studies in this section suggest positive relationships between paranormal belief and both verbal creativity and field dependence.

Executive function and memory

Six studies (n = 810) assessed memory or executive function. Turning first to memory, the findings are inconsistent. One study [ 161 ] showed paranormal belief predicted false memory responses on a questionnaire-based measure, and two others [ 59 , 78 ] reported associations between belief and behavioural measures of false memories but failed to replicate this in additional samples. Dudley’s 1999 study [ 162 ] had participants complete the Paranormal Belief Scale while rehearsing a five-digit number or not; and found significantly higher paranormal belief scores in the group who had their working memory restricted (by the rehearsal task). However, a recent study by Gray and Gallo [ 79 ] failed to find any differences in working memory, episodic memory or autobiographical memory for believers and sceptics.

Further inconsistencies can be seen when exploring relationships between paranormal belief and inhibitory control, with Lindeman et al. [ 163 ] noting more errors from believers than sceptics on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test [ 105 , 106 ], but not on the Stroop task [ 164 ]. Wain and Spinella [ 165 ] explored executive function using a self-report measure and found a negative correlation between paranormal belief and executive functioning, with negative correlations between belief and both inhibition and organisation.

The studies in this section report inconsistent links between paranormal belief and memory. While three of four memory studies report links between paranormal beliefs and an increased tendency to create false memories, two of these studies failed to replicate the finding. Two studies assessing executive functioning both suggest poorer performance is associated with belief but may interact with the measure of executive functioning.

Other cognitive functions

Finally, four papers (n = 368) explored other aspects of cognitive function not covered by the categories already described. Pizzagalli et al. [ 166 ] tested the association between indirect semantic priming and paranormal beliefs using 240 prime-target word pairs, with target words either directly related, indirectly related, or unrelated to the prime word. Compared to sceptics, believers had shorter reaction times for indirectly related target words were presented in the left visual field, suggesting a faster appreciation of distant semantic associations which the authors view as evidence of disordered thought. The final three papers did not find any significant relationships between paranormal beliefs and: implicit sequence learning [ 167 ], cognitive complexity [ 88 ], or central monitoring efficiency [ 168 ].

General discussion

This systematic review provides the first evidence synthesis of the associations between paranormal beliefs and cognitive function since the early ‘90s [ 53 ] and the first assessment of study quality. The review identified 71 studies involving 20,993 participants. While most studies achieve good-strong quality ratings, specific areas of methodological weakness warrant further attention. In particular, studies often employ large numbers of measures, metrics and analyses, with no clearly identified primary outcome or adjustment of probability levels. These factors necessarily constrain any firm conclusions because of the high probability of Type 1 errors. Second, information about nonrespondents was either unreported or reported with insufficient detail to permit an assessment of potential nonresponse bias. Finally, up to a third of studies failed to discuss study limitations.

The cognitive deficits hypothesis is apparent in most papers (55/71), and a simple vote count shows that two-in-three studies (46/71) document that paranormal beliefs are associated with poorer cognitive performance. The most consistent findings across the six cognitive domains emerged between paranormal belief and an intuitive thinking style, with all eight studies confirming a positive association. Consistent findings also emerged for a bias towards confirmatory and disconfirmatory outcomes, as well as for poorer conditional reasoning ability and perception of randomness, though fewer studies were conducted in these areas. The two studies assessing executive functioning identified a negative association with paranormal belief but showed some inconsistency depending upon the type of executive test used. Associations with all other aspects of cognitive functioning (perceptual decision-making, jumping to conclusions and repetition avoidance, the conjunction fallacy, probabilistic reasoning, critical thinking ability, intelligence, analytical thinking style, and memory) have proven inconsistent, with nearly equal numbers of significant and null findings.

Various measurement issues, however, need to be considered. One concerns the large number of paranormal belief measures employed and their varied psychometric properties. The studies reviewed employed 26 different tests of paranormal belief, with the most common being the RPBS and a Rasch variant, with the next most common being 13 bespoke tests created by the authors. Such variability most likely contributes to heterogeneity across studies and potentially undermines the reliability of reported associations between cognitive functions and paranormal beliefs. For a full summary of the scales used in each study, see S8 Table .

Not only does the range of cognitive measures used within each cognitive domain contribute to heterogeneity across studies, but so does the reliability of such measures. As Hedge et al. [ 169 ] note, individual differences in relation to cognition and brain function often employ cognitive tasks that have been well-established in experimental research. Such tasks may not be directly adaptable to correlational research, however, for the very reason that they elicit robust experimental effects; they are specifically designed and selected for low between-participant variability. Most studies presented here are correlational and use a combination of established experimental tasks (e.g., the WCST, Raven’s Matrices, Cognitive Reflection Test, Embedded Figures Test) and questionnaire-based methods to assess cognition. This may undermine the reliability of reported associations between cognitive functions and paranormal beliefs if studies use experimentally derived cognitive tasks that are sub-optimal for correlational studies. Hedge et al. [ 169 ] offer several suggestions to overcome this, such as the use of alternative statistical techniques (e.g., structural equation modelling), factoring reliability into a-priori power calculations to reduce the risk of bias towards a null effect, or using within-subjects designs when the primary goal of the study is to examine associations between measures rather than focusing on individual differences per se. The largely correlational approach of studies reviewed here also suffers from the standard limitations of questionnaire studies and correlational designs. Although regression approaches can be powerful, they cannot establish causality without the use of longitudinal methods. This correlational approach also means that moderators and mediators of the relationship between paranormal beliefs and cognition remain underspecified.

Future directions–the fluid-executive model

The general trend of the current review accords with the cognitive deficits hypothesis approach described by Irwin almost 30 years ago [ 53 ]–at least insofar as around 60% of published studies document paranormal beliefs to be associated with poorer cognitive performance. Nonetheless, the cognitive deficits hypothesis does not provide an entirely satisfying account of why paranormal believers and sceptics perform differently on such a wide variety of cognitive tasks. This has some key implications: first, that people who believe in the paranormal seemingly have a disparate array of cognitive deficits–are these assumed to have occurred independently of each other or do they somehow accumulate various cognitive deficits? Another implication is that such an array of cognitive deficits is largely atheroetical, with various researchers pursuing seemingly independent lines of research linking cognitive function to paranormal beliefs with little attention to integration. Hence a somewhat underspecified model pervades the literature, with often limited justification for the specific role played by cognitive function in paranormal beliefs or how and why such an array of deficits are identifiable in paranormal believers. Given the almost complete lack of preregistration, accompanied by the large numbers of statistical analyses often conducted without correction, we also cannot exclude concerns about potential publication bias, false positives, and selection bias. Empirical studies presenting significant or favourable findings are, of course, more likely to be published [ 170 ]; and crucially, psychologists tend to rate studies as having better quality when they conform to prior expectations. Hergovich et al. [ 171 ] demonstrated this bias by presenting psychologists (all of whom did not believe in astrology) with descriptions of parapsychological studies, finding that they gave higher quality ratings to studies disproving astrological hypotheses. Participants were less likely to complete the study if they received an abstract confirming astrological hypotheses, with an attrition rate of 38.90%. These issues underscore the importance of pre-registered replications of key findings (see Laws [ 172 ] for a discussion). To our knowledge, potential publication bias has not been extensively assessed. A previous meta-analysis of psychokinesis studies indicated the presence of publication bias [ 173 ], but this claim has been challenged [ 174 ]. Finally, questions also arise about whether poorer performance by believers on any cognitive ability tests even merits the descriptor of ‘deficits’; and recently has been rephrased more neutrally as the cognitive differences hypothesis [ 79 ]. The term ‘deficit’ typically implies a permanent lack or loss of cognitive function; however, little to no research has looked at the consistency of cognitive performance in paranormal believers across time and established whether poorer cognitive performance is more trait than state dependent. While paranormal beliefs appear to be largely trait-like, they may have a state component [ 175 ].

While current studies do not necessarily endorse Irwin’s 1993 [ 53 ] comment that “…the believer in the paranormal is held variously to be illogical, irrational, credulous, uncritical, and foolish” (p.16), they converge on an underlying non-specific cognitive deficit or collection of deficits. Typically, when an array of cognitive deficits/differences are documented, researchers would want to know if specific areas of cognitive weakness emerge. Currently, no cognitive area suggests a specific deficit profile in paranormal believers. Although not directly tested, paranormal believers might display heterogeneous cognitive profiles that link to different paranormal belief components. Nonetheless, it is hard to see why or how specific types of paranormal belief content would link to different cognitive deficits.

One possibility is that the failure of any specific area of cognitive dysfunction to emerge (amongst perceptual and cognitive biases, reasoning, intelligence, critical thinking and academic performance, thinking style, and executive functioning), may point to a common shared underlying cognitive component. One feasible interpretation is that many of the tasks described in the various domains described here do in fact share a common cognitive ability—higher-order executive functions (planning, reasoning and problem-solving, impulse control, initiation, abstract reasoning, and mental flexibility), which in turn may be related to aspects of fluid intelligence [ 176 ].

Human functional brain imagining identifies strikingly similar patterns of prefrontal cortex activity in response to cognitive challenges across various seemingly different domains, including: increased perceptual difficulty (high vs low noise degradation), novelty, response conflict, working memory, episodic and semantic memory, problem solving, and task novelty [ 177 – 179 ]. This demand-general activity underlies our ability to engage in flexible thought and problem-solving [ 177 ] and is closely linked to fluid intelligence [ 180 ]. We propose that the broad cognitive-deficit profile linked to paranormal beliefs may overlap with functions of the multiple-demand (MD) system. Part of the function of the MD system concerns its role in the separation and assembly of task components and that this accounts for the link with fluid intelligence. In this context, we suggest that each of the cognitive domains linked to paranormal beliefs may indeed be subserved by this MD system housed in the fronto-parietal cortex. The section on executive function is self-evidently linked with the frontal system. The section on intelligence similarly highlights links between paranormal beliefs and fluid IQ measures such as the Ravens Matrices [ 100 , 101 ]. Studies further show the same MD system is recruited when confronted with perceptually difficult tasks (such as those outlined in the section on perceptual and cognitive biases for degraded visual input) [ 66 , 67 , 107 , 108 ]. Aside from supporting our problem-solving ability, fluid intelligence and various aspects of executive functioning (e.g., working memory) underpins our ability to reason and to see relations among items and includes both inductive and deductive logical reasoning. The section on reasoning shows paranormal beliefs are related to conditional and probabilistic reasoning [ 69 , 77 , 80 , 124 – 134 ]. Thus, many of the cognitive deficit-paranormal belief associations may be reframed as the product of a single underlying fluid intelligence-executive component. Going forward, such a model suggests potential avenues of research. One prediction would be that groups of believers and sceptics matched for fluid IQ would be less likely differ on a range of cognitive tasks.

Limitations of the present review

The current review is the first to assess the quality of studies examining cognitive function and paranormal beliefs. We report study quality is good-to-strong, with interrater reliability on AXIS ratings being almost-perfect (93%). Individual AXIS items however are not weighted and any simple comparisons between specific studies across total summed quality scores should be regarded with caution [ 181 – 183 ]. Thus, two studies with the same total quality score, but across different items, might not be comparable because some items may be more concerning to quality than others. Hence, we have focused on specific domains of strength or weakness across studies.

We acknowledge substantial limitations regarding the classification of studies into six areas of cognitive function: (1) perceptual and cognitive biases, (2) reasoning, (3) intelligence, critical thinking, and academic performance, (4) thinking style, (5) executive function, and (6) other cognitive functions. S9 Table shows that many of the studies could be re-classified and indeed, two-thirds (48/71) could be re-classified as assessing executive functioning. The latter is consistent with our proposal that a substantial proportion of the published studies may be documenting a relationship between paranormal beliefs and higher-level executive function/fluid intelligence.

