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Results
and Discussion
The correlation of the locus of control scale and the survey assessing
belief in ESP provided interesting results.
The relationship of ESP belief and locus of control yielded significant
results (p=.037). This means that
the data is statistically significant at the .05 level.
The correlation between the two questionnaires was a positive .39, which
again is moderately strong (see table 2). One
can infer that the general trend of the data shows that as external locus of
control increased, ESP belief increased as well. The r2 value was a .15, meaning that 15% of the
belief in ESP can be attributed to an external locus of control.
Hence the data supports our hypothesis stating that an external locus of
control contributes to a belief in ESP. The
reasons for this correlation may be that people who believe that fate and luck
control their lives are more likely to believe in fantastical behavior such as
ESP.
Subjects'
scores on the locus of control scale were correlated with both the ESP ability
score and the ESP belief score (Refer to table 1 for means and standard
deviations). Locus of control is
measured on a scale of 1-20, with a higher score indicating an external locus of
control (meaning that one believes in external control of a person's actions).
The correlation between the locus of control, and the ESP score was a
positive .30. This is a moderate
correlation (see Table 2). We can
infer that the general trend of the data is that as the external locus of
control score increased the ESP ability also increased.
The r2 value was .09, meaning that .09 of the ESP ability
could be attributed to an external locus of control.
These results were approaching significance with a p-value of .09,
meaning that the probability that the results were due to haphazard chance was 9
percent. The data is true to our
hypothesis with theorizes that subjects with a higher external locus of control
have greater ability at ESP tasks.
We also
correlated ESP belief with the scores subjects received on the ESP ability test
(see table 2). The results were significant at the .05 level with p = .035.
Additionally the results showed the highest correlation of any
comparison, having a value of positive .40.
Again, this value is moderately strong.
It suggests that as belief in ESP increased, so did ESP ability.
The r2 value is also the highest of the data set.
Sixteen percent of the belief in ESP can be attributed to the ESP score.
This data suggests that those with greater ESP ability (as determined by
the score on the ESP test) are more likely to believe in ESP.
This makes sense as those who have the ability to perform ESP are more
likely to believe that it exists.
Correlations
were also conducted comparing locus of control and the four specific types of
ESP belief. The r-value for the correlation of clairvoyance and external
locus of control was .30, suggesting that as locus of control scores increased,
the ability of clairvoyance increased also.
In other words, those with an external locus of control are more likely
to believe in clairvoyance. This supports our original hypothesis that those who
believe in luck and fate are more likely to believe in a supernatural power.
The r2 value is .09, meaning that 9% of the belief in
clairvoyance can be attributed to an internal locus of control.
The p value for this was .03 which means that the data is statistically
significant at the .05 level. The
other three correlations yielded insignificant results.
The four
specific types of ESP belief were also correlated with ESP ability (see table
3). The correlation of belief in
clairvoyance and ESP ability was .35, which suggests that as the belief in
clairvoyance increased, the ESP ability (as determined by the score on the test)
also increased. These results had a p value of .05, meaning that they are
statistically significant at the .05 level.
The results had a r2 of .12, meaning that 12% of the belief in
clairvoyance can be attributed to ESP ability. This once again makes sense as
those who have the ability are more likely to believe in it.
The other
correlation that was statistically significant at the .05 level was between
belief in telepathy and ESP ability. Belief
in telepathy and ESP had an r value of .35, which once again only suggests that
the data follows a trend where as belief in telepathy increases, ESP ability
also increases. The r2 is .12 which basically means that 12% of the belief in
telepathy can be attributed to ESP ability.
Once again, this data is significant at the .05 level as the p value was
.05. This sticks to our hypothesis
once again as it would make sense that as one's ability in ESP increase, they
would be more inclined to believe in a supernatural ability such as telepathy.
Correlations of ESP ability and belief in precognition and telekinesis
yielded non-significant results (see table 3).
There is some
room for error in our findings. One
important factor was that while we did select a random sample of subjects, it
was optional for the subjects to participate in the study.
Thus, our sample may be biased in that it only represents the people that
were eager to find out about ESP. It
might be beneficial to administer the test during class meeting so that everyone
has to take it. It might be
interesting to explore this subject further by correlating certain religious
beliefs with belief in ESP ability. It
would be interesting to see if people of certain religious affiliations are more
inclined to believe in ESP.
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Table
1. Means, standard deviations, minimums, medians, and maximums for
telepathy, precognition,
telekinesis, clairvoyance, belief in ESP, locus of control
(LOC), and actual ESP scores.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Females
Males
N = 8
N = 14
________________________________________________________________________________
Variable
Mean
SD
Min
Med Max
________________________________________________________________________________
Telepathy
3.14
1.49
1
4
5
Precognition
3.55
1.44
1
4
5
Telekinesis
2.36
1.40
1
2
5
Clairvoyance
3.23
1.19
1
3.5
5
Belief
in ESP Q’s
12.45
3.67
LOC
13.91
5.24
7
15
27
ESP
5.82
2.06
2
6
10
___________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
Table
2. Correlational results: Means,
standard deviations, r-values, r2-values, df, and p values for Locus
of
Control
and ESP scores, Locus of Control and ESP belief scores, and ESP belief and
actual ESP scores.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Variable
Mean
SD
r
r2
df
p-value
____________________________________________________________________________________
Locus
of Control
13.91
5.24
.30
.09
20
.09**
ESP
Score
5.82
2.06
____________________________________________________________________________________
Locus
of Control
13.91
5.24
.39
.15
20
.037*
ESP
Belief
12.45
3.67
____________________________________________________________________________________
ESP
Belief
12.45
3.67
.40
.16 20
.035*
ESP
Score
5.82
2.06
____________________________________________________________________________________
*
Statistically Significant
** Approaching Statistical Significance
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