Harvey Irwin

Manchester Metropolitan University | MMU · Department of Psychology

The philosophical school of Evidentialism holds that people should form, amend, and relinquish a belief wholly in accordance with the available evidence for that belief. This paper reviews the extent to which believers in paranormal phenomena respect Evidentialism’s so-called “ethics of belief.” The analysis focuses on several common violations of...

Carlos Alvarado’s research on the out-of-body experience

Belief in the paranormal and a sense of control over life.

Research on the psychology of paranormal, religious, and delusional belief has been stifled by a lack of careful distinction between anomalous experiences and their corresponding attributions. The Survey of Anomalous Experience (SAE; Irwin, Dagnall, & Drinkwater, 2013) addresses this nuance by measuring proneness to anomalous experience (PAE) and p...

Although belief in paranormal phenomena has long been studied as if it were a psychological trait, many commentators recently have preferred to define beliefs as a psychological state. Somewhat surprisingly, the psychometric decomposition of a belief into state and trait components has yet to be undertaken. To this end a sample of 239 American adul...

During sensory experiences and imaginal ideation the person is primarily aware of the contents of the experience, but at the same time there is normally an appreciation also that these experiences are being apprehended by the “self”, endowing the experiences with a sense of ownership. This sense of an experiential self or “minimal self” may become...

A growing body of evidence suggests that in the general population the development of beliefs in paranormal phenomena relies in part on the cognitive processes involved also in the formation of delusions. One early sign of the development of delusions is a disorder of or vulnerability in the minimal self, an awareness that one’s thoughts, perceptio...

A growing body of evidence suggests that in the general population the development of beliefs in paranormal phenomena relies in part on the cognitive processes involved also in the formation of delusions. One early sign of the development of delusions is a disorder of or vulnerability in the minimal self, an awareness that one's thoughts, perceptio...

This study constitutes an initial exploration of the view that paranormal disbelief is part of the same unidimensional continuum as paranormal belief, at least in regard to people's cognitive predispositions. A convenience sample of 203 British residents was surveyed for their belief in paranormal phenomena and for previously documented cognitive c...

An online survey was undertaken to examine the relationship between the intensity of beliefs in paranormal phenomena and one's worldview. A sample of 141 Australian university students participated in the survey. Statistical analysis showed that paranormal belief is significantly related to various worldviews when these are considered collectively,...

An online survey was undertaken to examine the relationship between the intensity of beliefs in paranormal phenomena and two facets of a scientific worldview, namely, an appreciation of the values of science and a disposition to presumptive scepticism. A sample of 202 British residents participated in the survey. The findings indicate that paranorm...

Despite a burgeoning literature on the psychological correlates of belief in the paranormal, little research has been devoted to the investigation of paranormal scepticism. This study sought to relate the formation of a paranormal disbelief to habitual thinking styles. An online survey was undertaken by 94 Australian university students. Questionna...

A psychometric test known as the Survey of Anomalous Experiences (Irwin, Dagnall & Drinkwater, 2013) was designed to differentiate between a proneness to anomalous experiences and a proneness to attribute such experiences to paranormal factors. In an attempt to validate the test's index of proneness to paranormal attributions an online survey was u...

A preliminary analysis was undertaken to assess the relationship between the two indices of conspiratorial beliefs, ESCT and GBC. The Spearman correlation between these two variables was .67 (p < .001). This coefficient certainly suggests the two indices to some extent tap a common domain, but with less than half of the common variance accounted fo...

Two online surveys were undertaken to investigate relationships between the intensity of paranormal and related beliefs and the predictors of coping style and proneness to 'doublethink', the tendency to endorse contradictory beliefs concurrently. In Study 1, completed by 257 participants, Traditional Religious Beliefs were related to proneness to d...

The academic discipline of parapsychology has faced major challenges throughout its history. An online survey of members of the Parapsychological Association (PA) was undertaken with the aim of identifying the range of significant problems held to confront parapsychology today. This paper presents a collation of the views of PA members. A sample of...

The aim of this study was to investigate relationships between the endorsement of beliefs in scientifically unaccepted phenomena and two psychological domains, namely proneness to aberrant salience and fundamental dimensions of human motivation. The project was undertaken as an online survey of 104 university students. “New Age” or paranormal belie...

The popular stereotype of a parapsychologist may well be a negative one, based in large part as it is on the characterization of parapsychologists' views by sceptical commentators and in the popular media. On the other hand there is little empirical information from which to infer the real views of contemporary parapsychologists. An online survey o...

