Graduate Program

Clinical Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2005

Thesis Director

Russell Gruber

Thesis Committee Member

Unknown

Thesis Committee Member

Unknown

Abstract

The current study was designed to explore two major issues involving the existence of mental telepathy. The first goal was the exploration of the relationship between psi ability, specifically mental telepathy, and belief in psi phenomena. In addition, the value of social field theory as an explanation and potential facilitator of telepathic communication was explored. A small group of research assistants attempted to telepathically send 1 of 4 target locations to large groups of participants acting as receivers. The receivers answered a question on a 7-point-scale indicating their level of belief in mental telepathy. Two separate runs of 16 trials each, during which receivers indicated their choices on record forms without receiving feedback as to hits or misses, comprised each session. It was hypothesized that their belief scores would correspond with his or her performance on this telepathy task. Relationships were also explored between scores on the two separate runs. Other variables explored included membership in one of the researcher's class, sex of the participant, direct hits vs. total hits, and extreme scores. The results indicated that there was a significant correlation between belief scores and telepathy scores for Set A but not for Set B. This significant correlation for Set A was present for men but not for women. Also, correlations were strongest for male students enrolled in the researcher's class. T-tests performed on this data by comparing high and low belief groups confirmed these findings. Trends were also uncovered linking telepathy scores from Set A with Set B, but only for those with extreme scores. It was speculated that males might have viewed their belief rating more competitively then the females and actually formed the intention to score in a certain direction. The strength of these findings, along with differences between men and women and class membership, provides support for a social field perspective. It can be speculated that multiple senders and receivers form a collective consciousness or group mind that may improve or strengthen the telepathic conveyance of information.

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