Our preregistered protocol had an exclusion criterion concerning samples with individuals aged less than 18, and this led to our excluding 11 datasets (see S1 Table for a complete list and details; Aarnio & Lindeman [ 26 ], Saher & Lindeman [ 184 ], and Lindeman & Aarnio [ 185 ] were overlapping or identical samples). A key reason for exclusion was because age impacts both cognitive functions and paranormal beliefs. Certain cognitive functions, for example executive functions, take until late adolescence or early adulthood to mature [ 186 ]. Additionally, younger individuals also show higher levels of paranormal beliefs [ 187 ; for a discussion see Irwin’s review, 53 ]. While the exclusion of these studies is a potential limitation, their exclusion does not change our key findings or conclusions drawn from this review. In the same context, our lack of an upper age limit exclusion criterion could also be considered as a limitation. Sixteen papers (23%) reviewed here included participants aged 65+ (though 25/71 (36%) studies did not report on the age range of participants). While some cognitive functions do not mature until late adolescence or early adulthood, measurable changes in cognitive function occur with normal aging. Performance on certain cognitive tasks has been shown to decline with age, such as those requiring executive functioning (including decision-making, working memory and inhibitory control), visuoperceptual judgement and fluid-intelligence [ 188 , 189 ]. Such cognitive declines have been associated with age-related reductions of white matter connections in brain regions including the prefrontal cortex [ 190 , 191 ].

Finally, one limitation is that we were unable to conduct a meta-analysis because of the large variability in outcome measures within and between studies, which make it challenging to determine the precise outcome being tested. In parallel, the large numbers of analyses per study also mean that conclusions from our systematic review regarding findings for specific cognitive domains must also be interpreted with some caution.

Our systematic review identified 71 studies spanning: perceptual and cognitive biases, reasoning, intelligence, critical thinking, and academic performance, thinking styles, and executive function. However, then tasks employed to assess performance in each domain often appear to require higher-order executive functions and fluid intelligence. We therefore propose a new, more parsimonious, fluid-executive theory account for future research to consider. Methodological quality is generally good; however, we highlight specific theoretical and methodological weaknesses within the research area. In particular, we recommend future studies preregister their study design and proposed analyses prior to data collection, and address both the heterogeneity issues linked to paranormal belief measures and the reliability of cognitive tasks. We hope these methodological recommendations alongside the fluid-executive theory will help to further progress our understanding of the relationship between paranormal beliefs and cognitive function.

Supporting information

S1 appendix, s2 appendix.

Note: Ts = Thinking Style, CPb = Cognitive and Perceptual Biases, O = Other Cognitive Functions, REI = Rational and Experiential Inventory (Epstein et al., 1996), SJQ = Scenario Judgements Questionnaire (Rogers et al., 2016; Rogers et al., 2011), IPO-RT = Inventory of Personality Organization (Lenzenweger et al., 2001), RT = reality testing, ASGS = Australian Sheep-Goat Scale (Thalbourne & Delin, 1993), ESP = extrasensory perception, LAD = life after death, PK = psychokinesis, NAP = new age philosophy, TPB = traditional paranormal beliefs, RPBS = Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk, 2004; Lange et al., 2000), CKCS = Core Knowledge Confusions scale (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007; Lindeman et al., 2008), CRT = Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005), BRC = base-rate conflict, BRN = base-rate neutral, SREIT = Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (Schutte et al., 1998), WCQ = Ways of Coping Questionnaire (Folkman & Lazarus, 1988), IBI = Irrational Beliefs Inventory (Koopmans et al., 1994).

Note: / = information not reported, P = perceptual biases, C = cognitive biases, bl = believers, sc = sceptics, + = positive,— = negative, corr. = correlation, Ns. = nonsignificant, ESP = extrasensory perception, BADE = bias against disconfirmatory evidence, BACE = bias against confirmatory evidence, TRB = traditional religious beliefs, ELF = extraordinary lifeforms, PRI = Personal Risk Inventory (Hockey et al., 2000), SFQ = Strange-Face Questionnaire (Caputo, 2015), IDAQ = Individual Differences in Anthropomorphism Quotient (Waytz et al., 2010), DS = Dualism Scale (Stanovich, 1989), EQ = Empathy Quotient (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004).

Note: / = information not reported, + = positive,— = negative, corr. = correlation, Ns. = nonsignificant, ESP = extrasensory perception, PK = psychokinesis, LAD = life after death, NAP = new age philosophy, DR = deductive reasoning, RTQ = Reasoning Task Questionnaire (Blackmore & Troscianko, 1985), ASGS = Australian Sheep-Goat Scale (Thalbourne & Delin, 1993), RPBS = Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk, 2004), MMU-N = Manchester Metropolitan University New (Dagnall et al., 2010).

Note: / = information not reported, C = cognitive ability, I = intelligence, m = males, f = females, + = positive,— = negative, corr. = correlation, Ns. = nonsignificant, ATS = Assessment of Thinking Skills (Wesp & Montgomery, 1998), WGCTA-S = Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Form S (Watson & Glaser, 1994), WGCTA = Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser, 2002; Watson & Glaser, 1980; Watson & Glaser, 1964), RPM = Raven’s Progressive Matrices (Raven et al., 2000), RPM Rasch Model = Raven’s Progressive Matrices Rasch Model (Rasch, 1960), MHVT = Mill Hill Vocabulary Test (Raven et al., 1998), CCTT = Cornell Critical Thinking Test (Ennis & Millman, 1985), WMT = Wiener Matrizen Test (Formann & Piswanger, 1979), APM = Advanced Progressive Matrices (Raven, 1976), WAIS-IS = Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Information Subtest (Wechsler, 1955), GPA = Grade Point Average.

Note: / = information not reported, + = positive,— = negative, corr. = correlation, Ns. = nonsignificant, AOT = Actively Open-Minded Thinking Scale (Stanovich et al., 2016; Stanovich, 1999), CRT = Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick, 2005), CRT-2 = Cognitive Reflection Test-2 (Thompson & Oppenheimer, 2016), REI = Rational-Experiential Inventory (Pacini & Epstein, 1999), WST = WordSum Test (Huang & Hauser, 1998), RI = Rational/Experiential Inventory (Norris & Epstein, 2011), IPSI-SF = Information-Processing Style Inventory Short Form (Naito et al., 2004), FIS = Faith in Intuition Scale (Pacini & Epstein 1999), NFC = Need for Cognition scale (Cacioppo et al., 1984), AET = Argument Evaluation Test (Stanovich & West, 1997), 10-Item REI = 10-Item Rational-Experiential Inventory (Epstein et al., 1996), GWT = Gestaltwahrnehmungs Test (Hergovich & Hörndler, 1994), EFT = Embedded Figures Test (Witkin et al., 1971).

Note: / = information not reported, M = memory, EF = executive function, bl = believers, sc = sceptics, + = positive,— = negative, corr. = correlation, Ns. = nonsignificant, DRM = Deese-Roediger-McDermott (Roediger & McDermott, 1995), CRT = Criterial Recollection Task (Gallo, 2013), IIT = Imagination Inflation Task (Garry et al., 1996), RSPAN = Reading-Span Task (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980), OSPAN = Operation Span Task (Turner & Engle, 1989), SILS = Shipley Institute of Living Scale (Zachary, 1986), AET = Argument Evaluation Task (Stanovich & West, 1997), RAT = Remote Associations Test (Mednick, 1962), WCST = Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Berg, 1948; Grant & Berg, 1948), EFI = Executive Function Index (Spinella, 2005), ANP = anomalous natural phenomena, TRB = traditional religious beliefs, NCQ = News Coverage Questionnaire (Wilson & French, 2006), ASGS = Australian Sheep-Goat Scale (Thalbourne 1995; Thalbourne & Delin, 1993), AEI = Anomalous Experiences Inventory (Kumar et al., 1994).

Note: / = information not reported, bl = believers, sc = sceptics, f = females, m = males, ISL = implicit sequence learning, ISP = implicit semantic priming, VF = visual field, LVF = left visual field, RVF = right visual field, CME = central monitoring efficiency, RE = reasoning errors, CC = cognitive complexity, + = positive,— = negative, corr. = correlation, Ns. = nonsignificant, SPQ-B = Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire Brief (Raine & Benishay, 1995), RCRG = Role Construct Repertory Grid (Kelly, 1955).

Note:† = papers that provided reliability statistics for their novel scales, ‡ = used a translated version of the original scale, * = Musch & Ehrenberg (2002) developed a novel scale that was later named the BPS and was used in two subsequent studies. RPBS = Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk 1988; 2004), ASGS = Australian Sheep-Goat Scale (Thalbourne & Delin, 1993), PBS = Paranormal Belief Scale (Tobacyk & Milford, 1982), Rasch RPBS = Rasch devised Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (Lange et al., 2000), BPS-O = Belief in the Paranormal Scale (Original; Jones et al., 1977), BPS = Belief in the Paranormal Scale (Musch & Ehrenberg, 2002), MMU-N = Manchester Metropolitan University New (see Dagnall et al., 2010), MMU-PS = Manchester Metropolitan University Paranormal Scale (see Dagnall et al., 2010), SSUB = Survery of Scientifically Unsubstantiated Beliefs (Irwin & Marks, 2013), OS = Occultism Scale (Böttinger, 1976), PS = Paranormal Scale (Orenstein, 2002), AEI = Anomalous Experiences Inventory (Gallagher et al., 1994; includes a ‘belief’ subscale).

Note: ✓ = original category, ✓ = alternate category.

Funding Statement

The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Data Availability

• PLoS One. 2022; 17(5): e0267360.

Decision Letter 0

13 Dec 2021

PONE-D-21-32750Paranormal beliefs and cognitive function: A systematic review and assessment of study quality across four decades of researchPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dean,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands.

The reviewers have made a very careful job, and provide quite a large number of recommendations regarding potential ways in which the manuscript could be improved. Most revisions seem doable, although they might require the paper to be substantially rewritten.

In view of the detailed reports (attached below), I will not reiterate all their points. Main suggestions, however, seem to regard to major themes. First, the reviewers demand a better justification of the categories used to classify studies. The reviewers (and I) understand that there will always be a certain degree of arbitrariness in classifying the studies identified, but the commonality between studies in the same category is not always obvious, and some studies seem to be classifiable in a different category.

And second, all reviewers have found the results quite difficult to follow, and not always sufficiently informative. Section-wise interim conclusions are probably necessary for the reader to get a clearer picture of the results in each area of research.

On the side of strengths, the reviewers have evaluated very positively some aspects of the methodology, including protocol preregistration, strict adherence to PRISMA guidelines, and the careful assessment of evidence quality in the reviewed studies. Please address, however, the reviewers' concerns regarding the decision to exclude studies with adolescents, and the total-score assessment of study quality

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: N/A

Reviewer #4: N/A

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #4: No

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors present a review article on the association between paranormal beliefs and divergencies in cognitive function. The topic has been gaining relevance in the last decades in the research community and is of interest for a wide audience. Although I agree with the authors that a metanalysis would have been more valuable, I reckon that the heterogeneity in the studies published so far hinders that approach. In any case, I believe that a systematic review paper like the one presented will be of use for many researchers interested in this field during the following years.

Nevertheless, I have some concerns I believe merit clarification before recommending publication:

Line 87: I think there is a parenthesis missing (or one too many)

Line 95: I guess that this is a matter of personal preference (so you can ignore it), but I thought the sentences on line 95 to 100 (“While factors…”) were not very relevant for the study (which is already quite long and includes many references) so they could be deleted.

Line 101: While setting the case for the study of cognitive function and paranormal beliefs, the authors comment on studies of “other” kinds of beliefs, such as religious beliefs and conspiracist beliefs. Regarding the former, as far as I know, religious beliefs are, at least sometimes, considered one type of paranormal beliefs (see the Traditional Religious Beliefs dimension in the widely used questionnaire by Tobacyk). I think this should be clarified in the text. As for conspiracist beliefs, the authors could make use of the concept of “epistemically unwarranted beliefs” (see Lobato et al., 2014) to stablish links between these types of beliefs and maybe include some references to pseudoscientific beliefs too.

Line 114: Irwin’s review only included null findings?

Line 133: The aims of the larger study should be (at least briefly) explained.

Line 143: Were any unpublished works or theses included in the final list of studies. If so, this should be clarified through the description of the process and, at least, when discussing the final selection.

(around) Line 177: The “sought for retrieval” step appears in Figure 1, but I think it is not explained in the text.