An earlier study by Irwin, Dagnall, and Drinkwater (2012a) found a relationship between the intensity of paranormal beliefs and a self-reported proneness to jump to conclusions. This relationship was statistically significant for the factor of Traditional Paranormal Beliefs but was only of borderline significance for the other major factor of paran...

This chapter provides an introduction to parapsychology for transpersonal scientists, practitioners, and students. Parapsychologists have created taxonomy (classification system) of psi experiences. The chapter talks about phenomena such as extrasensory perception (ESP), psychokinesis (PK), and life after death. Historically, psi has often been ass...

When persons report a parapsychological experience, they may typically be asserting 2 occurrences: that of an anomalous or seemingly inexplicable event, and their interpretation of this event in paranormal terms. Previous studies identifying correlates of the report of parapsychological experiences may have confounded these 2 factors. The authors d...

This paper reports the psychometric development of new measure of paranormal and related beliefs. Based on a constructive review of the limitations of current self-report questionnaires several criteria were formulated for development of the new measure. One of the key criteria was that items had to meet an explicit definition of scientifically una...

A survey of 116 Australian residents was undertaken to examine the relationship between the report of parapsychological experiences and each of two styles of thinking: the intuitive-experiential mode and the rational mode. In contrast with previous studies of parapsychological experiences, cognizance was taken of a distinction between a proneness t...

Some recent research suggests that psychological processes underlying the formation of paranormal beliefs have much in common with those underlying delusional beliefs. On this ground a survey was conducted to investigate the relationship between paranormal beliefs and distortions in reasoning known to be associated with the development of psychotic...

The assessment of superstitiousness as a component of paranormal belief has encountered many conceptual and psychometric difficul-ties. This paper surveys the history of the measurement of super-stitiousness, definitional issues, varieties of traditional superstitions evident in folkloric collections, and the relationship between super-stitiousness...

The focus of this chapter is on subjective reports of psi experiences rather than on attempts to differentiate the phenomenology of nonveridical and presumably veridical psi. The authors use the terms for both phenomena to facilitate exposition. The focus of the chapter, however, carries significant limitations. Most importantly, an individual who...

The role of visual and verbal coding processes in the Stroop effect is examined, and evidence is found that coding strategies can attenuate Stroop interference. This result is related to current models of the Stroop effect, and the possibility of a multiple-loci approach is raised.

The extent to which differences in intensity facilitate the selection of one of two dichotically presented messages was investigated in 25 male Ss. Different lists of disyllabic words were presented synchronously at five different levels of relative intensity between -10 and +10 dB, with the set signal held at a constant intensity level. Selectivit...

Parapsychologists purport to apply scientific method to the investigation of the bases of commonly reported parapsychological experiences such as extrasensory perception. Despite over a hundred years of associated research effort the status of parapsychology as a scientific endeavour is disputed by a substantial section of the contemporary mainstre...

In light of previous research, the current study tested the hypothesis that dissociative identity disorder (DID) would be characterised by effective cognitive inhibitory functioning when tested in a neutral context, but weakened inhibition when tested in an emotionally negative context. Using a negative priming task (i.e. the flanker task) to asses...

Cognitive inhibition refers to the mental capacity to suppress distracting stimuli that compete with target stimuli for processing resources. Using neutral word stimuli in a flanker task, a recent study suggested that dissociative identity disorder (DID) is characterized by weakened cognitive inhibitory functioning (Dorahy, Irwin, & Middleton, 2002...

This study investigated the role of reality testing deficits in the formation of belief in the paranormal. In the present context reality testing is taken to entail the person's inclination to test critically the logical plausibility of his or her beliefs. An earlier study of this relationship by the author (Irwin, in press) was partially compromis...

Objectives Memory functioning is a central conceptual and phenomenological aspect of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Most empirical work on memory functions in DID has focused on retrieval deficits either within or between dissociated identities. The current study attempted to remedy the scant attention given to working memory functioning. M...

Memory functioning is a central conceptual and phenomenological aspect of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Most empirical work on memory functions in DID has focused on retrieval deficits either within or between dissociated identities. The current study attempted to remedy the scant attention given to working memory functioning. In samples re...

Psychological profiling represents the investigative technique of analyzing crime behaviors for the identification of probable offender characteristics. Profiling has progressively been incorporated into police procedures despite a surprising lack of empirical research to support its validity. Indeed, in the study of sexual murder for the purpose o...

Although psychological profiling has achieved wide acceptance in law enforcement investigations, there has been little empirical research into the skills required for profiling. One attribute that is frequently cited as quintessential for effective profiling is experience in police investigations. In a study similar in design to Kocsis, Irwin, Haye...

The current study examined cognitive inhibition, a mechanism of working memory, in dissociative identity disorder (DID). A negative priming procedure was used to assess inhibitory functioning in DID patients, as well as in a general population sample and a psychiatric comparison sample. Results from the first study show a significant interaction be...

Criminal psychological profiling has progressively been incorporated into police procedures despite a dearth of empirical research. Indeed, in the study of serial violent crimes for the purpose of psychological profiling, very few original, quantitative, academically reviewed studies actually exist. This article reports on the analysis of 62 incide...

The Circle theory of environmental range (Canter & Larkin, 1993) has demonstrated utility for the analysis of the spatial distribution of serial rape and arson offences, but the theory's applicability to the crime of multiple burglary is more equivocal. The present study analysed the spatial distribution of 58 multiple burglary cases that had occur...

The two-factor Rasch version of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale reportedly measures individually oriented (New Age Philosophy) and socially oriented (Traditional Paranormal Belief) paranormal beliefs. Preliminary studies investigated the construct validity of this revised scale against other variables, but the prediction that dissociative and s...

Effects of age and sex in paranormal belief remain controversial because issues of scaling and differential item function are not given due attention. Therefore, in response to the recent debate between Irwin and Vitulli, these issues are reviewed and validated as crucial approaches for obtaining an objective measure of paranormal belief. A Rasch v...

Age and sex differences in paranormal beliefs after controlling for differential item functioning.

Previous research has suggested a relationship between dissociative tendencies and schizotypy. This study sought to extend the previous work in two fundamental respects. First, explicit cognizance was taken of the multidimensionality of both dissociative tendencies and schizotypy. Second, the study examined the possibility that the observed correla...

Little research has been conducted on the contribution of environmental factors to the development of alexithymic tendencies. Ninety-two university students were surveyed to determine if features of the childhood family environment could predict the level of alexithymic tendencies. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used to measure alexithym...

Using mostly undergraduate student data (N=560), factor analysis confirmed the existence of seven factors in Tobacyk’s Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS). However, this replication proved to be of dubious value since (1) the factor structure was significantly affected by age and gender; (2) the items in Tobacyk’s original factors were significa...

Vitulli, Tipton, and Rowe (1999) report evidence of age and sex differences in the strength of paranormal beliefs. An alternative interpretation of their data is offered in terms of differential item functioning. It is suggested that respondents' interpretation of paranormal belief test items may vary with age and sex, and that such differences in...

There has been little empirical study of the abilities contributing to proficient performance in psychological profiling. The authors sought to address this issue by comparing the accuracy of psychological profiles for a closed murder case generated by groups differing primarily in characteristics posited to underlie the profiling process. In addit...

The relationship of shame and guilt to eating-disorder symptomatology was investigated in a sample of 97 Australian women. In terms of the objective of predicting the severity of eating disturbance, the study explored the predictive utility of proneness to shame and guilt in a global sense, shame and guilt associated specifically with eating contex...

Several commentators recently have advocated the view that a deficit in the performance of a smooth pursuit eye-movement task is a biological marker of the genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. This study considered the possibility that such an impairment is due in part to experiential or acquired characteristics, and specifically, to a history...

The relationship of shame and guilt to eating-disorder symptomatology was investigated in a sample of 97 Australian women. In terms of the objective of predicting the severity of eating disturbance, the study explored the predictive utility of proneness to shame and guilt in a global sense, shame and guilt associated specifically with eating contex...

Recent developments in the study of dissociation prompted a re-examination of the nature of the out-of-body experience (OBE). A questionnaire survey of Australian university students addressed the relation between the OBE and nonpathological dissociation (psychological absorption), pathological mental dissociation, and pathological somatoform disso...

This study investigated the relationship between the severity of childhood trauma and proneness to victimization in adulthood in a sample of 155 Australian women. A tendency for both violent and nonviolent revictimization was observed. The classical “repetition compulsion” theory of revictimization is less able to accommodate these findings than th...

The diagnostic taxonomy of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a contentious issue. Commentators are divided as to whether PTSD should remain grouped with the anxiety disorders or conceptualized as a dissociative disorder. This study sought to clarify the issue by investigating the extent to which anxiety and dissociative processes differential...