Line 207: I do not think illusion of control and causal illusion should be categorized as perceptual biases. As far as I know, they are usually characterized as cognitive biases (see Matute, Yarritu and Vadillo, 2011), and they are very different to the other studies included in this section (visual noise studies).

Line 212: Here, I missed inclusion of Torres et al. (2020) (it appeared in a Scopus search using “paranormal belief” AND cogni*)

Lines 221 and 227: In which unit are these quantities expressed and how do they relate with the percentages in line 217

205: How were paranormal beliefs measured in each study?

Lines 287 and 295: Aren’t repetition avoidance tasks a measure of probabilistic reasoning? I think these studies would fit more comfortably in the next section.

Line 370: associations between paranormal beliefs and what?

Line 372: Here, I missed Barberia et al. (2018) (also appeared in a Scopus search).

Line 378: reference 125 is about an association between pseudoscientific beliefs and paranormal beliefs. I am not sure this should be included as a (cognitive) measure of critical thinking given the relation between the two types of beliefs. If the authors decide to keep it, then they should also consider other studies relating different types of unwarranted beliefs with each other (e.g., Lobato et al, 2014; Fasce and Pico, 2019…).

Line 439: In this section I missed Meyersburg et al. (2009) study, but then I couldn’t find it when I tried a search in Scopus so I guess it is ok.

Line 507: when discussing sampling representativeness, I think the sex/gender issue deserves some comment. Were samples composed of both men and women? were they balanced? At least in those studies recruiting Psychology students my guess is that more women would have been involved…

Line 528: I would appreciate a table or at least more information on the percentages of usage of each different test (not just Tobacyk and ad hoc questionnaires). It could be even worth providing information separated by each topic. Could differences regarding the association between critical thinking and paranormal beliefs be related to the use of different measures of belief endorsement?

Line 683: I think the authors should include in the discussion some comment on the implications of the fact that most of the studies analyzed are correlational.

Line 755: Regarding the proposal of the fluid-executive theory, the authors should describe ways in which this hypothesis could be tested.

Reviewer #2: The authors present a systematic review (without meta-analysis) of the literature relating paranormal beliefs with performance in different cognitive tasks, with a particular focus in the critical assessment of the quality of the studies conducted so far. Overall, I think that this can be a valuable resource for researchers working on this area and, hopefully, it will also contribute to improving the quality of future research. I do have some concerns, though, that the authors might want to address in the final version of the manuscript.

Perhaps my most important concern is that in the present version of the ms it is quite difficult to follow the results section. As the authors themselves acknowledge their classification of tasks is somewhat arbitrary because “such classifications are necessarily a simplification and are not intended to be a definitive organisation”. This is undeniable true, but even so some of the headings collate results from radically different tasks and at some points I couldn’t help thinking that some paragraphs actually belonged in a different section. Or, perhaps alternatively, the authors might want to provide some explanation for the logic behind including several tasks under a common heading. This is particularly problematic in the section now titled “Cognitive and perceptual biases”, which includes a wide range of phenomena from illusion of control (measured in learning tasks comprising hundreds of trials) to perception of faces and other stimuli. What’s the common feature underlying these different tasks? Is it the case that all (or most) of them are somehow related to the (illusory) perception of patterns where there is just noise? If that’s the case, I think the authors need to spell this logic out more clearly, possibly change the name of the section and perhaps move some of the tasks that do not fit well in this category to other sections. They might even want to consider dividing this section in two or more less heterogeneous sections.

I also found it slightly odd that the jump to conclusions task is included in this section, when it is actually more similar to some of the probabilistic reasoning tasks included in the following section.

Also, in the present version it is easy to get lost in the enumeration of Results, without getting a glimpse at the whole picture until the Discussion section. If the results section were briefer this would be ok, but given the length of the paper I think many readers would find it useful to be reminded occasionally of the interim conclusions that can be reached with the information provided in each subheading. In other words, I miss 1-2 concluding sentences providing an overview of the results found for each category of tasks.

The assessment of the quality of the studies plays a very important role in the manuscript and it is indeed a great contribution. But while reading it I had some concerns about the reduction of this information to a single “quality score” for each study. Although this is certainly common in meta-analytic literature, this approach has also been criticized, and rightly so in my opinion (e.g., Jüni, P., Witschi, A., Bloch, R., & Egger, M. (1999). The hazards of scoring the quality of clinical trials for meta-analysis. JAMA, 282, 1054–1060.) I would not ask the authors to change their approach, but I think it would be worth mentioning, even if briefly, that reducing the responses to these quality scales to a single score can be misleading and should be taken with caution.

In the introduction, the authors mention that the two most common tests to measure paranormal beliefs have good psychometric properties. But this is just one side of the story. These studies are trying to relate paranormal beliefs with performance in cognitive tasks that might not have such good psychometric properties. See, e.g., Hedge, C., Powell, G., & Sumner, P. (2018). The reliability paradox: Why robust cognitive tasks do not produce reliable individual dif- ferences. Behavior Research Methods, 50, 1166–1186. https://doi. org/10.3758/s13428-017-0935-1 This is important, because the observed correlation between any two measures is attenuated downwards if any of them (not just the paranormal belief scale) is unreliable. If the reliability of these tasks does not improve in future research (or sample sizes are not adjusted taking it into account) this will necessarily result in high heterogeneity (i.e., much more variance from one study to another) and small average effect sizes.

Regarding sample sizes, I was a bit puzzled to read that “overpower” can be a problem in this area. I am afraid I strongly disagree with this point of view. In my opinion, there cannot be such a thing as an excess of power. The authors justify this saying that “… large studies might also be over-powered and thus, detecting very small and possibly trivial effects”. This confounds hypothesis testing (whether an effect is significantly different from zero) with parameter estimation (what the exact size of an effect). The fact that many researchers take a significant result for a “relevant” result is the consequence of using statistical tests mindlessly and it would be an error to encourage researchers to use smaller-than-possible sample sizes as a solution. Regardless of whether you want to test the null hypothesis or know the exact size of an effect, a large sample size will always be helpful because it will reduce the uncertainty of your inferences. What researchers need to be reminded is that not everything that is statistically significant is important.

Minor comments

- If the goal is to represent a trend in time, I suspect that most readers would find Figure 5 easier to read if years are plotted in the x-axis.

- In the flow chart, I couldn’t understand how from 475 records screened you take 5 reports for retrieval, but then below you have again 84 reports originating from these 5. Something seems to be wrong or misleading in the flow of records.

Reviewer #3: This paper provides a comprehensive and thorough review of research into the relationship between paranormal beliefs and cognitive functioning. As the authors note, considerable time has passed since the last review of paranormal beliefs and cognition, so this paper makes a strong, important, and timely (if not long overdue) contribution to the literature. I also commend the authors for preregistering their PRISMA guidelines and for the level of detail and clarity they provide about how the systematic review was conducted. Overall, I think this paper will make a great contribution to the literature. However, there are some areas where I believe the paper could be improved which I have highlighted in detail below.

Major points:

1) Regarding the paper structure, I think it might be better to more clearly separate the study quality assessment results and discussion from the paranormal belief and cognition findings and theory results and discussion. The Introduction focuses on the key points, is clear and easy to follow, and provides an appropriate (broad) set up for the focus of the paper. Similarly, the Method section is clear, concise, and enjoyable to read. However, from the Results onwards the paper can be quite difficult to follow in places. For example, it goes from the Method to an outline of findings in the literature, then to sections on study quality assessment, then back to a discussion of cognitive deficits/differences, then onto open science (I think this section should be moved to be alongside the sampling issues and non-respondents), then back onto a summary of research findings and a proposal for a new theory etc.

This review paper is doing two things. Firstly, extracting and assessing the quality of the existing literature on paranormal beliefs and cognitive function. Secondly, it is also outlining and synthesising the findings from that literature (plus proposing a new theory/hypothesis for testing). These are two separate and quite distinct focuses. Therefore, I think it would be better to more clearly delineate them and instead present all of one aspect (quality assessment and relevant discussion) followed by everything relevant to the other (outline and synthesis of findings).

2) Related to the above point, the results generally provide a clear and comprehensive summary of the various findings that have been catalogued within each subsection. However, I think each subsection would benefit from an overall summary or synthesis that brings it all together. If you make the changes to the paper structure that I have recommended above, this may no longer be necessary because these results will be more closely followed by a relevant discussion section (but see how it looks and consider it). In comparison, the results for the quality assessment are accompanied by relevant discussion within the actual results section.

3) I think the proposed fluid-executive theory is underdeveloped and would benefit from some further explanation and elaboration. You explain how it would relate to probabilistic reasoning but don’t outline how it would contribute to or explain the other findings (e.g., cognitive and perceptual biases).

Additionally, I think you need to do more work to justify why this specific aspect should be focused on, rather than alternative explanations. For example, others might argue that analytical thinking (Pennycook et al., 2015), or a “rationality quotient” (Stanovich, 2016; Stanovich et al., 2016; Weller, 2017; although see Ritchie, 2017), could also be proposed as underlying (or overarching) theories that explain the various associations between paranormal belief and cognitive functioning. I am happy to be convinced that the proposed theory is the best/most plausible candidate, I just think it needs some further fleshing out and additional evidence to support it.

Minor points:

1) I understand the desire to not include studies on children, given the potential cognitive differences. However, from examining Table S1, it seems that for all the excluded studies the vast majority of participants included in the studies were adults and they just happened to also include some teenagers in the study. I think it would be justifiable to exclude studies that had solely focused on children or teenage samples but given the already wide variability in cognitive function between 18- and 70-year olds, it seems unnecessary to exclude these studies solely because they also include some participants in their mid-late teens. I know this is a deviation from your preregistration so feel free to push back or disagree, but it wouldn’t change your conclusions and I think it’s okay to make some deviations if they are well justified.

2) Is the discussion of test theories and differential item functioning in the Introduction necessary? It seems like an unnecessary distraction from the main focus of the paper, so I’d just leave it at a sentence or two explaining that there is debate about why these differences are found.

3) I think that Figures 2-4 for the AXIS data would be greatly improved if you also included No and Unsure (you could keep the current format but have the bars contain different colours for each response category). This is particularly important because when initially looking at the figures it is not clear that there was an “unsure” category (e.g., it looks like half the studies didn’t have ethical approval, when it likely just wasn’t explicitly reported).

4) The section on open science focuses solely on pre-registration but there are many other aspects of open science such as publicly sharing data, analysis scripts, materials etc. I think you should either broaden this section to cover those additional open science aspects or, if you want to avoid lengthening the paper, then you could combine the pre-registration section with the sample size justification section, presenting it as a possible solution to address these problems.

5) The data are not currently accessible via the OSF link ( https://osf.io/7bthg/ ). Please update the OSF page to make it public or provide a reviewer only link if you don’t want to make the data fully open to the public yet. Don’t worry, I’ve done the same thing before and this happens with half or more of the OSF links I’ve seen when reviewing papers.

References mentioned in the review that are not already in the paper:

Pennycook, G., Fugelsang, J. A., & Koehler, D. J. (2015). Everyday consequences of analytic thinking. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(6), 425–432. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415604610

Ritchie, S. (2017). Review of: The rationality quotient: Toward a test of rational thinking (K. E. Stanovich, R. F. West, & M. E. Toplak). Intelligence, 61, 46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2017.01.001

Stanovich, K. E. (2016). The comprehensive assessment of rational thinking. Educational Psychologist, 51(1), 23–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2015.1125787

Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F., & Toplak, M. E. (2016). The Rationality Quotient: Toward a Test of Rational Thinking. The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10319.001.0001

Weller, J. (2017). Review of: The rationality quotient toward a test of rational thinking, by Keith E. Stanovich, Richard F. West, and Maggie E. Toplak. Thinking & Reasoning, 23(4), 497–502. https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2017.1346521

Reviewer #4: Overall Evaluation:

The paper presents a review and summary of the past 40 years of research on paranormal belief and cognitive functioning. As noted by the authors, there has not been a systematic review of this relationship since Irwin’s (1993) work almost 30 years ago. I wholeheartedly agree with the authors that such a systematic review is needed, and that it would add significantly to our overall understanding of the current state of the field. Unfortunately, though, I think there are some key issues with the current attempt that need to be addressed to turn it into a beneficial contribution to the area.

1. Given the range of tasks and variables in this particular area, I have no doubt it was difficult to synthesize the information in a straightforward and simple manner. However, even though I work in this area, I found it hard to track through the main sections. Specifically, each section was a listing of how one study showed X, two studies showed Y, et cetera, and by the end of each section it was not clear what specifically the reader should take away. At a minimum, using something like clear and specific tables to help organize the material would help immensely, especially in terms of trying to track through what the various studies do or do not show. There are the tables in the supplementary material, and admittedly even though they are broken up by section and a bit tricky to see “overall” outcomes, I found them easier to follow in terms of thinking across the studies.

Relatedly, in several spots the writing/presentation was dense, which may have added to the experience of not knowing what the “take home” message was for each section. For example, proper paragraphs should rarely run over a page, but more than one did, and one paragraph actually went for almost a full 2 pages (pgs 11-13). In general, editing for direct language, paragraph length, et cetera, would help improve clarity of the information being presented.

2. Again, I understand it would be difficult to categorize the experiments, but the current way of doing it seems to actually work against providing a systematic review. For example, there were fewer studies than I would have expected in the thinking styles section, just because this has been a particularly popular topic to explore in terms of paranormal beliefs. I could see, though, how some of that work would have ended up in other sections given the classification criteria; however, it then feels like we are not getting the full picture. Again, I think this is where tables may be particularly useful; for example, rather than binning studies under just one section, it would be much more useful to have tables that include all of the categories. Thus, we would be able to see what each study contributes across the categories (when relevant), rather than to just a single category. I recognize the authors may have attempted this approach and for some reason it was not viable, but based on systematic reviews in other areas that have used this set-up it would seem to be the more useful approach. This type of set-up would also help more clearly and succinctly demonstrate what the reader should take away from the area.

3. The limitations discussion seems like a bit of a tacked-on section rather than a real consideration of the current work. For example, as already mentioned, one potential issue is how the studies had to be categorized, which means they can only contribute to one section even though they may potentially also be able to contribute to at least one other section.

Further, and this may be an unfair criticism given the complexity of the area, but I had fully expected at least some sort of meta-analysis of the studies. Again, this may be because the listing out of the studies across the sections did not land well in terms of what to concretely take away. However, given the current techniques available for meta-analyses it feels like that is what we would gain the most from in terms of understanding the current state of the relationships between paranormal belief and cognitive functioning.

4. There seems to be some sweeping generalizations made that are not necessarily an accurate representation of the area. For example, there’s a difference between a cognitive deficits hypothesis suggesting “paranormal believers are illogical, irrational, and uncritical,” and what the researchers of each study argued for as the hypothesis/explanation for their work. Sure, some likely would subscribe to this particularly spin on cognitive deficits, but looking for “more or less” of a skill/ability does not necessarily mean researchers in this area would agree that believers are “illogical” or “irrational”.

5. A minor point, but was any effort put into searching for articles using the term “anomalistic”? The term “paranormal” is still the most common terminology, but given Chris French and colleague’s focus on using the more broad term of anomalistic belief (and subsequent work from others that has followed suit), it is not clear whether just using “paranormal” would have picked up all of the relevant studies.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3:  Yes:  Toby Prike

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Author response to Decision Letter 0

31 Jan 2022

We would like to thank the reviewers for their careful review and the insightful and detailed comments they provided.

We have addressed and responded to the reviewers' comments, details of which can be found in the 12-page Response to Reviewers document.

We have addressed the main points raised, particularly the clarity of the results and the classification of studies, by providing new sections within the manuscript (e.g., summaries following each subsection of the results) as well as new supplementary materials (e.g., S9 Table).

We would like to thank the editor and reviewers again for the valuable comments, which we feel have greatly improved the manuscript, and for the opportunity to revise and resubmit the work.

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

PONE-D-21-32750R1Paranormal beliefs and cognitive function: A systematic review and assessment of study quality across four decades of researchPLOS ONE

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. The revised paper has been assessed by the same four reviewers from the previous round. All of them recommend minor revisions, but they are not fully coincident, so some amount of work is still required. Still, all suggested changes are modest and doable, so a further review round with the four reviewers again might not be necessary if all concerns are addressed.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 22 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at  gro.solp@enosolp . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: I am generally satisfied with the responses offered by the authors to my previous comments. Now I have some minor concerns, mostly regarding the PRISMA protocols, which I describe in the following:

PRISMA for abstracts:

- The Methods section should specify the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the review, and the dates when each database was last searched. It should also specify the methods used to assess risk of bias in the included studies.

- The Results section should indicate the number of included studies and participants for each relevant outcome mentioned (e.g., association between paranormal belief and intuitive thinking bias).

- The primary source of funding for the review should be specified.

PRISMA checklist (manuscript)

- Item 5: the Methods section should specify how studies were grouped for the synthesis

- Item 10: the Methods section should specify whether all results that were compatible with each outcome domain in each study were sought (e.g. for all measures, time points, analyses), and if not, the methods used to decide which results to collect.

- Item 11/12/14: If I understand it correctly, description of methods for assessment of risk of bias should be presented in the Methods section. Now they are described in the Results section.

Item 13/15: I could not identify descriptions corresponding to these items in the Methods section.

- Item 27: Report which of the following are publicly available and where they can be found: template data collection forms; data extracted from included studies; data used for all analyses; analytic code; any other materials used in the review.

I like the proposal of the fluid-executive model, but isn’t the general idea that “it is possible to view the association between the many cognitive deficit-paranormal belief associations as the product of a single underlying fluid intelligence-executive component” in conflict with the fact that findings presented in the intelligence section “are highly conflicting, with an almost an equal number of significant versus non-significant findings”?

I think S1 Appendix is not referred in the manuscript

Line 97: parenthesis missing

Line 420: I think the role of the beads task in Prike et al.’s study in unclear. In addition, this task is not explained until the next paragraph. Maybe changing the order of those two paragraphs (or explaining the task the first time it is mentioned) would help the reader to understand its relevance.

Line 549: revise “statements”

Line 568: revise “be”

Line 692: I think “such” is not appropriate there given we have just started a new section

Reviewer #2: The authors have done an excellent job at addressing my concerns with the previous version of the manuscript. I only have a few minor comments:

- Line 5, there is a parenthesis missing at the end of the line.

- Lines 215-216. Please say explicitly what you mean by large, moderate and small effects.

- Page 12, first paragraph: any study published as a registered report? This would be interesting because RRs do not only limit p-hacking, they also ensure that that there is no publication bias (papers are accepted or rejected before results are known).

- Lines 412-414. “Paranormal believers showed a lower perceptual sensitivity compared to sceptics (a bias towards making more ‘yes responses…” Sensitivity and bias are completely different things (e.g., in signal detection theory analysis). Please, clarify whether believers differ in one or the other.

- Line 556 “… conducted by similar research teams”. Similar in what sense?

Reviewer #3: The authors have been very receptive to the comments made in the previous round of reviews and the revised manuscript is much improved. I would like to again highlight that this review of paranormal beliefs and cognition makes a strong and timely contribution to the literature. I have highlighted a few minor points below which I believe can easily be addressed.

1) The sentence on page 13, lines 263-266, discusses differences between studies with student and non-student samples but the analyses reported do not find significant differences. Please make the lack of significant differences clear and adjust/remove the related discussion.

2) When discussing the conjunction fallacy (pages 22 and 25), in addition to Rogers et al., Prike et al. (2017) also found a significant relationship between the conjunction fallacy and paranormal belief. Additionally, the differences between the studies may be due to differences in analysis techniques used. In the Dagnall et al. studies, all the probabilistic reasoning tasks were entered together as predictors, whereas Rogers et al. and Prike et al. looked at the relationship between the conjunction fallacy and paranormal belief without entering/controlling for these other probabilistic reasoning tasks, which may explain the differences in results. This doesn’t need much discussion but may be worth noting or mentioning.

3) The section on page 31, lines 701-705, is unnecessarily repetitive and makes the same point multiple times (generally study quality is good but there are some specific areas for improvement).

4) On page 32, line 731, the text says “Eight” but the parentheses say “(9/71)”.

The authors did a good job addressing the issues raised by all of the reviewers, and overall I do think those revisions make for a much clearer and easier-to-follow narrative, and thus a stronger manuscript. I also appreciated the additional data/info included, such as giving a clear overview of the alternate categories in S9. I do still have a few comments, but given the focus of the paper I do not think any of them are major issues, and I also understand their reasoning for some of the issues they chose not to address with changes in the manuscript (e.g., as much as I would love to see some meta-analyses stats, I do understand the authors’ reasons for choosing not to go that route).

1. On pg 13 (lines 263-266) claims are made that aren’t supported by the provided statistics. So either those statistics are incorrect (or I am misunderstanding what is being reported), or the wording needs to be changed. That is it cannot be said that the undergrad studies tended to have smaller samples and lower quality; however, it could be said that descriptively there looks to be a difference but there is no statistical evidence that there is indeed a difference.

2. I appreciate the expanded limitations section, but still think there are issues with it. First, some of the points are underdeveloped; for example, the discussion about weighting vs. summing on the AXIS needs to be unpacked with even just 1-2 more sentences to be clear what specifically the issue may be (pg 120, lines 863-867). Admittedly I am a bit old-school and still believe in the rule that proper paragraphs are a minimum of 3 sentences, but here I am saying it because the 2 sentences that are there do not follow-through the point, especially for readers who may not be familiar with the specific issue.

Further, I expected the issue of categorization to be included in the limitations, so was quite surprised when I saw it was not there. It is mentioned earlier in the manuscript, which was good, but the alternate categories table (S9) shows that it warrants further discussion in terms of limitations. That is, the table very nicely shows just how many potential categories the majority of studies could fall into. So I want to be clear that I am not trying to argue that the review be redone with the studies being included in all possible categories because I understand the author’s justification for the way they decided to do the categorization. However, I do think more consideration is needed for how this effects what we can conclude for each section (i.e., given how many “secondary focus” studies had to be excluded from consideration because they were used elsewhere).

3. I think the summary sections are quite useful, and go a long way to helping to track through what each section is trying to convey. However, that (along with other additions) does mean that overall the manuscript is a bit daunting to get through, and I think in general it feels like it has a lot of repetition in some spots. For example, the start of the General Discussion is mainly just repetition (including all the numbers again) of what has already been presented. A lot of that could be deleted or streamlined into main points that move beyond what has already been said in earlier sections. And I would also argue focusing on my direct and active writing would cut out a lot of wordiness and also help the manuscript feel more streamlined and manageable (including cutting down on the large amount of information given in parentheses).

4. There is an issue with the wording of the sentence on pg 88, lines 99-102. The first half is hard to follow due to the two “was” near each other, and I think at least one of those needs to be reworked to help clarify what is being said.

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article ( what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Author response to Decision Letter 1

We would like to thank both the editor and reviewers for their detailed comments, and for the opportunity to submit a re-revised version of the manuscript. A point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments can be found in the attached 'Response to Reviewers (2)' file. We have made edits throughout the manuscript to improve both the length and clarity of the manuscript and the reviewers' advice, which we feel have greatly benefitted the manuscript. We would like to thank the editor and reviewers again for the time they have committed to reviewing this manuscript.

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers (2).docx

Decision Letter 2

PONE-D-21-32750R2

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ , click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at gro.solp@gnillibrohtua .

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Acceptance letter

12 Apr 2022

Dear Dr. Dean:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact gro.solp@sserpeno .

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PSY 2080 - Abnormal Psychology: APA

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The American Psychological Association publishes the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association as its style manual for the social sciences disciplines. It is also used by other disciplines as a handbook for authorship of papers.

The most recent edition, the seventh edition, was published in 2020. This edition can be found in the Ready Reference section of the Library at the Reference Desk on the first floor. The call number is Ready Reference BF 76.7 P83 2020 . Listed below are examples of sample citations. 