This study examined parental encouragement of imaginative involvement, pathological dissociation, and nonpathological dissociative tendencies (psychological absorption) as predictors of paranormal belief. In a questionnaire survey, data on each of these variables were solicited from 139 Australian university students. Canonical correlation analyses...

Although previous research has implicated a history of childhood trauma in the development of dissociative tendencies, insufficient cognizance (in this context) has been taken of the distinction between pathological and nonpathological dissociation. In this study, the relationship between childhood trauma and both pathological and nonpathological d...

Previous research has shown dissociative tendencies are related to a reported history of childhood abuse. A recent study by Johnson, Edman, and Danko (1995) suggested, however, that dissociation may be associated with a more general tendency to recall and report negative life experiences. Johnson and colleagues hypothesized that the relationship be...

Previous research has shown dissociative tendencies are related to a reported history of childhood abuse. A recent study by Johnson, Edman. and Danko (1995) suggested, however, that dissociation may be associated with a more general tendency to recall and report negative life experiences, Johnson and colleagues hypothesized that the relationship be...

This article explores the possibility that a generalised profile of serial offenders may contribute to the conceptualisation of serial crime. The latter has become immersed in a debate over the minimum number of victims that should be set as the defining criterion. There are several conceptual and practical problems in seeking to define serial crim...

The relationship between dissociative tendencies and attitudes relating to aggression and powerlessness was investigated in a sample of 106 Australian psychology students. Dissociation was positively related to aspects of aggression and in particular to an attitude of hostility. Respondents' perceptions of their own powerlessness did not predict pr...

The practice of criminal psychological profiling makes frequent appeal to ataxonomic distinction between organised and disorganised offenders. Previous empirical studies claimed to validate this typology nevertheless have been methodologically inadequate. Using arson as a context this study analysed the crime scene characteristics of profit‐motivat...

As a contribution to an understanding of the psychodynamics of dissociative disorders this study investigated proneness to shame and to guilt as predictors of dissociative tendencies. One hundred and three Australian university students completed self-report measures of dissociative tendencies, proneness to shame and to guilt, gender, and age. Pron...

As a contribution to an understanding of the psychodynamics of dissociative disorders, this study investigated proneness to shame and to guilt as predictors of dissociative tendencies. 103 Australian university students completed self-report measures of dissociative tendencies, proneness to shame and to guilt, gender, and age. Proneness to shame, p...

D Canter and P. Larkin's (1993) Circle Theory of Environmental Range was designed as a means of using the geographical locations of an individual offender's known offences to predict the approximate site of the offender's residential base. Canter and Larkin obtained support for their theory from an investigation of spatial patterns in serial rapist...

This study is one of a series exploring the potential of affective variables as predictors of dissociative tendencies. Some clinicians have observed that traumatized children who develop a dissociative coping style also tend to fail to discriminate emotions by verbal means. The study therefore investigated a relationship between dissociation and al...

Notwithstanding a degree of unease in some quarters, the role of dissociative processes in parapsychological phenomena is proposed as a key topic for current parapsychological research. In this context, recent developments in mainstream dissociation research have posed substantial questions that deserve the attention of parapsychologists. Some of t...

Past research has documented a link between childhood traumatic experiences and dissociative tendencies in adulthood. This study was undertaken to investigate the possibility that the previously reported link is purely an artifact of the level of emotional support available during childhood. A nonclinical sample of Australian adults was surveyed fo...

Examined childhood traumas and parental encouragement of imagination as correlates of the occurrence of out-of-body experiences (OBE) and déjà-type experiences via a postal survey of 106 students (aged 19–55 yrs). Results show that, in comparison to nonexperients, Ss who experienced an OBE had higher prevalence during childhood of intrafamilial sex...

Codependence has been held to be a product of living in a household with an alcoholic parent or, more generally, an outcome of childhood abuse. Codependent traits also have been proposed to have a complementary developmental relationship with narcissism. Australian adults (N = 190) were administered the Codependency Inventory, the Spann-Fischer Cod...

The relationship between dissociative tendencies and the balance of affective expression was investigated in a sample of 100 Australian psychology students. Dissociation was positively related to an imbalance of affect in favor of negative affects. Higher levels of dissociation were associated with more frequent experiences of negative affects but...