APA Formating Rules

Here are some general rules on how to format your paper: 

• Margins: p age margins should be set 1 inch on top, bottom, left and right
• Font:  Times New Roman, 12 font size
• Double Space:  throughout your paper, on standard white paper
• f irst page should include: full title, your name, course name and number, instructor's name, and the date
• c enter and double-space all information
• a running header with consecutive page numbering should appear flush right in the upper right-hand corner of each page, including the title page. This running header will appear one-half inch from the top of the page, and should contain a short version of the title, followed by the page number.

Date Published

Title of Article

Title of Journal

Volume, Issue, and Page Numbers

In APA citations, only the first initial or initials of each author are used.  For example, if your paper was written by Pierre John Upenieks, your citation should read: 

Upenieks, P. J.

For more than one author, separate their names with commas and use an ampersand (&) between the last and second to last name.  For example:

Upenieks, P. J., & Wright, K. 

Include up to twenty authors in this format: 

Upenieks, P. J., Alleyne, R. L., Wright, K., Bulatao, E., Winford, C. A., Cabading, J. R., & Boockvar, K. S. 

If there are twenty-one or more authors (some scientific papers have had dozens of authors!), include the first twenty authors, add three ellipsis points (...), then add the name of the  last author.   Example: 

Wiskunde, B., Arslan, M., Fischer, P., Nowak, L., Van den Berg, O., Coetzee, L., Juárez, U., Riyaziyyat, E., Wang, C., Zhang, I., Li, P., Yang, R., Kumar, B., Xu, A., Martinez, R., McIntosh, V., Ibáñez, L. M., Mäkinen, G., Virtanen, E., . . . Kovács, A.

Do not include   titles, ranks, or degrees, such as PhD, Reverend, General, President, etc. 

For a book or journal article, i nclude the year of publication in parentheses.  For other types of periodicals (magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc.) also include the rest of the publication date such as month and/or day.  If no date is provided, include (n.d.) for "no date".

Books and journals: 

Other periodicals: 

• (2008, May/June)
• (2015, April 14)

Capitalize only the first letter of the title of the article, the rest of the words should be lowercase, except for proper nouns like names and places, and the first word if the title is more than one sentence, separated with appropriate punctuation like colons, question marks, and periods.  In APA style, racial and ethnic groups like African-Americans should be treated as proper nouns and capitalized. 

Don't capitalize any other words and do not use italics.

Examples: 

• Occupational health psychologists convene to share their research on work, stress, and health.
• Capital punishment in the United States.
• Science vs. ideology: Psychologists fight back about the misuse of research.
• Computer addiction? A study of computer dependency. 

Include the title of the journal in  italics  and capitalize each letter in the title, except for words like "and" and "of".

• Journal of Abnormal Psychology
• Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
• Monitor on Psychology

Most academic journals, even ones that are never printed, are separated into volumes and issues just like print magazines.  It's not enough to just include the title of the journal and the page numbers, you should include the volume number and the issue number as well.  Most journals start again with page 1 for each issue or volume.  Sometimes there is no issue number, so just include the volume number.  Italicize the volume number just like the title of the journal, and put the issue number in parenthesis, but don't italicize it.  After this, add a comma and then the page numbers of the article.  If the article is only a single page, just include that single number.  If there are no page numbers, just end with a period. 

• Journal of Applied Psychology, 2 (2), 38-48.
• Health Psychology, 24 , 225-229.
• Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 10 (4). 

Advance online publications

Sometimes there are no volume or issue numbers to be found.  This might be the case of what is called an advance online publication.  This is a peer-reviewed publication that has been accepted by an academic journal, and the journal has posted it online before it is officially published in the journal.  It's okay to use these as sources since they are peer-reviewed, but you should use the final published version if it is available. 

Do not assume you are looking at an advance online publication simply because you can't find volume or issue numbers.  But if you see the phrase " advance online publication" you can cite it as such, just use that phrase in place of the volume, issue, and page numbers, like so: 

• Psychological Services.   Advance online publication.

A DOI is a  digital object identifier .  It is a unique string of characters, mostly numbers, that distinguishes the article from all other academic articles.  No two articles will have the same DOI, and all of them will begin with  10.   You don't have to remember what DOI stands for, just remember what it is and that most current academic articles will have them. 

Include the doi at the end of your citation with the prefix https://doi.org/ to turn it into a URL (more on URLs below) :

https://doi.org/ 10.1037/0022-3514.94.4.631

Sometimes you will see a DOI turned into a URL already.  Make sure your DOI is in the standard APA format above and, if necessary, remove any extra elements.  For example: 

http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.pgcc.edu/10.1037/0022-3514.94.4.631

should appear in your paper like this: 

https:// doi .org/ 10.1037/0022-351​4.94.4.631  

If you don't see the DOI while looking at your article in a library database, try clicking on "full text" or "download PDF" and looking at the first page of the article.  You can often find it there, such as in this article below, where you can see the DOI in the upper right hand corner. 

Most newer academic journal articles will have DOIs, so be persistent and try to find it.  But what if there really is no DOI?  Not every journal uses them yet.  In that case, if you found the article in a commonly used library database like EBSCO or ProQuest, you don't have to include any other information.  Make sure you look for the DOI first, don't just assume there isn't one!

If you found the article online, in most cases you will have to find the URL of the article and use that instead.   URL  stands for  uniform resource locator , basically the address of a particular webpage.  A URL should start with http:// or https://  Add the URL and the date you found the webpage to your citation in the format "Retrieved June 21, 2020, from http://xxxx"

Retrieved  June 21,  20 20, from https://www.uptodate.com/contents/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-issues-related-to-kidney-disease-and-hypertension

For more information about DOIs, please watch the short video below: 

Examples: Print Sources

Examples: Electronic Sources

Reference Page: General Rules

Here are some general rules on how to format your references page: 

• The reference list appears at the end of your paper
• Each cited source must be on the reference list and each entry on the reference list must be cited in the text
• Begin the reference list on a new page
• Label the page "References"; centered at the top
• Double-space all the text on the page
• Indent one-half inch from the left margin all the lines after the first line (hanging indentation)
• Invert the authors' names; give the last name first, then the initials for the first name
• Alphabetize the entries by the last name of the author of each work. If there is more than one work by the same author, arrange them in order of publication date, from oldest to most recent.
• For two or more authors, separate the names by commas and use "&" instead of "and" for the last name mentioned.
• Write the full title of the journal; maintaining the punctuation and capitalization used in the journal title
• Capitalize all major words in journal titles
• When referring to books, chapters, articles, or Web pages, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. Do not capitalize the first letter of the second word in a hyphenated compound word.

Please note : These are basic guidelines, for more detailed information, consult the APA Manual. You can view a sample APA paper at the  OWL at Purdue  website. (Refer to page 9 for an example of a reference page).

What’s Changed?

The newest version of the publication manual: the 7th edition was officially released in October 2019. Students : you should always check with your professor whether they’re expecting the 7th edition or the 6th edition.

Punctuation and layout

• The manual now states to always use a single space after any body-text punctuation, whether it is at the end of a sentence or not. 
• The term Running head: should no longer be prefixed to the running head on the title page. Now, only the actual title and a page number (typically 1) should be used.
• Heading fonts sizes for levels 3 through 5 have been changed to make them easier to read.
• Allowed fonts: Times New Roman size 12pt, Calibri size 11pt, Arial 11pt, Lucida Sans Unicode 10pt, and Georgia 11pt. 

Bias-free language

• Guidelines are being added to use bias-free language when referring to people or entities. This means using the word “they” or “their” instead of gender pronouns like “he”, “she”, “his” and “her”.
• Descriptive phrases should be preferred instead of nouns to label people.

Source: Elias, Daniel. “ APA Style 7th Edition: What's Changed? ” MyBib , MyBib, 14 Sept. 2019.

Open Educational Resource References

Open educational resource references follow the same format as webpages, which are covered in Section 10.16 of the  APA Publication Manual , Seventh Edition.

• Create a reference to an OER only when the materials are available for download directly (i.e., the materials are on the page and/or can be downloaded as PDFs or other files). If you are directed to another website, create a reference to the specific webpage on that website where the materials can be retrieved. Use this format for material in any OER repository, such as OER Commons, OASIS, or MERLOT.
• Provide as specific a date as is available on the webpage. This might be a year only; a year and month; or a year, month, and day.
• Italicize the title of a webpage.
• When contents of a page are meant to be updated over time but are not archived, include a retrieval date in the reference.  

Source: “ Open Educational Resource (OER) References .” American Psychological Association , American Psychological Association, Feb. 2020.

Publication manual of the American Psychological Association Call Number: BF 76.7 .P83 2020 ISBN: 9781433805592 Publication Date: 2020 Item can be found at:  Ready Reference (Research Information Desk - 1st floor)

The following links provide more information on how to cite using APA

• APA Formatting and Style Guide (Owl at Purdue)
• APA Quick Reference Guide
• APA Style Website

Citation Help

Use these websites to help you create citations.

• Citation Machine
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50+ Research Topics for Psychology Papers

How to Find Psychology Research Topics for Your Student Paper

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

• Specific Branches of Psychology
• Topics Involving a Disorder or Type of Therapy
• Human Cognition
• Human Development
• Critique of Publications
• Famous Experiments
• Historical Figures
• Specific Careers
• Case Studies
• Literature Reviews
• Your Own Study/Experiment

Are you searching for a great topic for your psychology paper ? Sometimes it seems like coming up with topics of psychology research is more challenging than the actual research and writing. Fortunately, there are plenty of great places to find inspiration and the following list contains just a few ideas to help get you started.

Finding a solid topic is one of the most important steps when writing any type of paper. It can be particularly important when you are writing a psychology research paper or essay. Psychology is such a broad topic, so you want to find a topic that allows you to adequately cover the subject without becoming overwhelmed with information.

In some cases, such as in a general psychology class, you might have the option to select any topic from within psychology's broad reach. Other instances, such as in an  abnormal psychology  course, might require you to write your paper on a specific subject such as a psychological disorder.

As you begin your search for a topic for your psychology paper, it is first important to consider the guidelines established by your instructor.

Research Topics Within Specific Branches of Psychology

The key to selecting a good topic for your psychology paper is to select something that is narrow enough to allow you to really focus on the subject, but not so narrow that it is difficult to find sources or information to write about.

One approach is to narrow your focus down to a subject within a specific branch of psychology. For example, you might start by deciding that you want to write a paper on some sort of social psychology topic. Next, you might narrow your focus down to how persuasion can be used to influence behavior .

Other social psychology topics you might consider include:

• Prejudice and discrimination (i.e., homophobia, sexism, racism)
• Social cognition
• Person perception
• Social control and cults
• Persuasion, propaganda, and marketing
• Attraction, romance, and love
• Nonverbal communication
• Prosocial behavior

Psychology Research Topics Involving a Disorder or Type of Therapy

Exploring a psychological disorder or a specific treatment modality can also be a good topic for a psychology paper. Some potential abnormal psychology topics include specific psychological disorders or particular treatment modalities, including:

• Eating disorders
• Borderline personality disorder
• Seasonal affective disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Antisocial personality disorder
• Profile a  type of therapy  (i.e., cognitive-behavioral therapy, group therapy, psychoanalytic therapy)

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Human Cognition

Some of the possible topics you might explore in this area include thinking, language, intelligence, and decision-making. Other ideas might include:

• False memories
• Speech disorders
• Problem-solving

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Human Development

In this area, you might opt to focus on issues pertinent to  early childhood  such as language development, social learning, or childhood attachment or you might instead opt to concentrate on issues that affect older adults such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Some other topics you might consider include:

• Language acquisition
• Media violence and children
• Learning disabilities
• Gender roles
• Child abuse
• Prenatal development
• Parenting styles
• Aspects of the aging process

Do a Critique of Publications Involving Psychology Research Topics

One option is to consider writing a critique paper of a published psychology book or academic journal article. For example, you might write a critical analysis of Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams or you might evaluate a more recent book such as Philip Zimbardo's  The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil .

Professional and academic journals are also great places to find materials for a critique paper. Browse through the collection at your university library to find titles devoted to the subject that you are most interested in, then look through recent articles until you find one that grabs your attention.

Topics of Psychology Research Related to Famous Experiments

There have been many fascinating and groundbreaking experiments throughout the history of psychology, providing ample material for students looking for an interesting term paper topic. In your paper, you might choose to summarize the experiment, analyze the ethics of the research, or evaluate the implications of the study. Possible experiments that you might consider include:

• The Milgram Obedience Experiment
• The Stanford Prison Experiment
• The Little Albert Experiment
• Pavlov's Conditioning Experiments
• The Asch Conformity Experiment
• Harlow's Rhesus Monkey Experiments

Topics of Psychology Research About Historical Figures

One of the simplest ways to find a great topic is to choose an interesting person in the  history of psychology  and write a paper about them. Your paper might focus on many different elements of the individual's life, such as their biography, professional history, theories, or influence on psychology.

While this type of paper may be historical in nature, there is no need for this assignment to be dry or boring. Psychology is full of fascinating figures rife with intriguing stories and anecdotes. Consider such famous individuals as Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, Harry Harlow, or one of the many other  eminent psychologists .

Psychology Research Topics About a Specific Career

​Another possible topic, depending on the course in which you are enrolled, is to write about specific career paths within the  field of psychology . This type of paper is especially appropriate if you are exploring different subtopics or considering which area interests you the most.

In your paper, you might opt to explore the typical duties of a psychologist, how much people working in these fields typically earn, and the different employment options that are available.

Topics of Psychology Research Involving Case Studies

One potentially interesting idea is to write a  psychology case study  of a particular individual or group of people. In this type of paper, you will provide an in-depth analysis of your subject, including a thorough biography.

Generally, you will also assess the person, often using a major psychological theory such as  Piaget's stages of cognitive development  or  Erikson's eight-stage theory of human development . It is also important to note that your paper doesn't necessarily have to be about someone you know personally.

In fact, many professors encourage students to write case studies on historical figures or fictional characters from books, television programs, or films.

Psychology Research Topics Involving Literature Reviews

Another possibility that would work well for a number of psychology courses is to do a literature review of a specific topic within psychology. A literature review involves finding a variety of sources on a particular subject, then summarizing and reporting on what these sources have to say about the topic.

Literature reviews are generally found in the  introduction  of journal articles and other  psychology papers , but this type of analysis also works well for a full-scale psychology term paper.

Topics of Psychology Research Based on Your Own Study or Experiment

Many psychology courses require students to design an actual psychological study or perform some type of experiment. In some cases, students simply devise the study and then imagine the possible results that might occur. In other situations, you may actually have the opportunity to collect data, analyze your findings, and write up your results.

Finding a topic for your study can be difficult, but there are plenty of great ways to come up with intriguing ideas. Start by considering your own interests as well as subjects you have studied in the past.

Online sources, newspaper articles, books , journal articles, and even your own class textbook are all great places to start searching for topics for your experiments and psychology term papers. Before you begin, learn more about  how to conduct a psychology experiment .

What This Means For You

After looking at this brief list of possible topics for psychology papers, it is easy to see that psychology is a very broad and diverse subject. While this variety makes it possible to find a topic that really catches your interest, it can sometimes make it very difficult for some students to select a good topic.

If you are still stumped by your assignment, ask your instructor for suggestions and consider a few from this list for inspiration.

• Hockenbury, SE & Nolan, SA. Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers; 2014.
• Santrock, JW. A Topical Approach to Lifespan Development. New York: McGraw-Hill Education; 2016.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

113 Abnormal Psychology Topics & Essay Examples

Welcome to our list of abnormal psychology topics to research! In addition to abnormal psychology essay topics, you will also find here interesting ideas to talk about, titles for a presentation, and abnormal psychology topics for research paper.

🔝 Top 10 Abnormal Psychology Topics for 2024

🏆 best abnormal psychology topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 simple & easy abnormal psychology essay topics, 👍 good essay topics on abnormal psychology, ❓ abnormal psychology research questions, 🔍 abnormal psychology research topics.

• Coping Mechanisms for People with PTSD
• Types and Triggers of Anxiety Disorders
• Cultural Influences and Eating Disorders
• Suicide Risk Factors and Preventive Strategies
• Schizophrenia: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment
• The Swings between Mania and Depression in BPD
• The Impact of Personality Disorders on Interpersonal Relationships
• Unraveling Intrusive Thoughts and Compulsions in OCD Patients
• The Interaction of Biology and Environment Substance Use Disorders
• Childhood Disorders: Autism Spectrum and Developmental Challenges
• The Relationship Between Religion and Abnormal Psychology But whose judgment will we use to separate the two contrasting elements of the psychology of normal and abnormal behaviors? Some religious beliefs permit the use of alcohol and it’s considered normal, yet others find […]
• Historical Perspective of Abnormal Psychology The field of abnormal psychology is therefore concerened with the study of abnormal behavior. The challenge that lies in the definition and classification of abnormal psychology is the issue of culture given that our cultural […]
• Historical Perspectives of Abnormal Psychology The concept of the connection between mind and body appreciates the fact that the two components are inseparable in the understanding of abnormal psychology.
• Abnormal Psychology as a Scientific Discipline That is why, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the origins of abnormal psychology, to focus on challenges in classifying and defining abnormal and normal behaviors, to concentrate on the evolution of abnormal […]
• Researching of Abnormal Psychology The process of picking or pinching the skin allowed Shaylynn to become distracted from the source of anxiety and brought her relief.
• Abnormal Psychology Case Study: General Anxiety Disorder Generalized Anxiety Disorder is one of the anxiety disorders caused by abnormalities in the functioning of brain chemicals such as neurotransmitters.
• Abnormal Psychology and Abnormal Behavior Anxiety has been linked to the id which operates on “pleasure principle or the maximization of pleasure and minimization of competing tension” and “thought to be a source for sexual and aggressive thoughts and behaviors […]
• Careers in Abnormal Psychology They research the kind of problems these people have and look for the best ways to help them. They treat people by teaching those with these disorders the acceptable behavior and its importance.
• Abnormal Psychology: Nature of Fear There is a group of disorders which share obvious symptoms and features of fear and anxiety and these are known as anxiety disorders.
• Abnormal Psychology and Behavioral Interventions Illnesses of the mind have been considered the battle between the good and the evil in the early 12th-14th centuries. The unfortunate insanity of people was seen as the downfall of the town.
• Abnormal Psychology: NationalEatingDisorders Website Being a psychotherapist veteran of 31 years in the realm of eating disorders among teens, she has managed to produce the proper questions to be asked when contemplating if a child has a disordered eating […]
• Abnormal Psychology and Humanism The supporters of humanism stress that cognitive and behavioral patterns confine human behavior and emotions to a set of stimuli and responses.
• An Invariant Dimensional Liability Model of Gender Differences in Mental Disorders The validity and reliability of research depend on the methodology that a study uses in the study of a given phenomenon.
• Abnormal Psychology and Therapy This is the basic role of abnormal psychology. One of the distinct features of normal psychology is the capacity to avoid generalizations.
• Abnormal Psychology’s Historical Perspectives Biological psychology is a branch of psychology that tries to expose the biological aspect of behavior, i.e, the study of the brain I,n relation to the behavior.
• Abnormal Psychology Essentials Therefore, the basis of this essay will be to explore the field of abnormal psychology with emphasis on the origins of abnormal psychology, how abnormal psychology has evolved into a scientific discipline, and the theoretical […]
• Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology: Personality Disorder If a person had a history of ridicule and humiliation as a child, he or she may develop an excessive fear of the same in adulthood and will go through great lengths to avoid ridicule.
• Abnormal Psychology: Fetishism, Transvestic Fetishism, Sadomasochism, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, and Pedophilia The desires of individuals with this disorder are to gain sexual arousal through dressing in clothes of the opposite sex or cross-dressing.
• Comparison of Normal and Abnormal Psychology In behavioral psychology, the word ‘normal’ basically means not to deviate from the standard norms, hence normal psychology entails the study of normal patterns of behavior, emotions, and mind. Also, both normal and abnormal psychology […]
• Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology: Anxiety Disorders This paper has gone on to reiterate the fact that anxiety disorders are indeed a reality in life and as such, we should brace ourselves for their occurrences.
• Abnormal Psychology: Legal Issues and Licensing The report focuses on the legal issues related to the licensed and unlicensed professionals in the field of abnormal psychology. Those who are in the field of abnormal psychology are mainly interested in investigating behavior […]
• Abnormal Psychology: Mental Disorders Other common types of disorders are the eating disorders, which are related to weight and food. The basis of behavior and patterns of thoughts, are also related to certain disorders.
• Abnormal Psychology: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In addition, some of this research indicates that the differences in the degree of the disorder are due to the varying nature of the trauma experienced by that individual.
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• Abnormal Psychology Study and Law Enforcement
• Basic Theories and Techniques of Abnormal Psychology
• What Are the Four D’s of Abnormal Psychology?
• How Do Psychologists Diagnose a Disorder?
• What Are the Three Defining Elements of Abnormal Behavior?
• How Do Psychologists Define Abnormality?
• What Is Danger in Abnormal Psychology?
• How Do Cognitive Theories Explain Abnormal Behavior?
• Is Abnormal Psychology the Same as Psychopathology?
• What Are the Main Causes of Abnormal Behavior?
• How Do Psychologists Decide What Behavior Is Considered Abnormal and May Be a Psychological Disorder?
• What Are the Indicators of Abnormality?
• Is Schizophrenia an Abnormal Psychology?
• What Are the Six Models of Abnormality?
• How Does Abnormal Behavior Relate to Criminality?
• Which Approach Is Best for Studying Abnormality?
• What Causes Abnormality in Psychology?
• How Does the Humanistic Approach Explain Abnormal Behaviour?
• What Are the Theories of Abnormal Psychology?
• How Can Psychological Tests Help Individuals With Abnormal Behavior?
• What Do Psychologists Use to Assist in Diagnosing Abnormal Behavior?
• Is ADHD a Mental Illness or Disorder?
• What Is the Difference Between Mental Illness and Mental Disorder?
• Is Anxiety a Mental Illness or Disorder?
• What Are the Different Approaches to Explaining Abnormal Behavior?
• Is PTSD a Mental Illness or Disorder?
• What Is the Behavioural Model of Abnormality?
• Who Is the Father of Abnormal Psychology?
• What Is the Difference Between Normal and Abnormal Behavior?
• Which Personality Disorder Is the Most Controversial?
• What Is Psychodynamic Theory of Abnormality?
• Advancements in Early Diagnosis of ASD
• The Relationship between Drugs and Psychosis.
• Comorbidity and Treatment of Anxiety and Depression
• The Role of Genetics in the Etiology of Bipolar Disorder
• Sociocultural Influences on Eating Disorders and Body Image
• Neurobiological Basis of Borderline Personality Disorder
• The Impact of Childhood Trauma on the Development of Psychiatric Disorders
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• Implications of Cognitive Biases for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in OCD Patients
• PTSD in Military Veterans: Therapeutic Approaches and Interventions
• Chicago (A-D)
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135 Unique Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Table of Contents

A study suggests that approximately 12.5% of people across the globe suffer from abnormal psychological disorders. As staggering as the numbers may be, very little research has been conducted on this subject. This is primarily because of the variation in culture. Subjectivity, context-dependent rules, change in society over a span of time, and difficulty in determining the clinical significance of emotions and behaviors are some other factors that contribute to it

However, it is important to conduct studies on the subject as it can significantly relieve patients from distress, reinstate functioning, and overcome impairment. Nonetheless, finding abnormal psychology essay topics that can grab the reader’s attention and help create an impactful and factual study is no walk in the park. But it is not a problem anymore. Here, we have provided a list of intriguing ideas.

What is Abnormal Psychology?

Abnormal psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with the degree of distress caused by behavior, sentiment and thought patterns. It leads to disruptions in personal life and in the proper functioning of activities. The subject also studies the impact that the disruptive and infrequent behavior of patients suffering from abnormal psychological disorders has on society. Abnormal psychology is separated into three parts:

• Subnormal psychology: It deals with psychological conditions where the mental abilities are below the normal level.
• Supernormal psychology: It deals with the mental condition where a person has mental capabilities that are above the normal level.
• Paranormal psychology: It refers to psychological conditions that cannot be explained through science, for example, telepathy.