The study investigated the relationship between scores on paranormal belief and proneness to dissociation in a sample of 100 Australian students of psychology. Scores on dissociation were positively correlated with those on global paranormal belief and with belief in psi, precognition, spiritualism, and extraordinary life-forms. It is suggested tha...

Several previous surveys have indicated a relationship between paranormal belief and some indices of psychological maladjustment. The earlier work nevertheless did not consider the level of emotional functioning of people who believe in the paranormal. This study surveyed a variety of dimensions of paranormal belief and emotional functioning. No as...

Several researchers have proposed that proneness to dissociation in adulthood is linked developmentally with experiences of traumatic events in childhood. Past investigation of this hypothesis, however, typically has focused on very narrow samples of childhood trauma. In this study, dissociative experiences in adulthood were analyzed in relation to...

Examined the utility of dimensions of unresolved grief as predictors of dissociative tendencies. 121 college students (aged 19–72 yrs) completed 3 questionnaires that measured demographic factors, proneness to dissociation, and symptoms of unresolved grief. In conjunction with the basic demographic factors of age and gender, the inventory of grief...

Previous research suggests that, as a group, people who believe in the paranormal tend to have a history of traumatic events in childhood. This relationship has been incorporated into Irwin's 1993 model of the psychological origins and functions of paranormal belief. A constructive replication of the relationship and a test of Irwin's model was und...

Several clinicians have remarked on an obsessive need to control among adult children of alcoholics. In an experimental test of this hypothesis 30 adult children of problem drinkers and 31 control subjects performed a computer-simulated coin-tossing task. On half of the trials the outcome of the coin toss was open to control; the outcome was random...

Hypothesized that near-death experiencers are characterized by a dissociative response style engendered by severely traumatic childhood experiences. A postal survey of 121 Australian university students failed to identify a dissociative response style in the 10 Ss designated as experiencers, but these Ss did evidence a distinctive history of trauma...

Both parapsychologists and skeptics have interests in investigating the nature of belief in the paranormal, albeit with somewhat different objectives in mind. Despite substan- tial variation across studies in the definition of the scope of paranormal belief, some degree of order can be imposed on the empirical literature by taking due account of th...

The impact of a grief counseling course was investigated in terms of Klug and Sinha's two-component formulation of death acceptance [1]. Compared to a control group, participants in the course showed a significant and sustained increase in cognitive confrontation of death, and in the assimilation of these attitudes at an emotional level. Identified...

72 undergraduates completed a paranormal belief scale, the Survey of Traumatic Childhood Events, and the Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation: Behavior (FIRO-B) scale. Survey assistants completed a 2nd copy of the FIRO-B on behalf of the Ss. Results suggest that to some degree paranormal beliefs are generated in response to traumatic eve...

The bereaved individual may experience major emotional, physical, and cognitive changes. Counselling can facilitate the course of the grief process and various therapeutic techniques may be employed if there is evidence of complications in grief. In this context, a survey is undertaken of the utility of the principal therapeutic approaches, namely...

This study examined the proposal that the association between paranormal belief and magical ideation may be mediated by distinctive cognitive styles for schizotypes as compared to believers in the paranormal. Schizotypes were found to differ from an atypical group of believers in the paranormal and to resemble schizophrenics in terms of cognitive s...

A self-administered questionnaire survey of 122 Australian university students was undertaken to investigate interrelationships between paranormal belief (PB), psychological adjustment, and fantasy proneness. Three hypotheses were tested. J. F. Schumaker (see record 1988-35489-001) maintains that psychological adjustment is positively related to P...

Clients' drawings can serve four basic junctions in bereavement counseling. They may provide a channel for cathartic release of grief, a focus for clients' reflections on the dimensions of their losses, a means of identifying unexpressed conflicts associated with the losses, and possibly a source of information with diagnostic value. The potential...

The report of personal parapsychological experiences has been linked with the personality construct of fantasy proneness. It is possible that the factor of paranormal belief mediates this association. Certainly some data suggest that paranormal belief is conducive to the report of parapsychological experiences. This study examined the feasibility o...

This paper examines the beliefs and expectations that a sample of 508 people hold about the first five minutes after death. A substantial minority believed that they will experience the main elements of the neardeath experience (NDE). In general these elements were cited more frequently than were Biblical images. Six percent of the sample said that...

Examines hypnotic suggestion as an experimental technique for the induction of out-of-body experiences (OBEs). The history of this technique and its principal methodological advantages and disadvantages are reviewed. The technique's ease of application and replicability are regarded as its major assets. Problems include the facts that some people c...