Apart from them, there are nine types of abnormal psychology.

Types of Abnormal Psychology

Before you choose your abnormal psychology essay topics, it is important to have a clear idea of the types of abnormal psychology. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has laid out the nine main types of abnormal psychological disorders. It includes the following:

Also, Read: How to Write Effective Psychology Assignment

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

It is mainly found in people who have been victims or witnesses to shocking, scary, and dangerous situations. Patients with anxiety disorders may suffer from nightmares and flashbacks or try to completely avoid such situations. Common examples of anxiety disorders include situations when patients feel that they are harmed, or harassed, or that they have any supernatural power or fame.

Anxiety disorder

It is a mental condition in which patients respond to specific things or situations with dread and fear. Anxiety disorder can interfere with the ability to function in day-to-day life, make the patient overreact often to certain things that trigger emotions, and make them fail to control their emotions in certain situations. Typical symptoms of anxiety disorder are pounding of the heart and sweating.

Mood disorders

They refer to a condition where a patient feels extreme happiness, sadness, anger, or irritability for several weeks, depending on the situation. It leads to a patient’s change in behavior and impacts their performance of regular duties. Depression, bipolar disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and disruptive mood deregulation disorder are common examples of mood disorders.

Personality disorders

They are not medical conditions. It refers to the distinct method of a person’s thinking, behavior, and feeling that makes him distinct from the rest. Personality disorders are often influenced by the situation in which an individual lives or experiences throughout their life. Typically, the personalities of these people stay the same almost throughout their lives. Twisted perceptions of reality, abnormal behavior, and distress are examples of personality disorders.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a disorder of the human brain where people have delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, problems with thinking, and a lack of motivation. It can affect daily functioning and disable a human being. Common symptoms of schizophrenia are disordered thinking and behavior.

Delusional disorder

It is a type of disorder where people suffering from it cannot distinguish real things from those of the imaginary. Delusional people gain an unshakeable belief that something is not true. Delusional objects or situations may not be a part of their culture or could involve things that may happen in the future. Popular examples of delusional disorders are the feeling of being followed from a distance, deceived, or loved. Misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences is also an example of delusional disorder.

Substance use disorder

This is a type of disease that impacts the brain and behavior of people. Substance use disorder makes patients incapable of controlling the use of legal or illegal drugs or medicines such as alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine. The continuation of using drugs in spite of the damage caused is a popular example of substance use disorder.

Dissociative disorder

People who suffer from dissociative disorder have mental confusion. They suffer from a separation of thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, or identities. The patients try to move away from reality involuntarily. It causes problems in the functioning of their day-to-day lives. Unclear senses of identity, stress in relationships, the inability to cope with professional stress, or changing emotions are typical examples of dissociative disorder.

Impulse control disorder

A condition where an individual fails to resist an urge to do something is called impulse control disorder. This medical condition can affect a human’s quality of life negatively. Kleptomania and pyromania are noticeable examples of impulse control disorders.

Also read: Unique Psychology Research Topics and Ideas

List of Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics and Ideas

Are you in search of some unique ideas to write your abnormal psychology essays? If yes, then have a look at some of these matchless abnormal psychology essay topics.

Attractive Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Here are some impressive ideas for developing your abnormal psychology essays.

• What do you understand by abnormal Psychology?
• Disorders of Anxiety
• Antisocial personality disorder
• Things that make one a sociopath
• Exploration of self-harm disorders
• A psychotherapeutic technique for exploring antisocial behavior
• The reasons for mood disorders
• The main reason behind abnormal brain development
• Pathological liars: Is it a mental mechanism?
• The psychological facet of suicide
• Reasons behind personality disorders
• Symptoms of multiple personality disorder
• What causes Seasonal Affective Disorders?
• Reasons behind Suicide among the elderly
• The main causes of self-mutilation
• What is the best way out Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder?
• What is the connection between brain development and abnormal behaviors?
• What are the causes of Narcissistic personality disorder?
• Impacts Of Negative Parenting On the Mental Makeup of a Child

Inspiring Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Get stimulating ideas for Abnormal psychology essays here.

• What is the relationship between Parapsychology and paranormal phenomena?
• Fixated disorders of a patient suffering from schizophrenia
• The structure of the brain of an ordinary person with cenesthopathic disorders
• How do people develop Sexual Perversion?
• Why is Self-mutilation a common tool for coping with situations in the case of people suffering from psychological disorders?
• How to define Separation Anxiety disorders
• What is the relationship between self-esteem and self-damaging behavior?
• What is your idea of Psychopathology?
• “Professional burnout is a specific type of professional destruction.” Share your views on the statement.
• Psychopathological characteristics of anorexia nervosa
• The reasons behind persistent hallucinations
• Latest treatment procedures for anorexia nervosa
• The features Of a typical human being suffering from schizophrenia
• Teenage Suicide is a type of Psychological Disorder. State your views on the statement.

Spectacular Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Are you searching for some breathtaking abnormal psychology essay topics? If yes, then take a look at these ideas:

• How can music relieve mental health disorders?
• What are the different methods of diagnosing schizophrenia?
• Psychological characteristics of teenagers suffering from neurogenic anorexia
• What are the causes of sleepwalking disorder in young adults?
• How would you define the Oedipus and Electra complexes?
• The symptoms of advanced Schizophrenia
• Describe the method through which Psychological Issues can bring about suicide.
• Self-mutilation is a common relief from mental stress for many young adults. What are the ways to reduce them?
• What is the connection between loneliness and mental disorders?
• Are sexual perversions curable?
• The crux of gender identity issues in modern psychoanalysis
• What are the different methods of teaching abnormal psychology?

Top Abnormal Psychology Essay Questions

Are you a research scholar in search of some distinctive abnormal psychology essay topics? If yes, then consider the following ideas:

• How would you define Social pathology?
• Workplace psychology of ex-criminals
• What criteria for diagnosis are mentioned in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Disorders?
• The psychological effects of online dating and social networks on teenagers
• What do you understand by Socio-psychological typology?
• Do all typical serial killers suffer from psychological disorders?
• The harmful effects of xenophobia
• Psychological boundary violations in adolescence
• The relationship between temperament and how adolescents lean toward abnormal behavior
• The causes of repeated depression
• The reasons behind social anxiety disorder
• Abuse of social intelligence
• The analysis of posttraumatic stress disorder
• The significance of cognitive behavior counseling
• The connection between character distinction and aggression among convicts
• Social anxiety disorder

Interesting Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Here are some fascinating abnormal psychology essay topics:

• Impact of childhood trauma on the growth of borderline personality disorder
• Cultural dissimilarity in the knowledge and expression of depression
• Genetic and environmental issues contribute to the growth of schizophrenia.
• The effect of technology on social anxiety disorder
• The efficiency of cognitive-behavioral therapy for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Substance abuse and its connection with mood disorders
• How do parenting styles affect the growth of conduct disorder?
• Role of psychology in controlling chronic pain in people with somatic symptom disorder
• How would you describe the development of post-traumatic stress disorder?
• Why a patient with schizophrenia has a higher chance of committing suicide
• Shed light on the mental disorders of Vincent Van Gogh.
• Examining the reasons behind alternative realities

Excellent Psychology Essay Topics for Graduates

Here are some remarkable ideas for graduates who want to develop their papers on abnormal psychology essay topics:

• The effect of childhood education on future academic success
• Impacts of mindfulness and meditation on lowering indications of anxiety and depression
• The connection between sleep patterns and cognitive performance
• How effective is play therapy in treating children with behavioral disorders?
• Shed light on the impacts of social media on body image and self-esteem in adolescents.
• Factors impacting the spirit and enthusiasm of individuals with a history of trauma
• Examine the placebo effect in psychological treatments.
• The function of personality traits in forecasting job satisfaction and performance
• Shed light on Post-traumatic stress disorders.
• Dangers of Borderline Personality Disorder
• Are bipolar disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder the same?
• Supporting pharmacotherapy for bipolar affective disorder

Also read: Original Research Proposal Topics and Ideas

Outstanding Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Find here some terrific abnormal psychology essay topics:

• The impacts of early childhood experiences on social development in later life
• How parenting styles influence adolescent risk-taking behaviors
• The role of nature and nurture in personality development
• The effect of bilingualism on cognitive development in children
• The impact of attachment styles on romantic relationships in adulthood
• What is the consequence of the use of technology on language and cognitive development in children?
• Explore the connection between early childhood nutrition and cognitive development.
• Find the long-term effects of gender identity development on the mental health of adolescents.
• Why is Autism Spectrum disorder so common among people of today’s generation?
• Possible solutions to death anxiety
• Psychological profile of a distinctive child abuser
• Cognitive disorders in endogenous psychoses

Abnormal Psychology Research Topics on Cognitive Disabilities

If you want to develop your Abnormal Psychology Research papers on the impacts of abnormal psychology on cognitive abilities, these topics can offer excellent help.

• The effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive functioning and decision-making
• What role does attention control play in emotion regulation?
• Examine the effects of aging on memory and cognitive processing.
• Why are cognitive mechanisms fundamental to creativity and problem-solving?
• What do you understand by cognitive biases in decision-making? What are their impacts on behavior?
• The connection between language and thought
• The neural center of consciousness and awareness
• The impacts of mindfulness training on cognitive and emotional well-being
• How eating disorders are connected to psychological issues
• What leads to difficulty in learning among some students?
• Why is dealing with past trauma more difficult than the trauma itself?
• Therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder must be made compulsory. What are your views on the statement?

Trending Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Here are some trendy ideas for your abnormal psychology research:

• What is the best treatment for postpartum psychosis?
• Clinical demonstration of postpartum psychoses
• The principles behind the Stanford prison experiment
• How exposure to television impacts the emotional development of children
• Fetishes and sexually deviant behavior
• Characteristics of psychoses provoked by cannabinoids and smoking mixtures
• Characteristics of hypochondriac and senestopathic disorders
• How hypochondriac and senestopathic disorders show in patients with anorexia nervosa
• Is Internet addiction a mental issue?
• Impact of advertising on people with mental disorders
• Nature of mental and neurological disorders
• The first symptoms of bipolar disorder
• What do you mean by past life regression therapy?
• How math anxiety is a psychological issue
• The interconnection of traumatic experiences
• Aggressive behavior among convicted men

Also, Read – Unique Abnormal Psychology Essay Topics

Latest Abnormal Psychology Essay Ideas

The following are some informative essay topic ideas on abnormal psychology.

• Write about Abnormal Psychology in Mainstream Society.
• Prepare an essay on abnormal psychology and law enforcement.
• Explain the three elements that define abnormal psychology.
• What Leads to Abnormality in Psychology?
• What is the Concept of Psychodynamic Theory of Abnormality?
• Discuss the Signs of Abnormality.
• Multistage Analysis of Abnormal Human Behavior in Complex Scenes
• Classify and Evaluate Abnormal Behavior
• What Are the Six Abnormality Models?
• What Are the Approaches to the Study of Abnormal Behavior?

The Bottom Line

Psychology is still a subject that has a taboo associated with it. Therefore, disorders and physical and mental issues related to abnormal psychology are rarely discussed in essays. However, it is essential to discuss them to make people aware of the problems and approach a consultant if they identify themselves or their near and dear ones with the symptoms. It will also help these identified patients become aware of the accurate treatment procedures and overcome their condition easily.

The discussion above enlists abnormal psychology essay topics. Choose the one that you like best and develop a high-quality paper on it. Nonetheless, if you need help with abnormal psychology essay papers, connect with our essay helpers immediately. They will help you through all the stages of essay writing. Most importantly by taking our assignment help services online, you can also submit a premium-quality abnormal psychology essay in due time and secure good grades.

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Abnormal Psychology

• Assessment (IB)
• Biological Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Criminology
• Developmental Psychology
• Extended Essay
• General Interest
• Health Psychology
• Human Relationships
• IB Psychology
• IB Psychology HL Extensions
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• Qualitative Research Methods
• Research Methodology
• Revision and Exam Preparation
• Social and Cultural Psychology
• Studies and Theories
• Teaching Ideas

Exam Question Bank: Paper 2: Abnormal Psychology

Travis Dixon April 27, 2019 Abnormal Psychology , Assessment (IB) , Revision and Exam Preparation

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Disclaimer : These questions are not IB “official” questions and are written with our best guess as to what the probable exam questions may look like. Not every  possible question is covered but rather a wide sample of questions has been asked so you can get an idea of the types of questions that may appear.

• Biological approach core exam bank ( link )
• Cognitive approach core exam bank ( link )
• Sociocultural approach core exam bank ( link )

IB Psychology Revision Book Available NOW! Get your free preview here.

The exam questions will be based on the topic and content headings as shown above. This page is taken from our IB Psych revision book now available from our online store ( here ).

Exam Questions

Approaches (bio, cog & socio-cult).

If questions about the three core approaches are asked they will be based on the three “topics” for the abnormal option (diagnosis, etiologies and treatments).

Factors Influencing Diagnosis*

• Discuss how one or more sociocultural factors may influence diagnosis.

*It is unlikely students will be asked about biological factors in relation to factors influencing diagnosis.

The difficulty in predicting exam questions for the diagnosis topic is one reason why the etiology or treatment topics are more appealing for exam preparation.

Etiology of Abnormal Psychology

• Discuss the biological approach to understanding the etiology of abnormal psychology.
• Discuss the cognitive approach to understanding the etiology of abnormal psychology.
• Evaluate the sociocultural approach to understanding the etiology of abnormal psychology.
• Contrast the biological and cognitive approaches to understanding the etiology of abnormal psychology.

Treatment of Disorders

• Discuss the biological approach to the treatment of disorders.
• Evaluate the biological or cognitive approach to the treatment of disorders.
• Contrast two approaches (biological, cognitive or sociocultural) to the treatment of disorders.

Research Methods & Ethical Considerations

Questions about research methods and ethics will be based on the three “topics” for the for the abnormal option (diagnosis, etiologies and treatments).

Research Methods

Essay Questions

• Evaluate the use of one research method used to study factors influencing diagnosis.
• Discuss approaches to research in the study of factors influencing diagnosis.*
• Evaluate the use of one research method used to study the etiology of abnormal psychology.
• Evaluate one or more research methods used to study the treatment of disorders.
• Evaluate one approach to research (i.e. one research method) used to study the treatment of disorders.
• Evaluate one research method used to study the treatment of one or more disorders.

*the phrase “approaches to research” is used in the official IB Psychology guide and it means “research methods” (e.g. true experiments, correlational studies, etc.) Students should be prepared for this phrasing, but hopefully the IB exam team will use the phrase “research methods” so as not to get confused with the three approaches (bio, cog & socio-cult). 

Ethical Considerations

• Discuss one or more ethical considerations related to research on factors influencing diagnosis.
• Discuss one or more ethical considerations related to research on the treatment of disorders.
• Discuss one ethical considerations related to research on the etiology of abnormal psychology.
• Discuss one or more ethical considerations relevant to one study on the treatment of disorders.
• Paper Two is essay questions only.
• SL students write one essay for one option, HL students write two essays on two options.
• There are three topics in the abnormal psychology option and there will definitely be one question per topic, which means you can safely study only one topic per option. HOWEVER, if you’re doing this then you need to be prepared to answer  any  possible question on that topic, including the three approaches, research methods and ethical considerations in relation to that topic.

Noticed a mistake? Always feel free to let me know in the comments.

Travis Dixon is an IB Psychology teacher, author, workshop leader, examiner and IA moderator.

128+ Interesting and Relevant Abnormal Psychology Research Paper Topics

Oct 12, 2023 | 0 comments

Oct 12, 2023 | Topics | 0 comments

Abnormal psychology is an essential field that aims to understand and treat psychological disorders. Numerous research paper topics are available for exploration in the study of abnormal psychology. These topics cover various subjects, including the causes, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of various psychological disorders. Researchers and students in  online graduate programs  in this field can also investigate topics related to the cultural, social, and environmental factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of abnormal behavior. This article will explore some of the most intriguing and relevant abnormal psychology research paper topics that students and professionals can consider when conducting research in this field.

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Interesting Abnormal Psychology Research Paper Topics

• Effects of childhood trauma on the development of borderline personality disorder
• Cultural differences in the experience and expression of depression
• Genetic and environmental factors contributing to the development of schizophrenia
• The impact of technology on social anxiety disorder
• The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Substance abuse and its relationship with mood disorders
• The role of parenting styles in the development of conduct disorder
• Psychological interventions for managing chronic pain in individuals with somatic symptom disorder

Good Psychology Research Paper Topics for College

• The impact of childhood education on future academic success
• Effects of mindfulness meditation on reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression
• The relationship between sleep patterns and cognitive performance
• The effectiveness of play therapy in treating children with behavioral disorders
• The effects of social media on body image and self-esteem in adolescents
• Factors influencing resilience in individuals with a history of trauma
• Investigating the placebo effect in psychological treatments
• The role of personality traits in predicting job satisfaction and performance.

Developmental Psychology Research Topics

• The effects of early childhood experiences on social development in later life
• How parenting styles affect adolescent risk-taking behaviors
• The role of nature versus nurture in personality development
• The impact of bilingualism on cognitive development in children
• The influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships in adulthood
• The effects of technology use on language and cognitive development in children
• Investigating the relationship between early childhood nutrition and cognitive development
• Gender identity development in adolescence and its long-term effects on mental health.

Cognitive Psychology Research Topics

• The impact of sleep on cognitive functioning and decision-making
• The role of attentional control in emotion regulation
• Investigating the effects of aging on memory and cognitive processing
• Cognitive mechanisms underlying creativity and problem-solving
• Cognitive biases in decision-making and their effects on behavior
• The relationship between language and thought
• The neural basis of consciousness and awareness
• The effects of mindfulness training on cognitive and emotional well-being.

Social Psychology Research Topics

• The effects of social comparison on self-esteem and body image
• How social support influences coping strategies and resilience
• The role of group identity in intergroup conflict and prejudice
• Investigating the effects of social norms on behavior and attitudes
• The impact of social media on social identity and relationships
• The effects of culture and socialization on personality and behavior
• Investigating the relationship between social influence and conformity
• The role of empathy and perspective-taking in prosocial behavior and helping.

Experimental Psychology Research Topics

• Investigating the effects of priming on memory and perception
• The impact of music on cognitive processing and emotional regulation
• The effects of meditation and mindfulness on attention and well-being
• The role of sleep in memory consolidation and learning
• Investigating the relationship between mood and decision-making
• The effects of cognitive load on decision-making and risk-taking behavior
• Investigating the neural mechanisms underlying perception and attention
• The effects of sensory deprivation on perception, cognition, and emotion.

Sports Psychology Research Topics

• Investigating the psychological factors that influence athletic performance
• Examining the impact of goal-setting on sports performance
• The effects of self-talk and mental imagery on sports performance
• Investigating the role of motivation in sports performance and exercise adherence
• The impact of anxiety and stress on sports performance
• Examining the relationship between team cohesion and sports performance
• Investigating the effects of sports-related injuries on psychological well-being and recovery
• The role of coaching and feedback in improving sports performance.

Forensic Psychology Research Paper Topics

• The reliability and validity of eyewitness testimony in criminal trials
• Investigating the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs for convicted criminals
• The impact of trauma on criminal behavior and rehabilitation
• Examining the role of forensic psychologists in criminal investigations and trials
• Investigating the Accuracy and reliability of criminal Profiling
• The ethical considerations in forensic psychology, including the use of deception and the boundaries of confidentiality
• The impact of mental health disorders on criminal behavior and the criminal justice system
• Examining the effectiveness of restorative justice practices in reducing recidivism rates.

Psychology Topics for Your Research Paper

• The impact of social media on mental health
• The psychology of addiction and its treatment
• The effects of childhood trauma on adult mental health
• The role of mindfulness in managing anxiety and depression
• The influence of personality on career success and satisfaction
• The psychology of motivation and goal-setting
• The relationship between sleep and mental health
• The effects of exercise on mental health and well-being

Best Abnormal Psychology Research Topics

• The effects of childhood trauma on the development of personality disorders
• The relationship between addiction and mental health disorders
• The impact of social media on body dysmorphic disorder
• The efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder
• The role of genetics in the development of schizophrenia
• The impact of childhood abuse on the development of dissociative identity disorder
• The relationship between anxiety disorders and sleep disturbances
• The effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of depression

Child Psychology: Topic Ideas for Your Essay

• The impact of divorce on children’s mental health: A comparative study
• The effect of parenting styles on child development
• The influence of early childhood education on cognitive development
• Child abuse and its long-term consequences on mental health
• The relationship between bullying and self-esteem in children
• The impact of social media on children’s mental health
• The role of attachment theory in child development
• The effect of video games on children’s behavior and cognitive skills

Health Psychology Research Questions

• How does stress affect physical health?
• What is the role of social support in coping with chronic illness?
• How do cultural beliefs and attitudes impact health behaviors?
• What are effective interventions for promoting healthy behaviors in adolescents?
• How does personality influence health outcomes?
• How do environmental factors impact mental health?
• How does chronic illness impact mental health and quality of life?
• How can technology be used to improve health behaviors and outcomes?

Educational Psychology Research Topics for College

• The impact of technology on learning and educational psychology.
• Motivation and its effects on academic performance in different age groups.
• The role of teachers in promoting positive learning outcomes in students.
• The impact of different teaching strategies on student engagement and motivation.
• How cultural and social factors influence learning and educational psychology.
• The impact of mental health on academic performance and effective interventions.
• The influence of parental involvement on student success and academic achievement.
• The effects of different classroom environments on learning and educational psychology.

Psychiatry Case Studies: Researchable Topics

• The effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy in treating depression in elderly patients.
• A case study of a patient with bipolar disorder and comorbid substance abuse disorder.
• The use of psychodynamic therapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders.
• A case study of a patient with borderline personality disorder and its treatment with dialectical behavior therapy.
• The effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions in the treatment of PTSD.
• A case study of a patient with schizophrenia and the use of antipsychotic medication.
• The role of family therapy in the treatment of eating disorders.
• A case study of a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder and its treatment with exposure and response prevention therapy.

Good Essay Writing Topics in Behavioral Psychology

• The impact of stress on behavior and coping mechanisms.
• The role of social learning in shaping behavior.
• The relationship between personality traits and behavior.
• The effects of the cognitive dissonance on behavior.
• The psychological factors behind addiction and substance abuse.
• The influence of culture on behavior and perception.
• The impact of media and technology on behavior and mental health.
• The role of emotions in decision-making and behavior.

Mental Disorders Research Topics for College Students

• The relationship between childhood trauma and the development of borderline personality disorder.
• The effects of social media on depression and anxiety in young adults.
• The link between genetics and the risk for developing schizophrenia.
• The impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of healthcare workers.
• The prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military veterans.
• The role of mindfulness meditation in reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression.
• The effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive function and mental health.
• The efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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What are the topics in abnormal psychology?

Topics in abnormal psychology focus on studying abnormal behavior, thought processes, and emotions. These topics include the causes, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of various psychological disorders, such as anxiety, mood, personality, and psychotic disorders.

What are some interesting abnormal psychology questions?

Some interesting abnormal psychology questions include: What are the environmental and genetic factors that contribute to the development of schizophrenia? How does childhood trauma affect the development of borderline personality disorder? What are the most effective treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder? How do cultural differences influence the experience and expression of depression? How can we differentiate between normal and abnormal behavior?

How do you select a topic for a research paper in psychology?

To select a topic for a research paper in psychology, start by identifying your area of interest within the field. Consider the latest research and trends in psychology and choose a relevant and interesting topic. Consult with your professor or academic advisor for guidance and suggestions, and narrow down your options based on your assignment’s scope, research goals, and available resources.

What are the 5 categories of abnormal psychology?

The five categories of abnormal psychology are (1) Anxiety Disorders, which include Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder; (2) Mood Disorders, which include Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder; (3) Personality Disorders, which include Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder; (4) Psychotic Disorders, which include Schizophrenia and Delusional Disorder; and (5) Dissociative Disorders, which include Dissociative Identity Disorder and Depersonalization Disorder.

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