Social influence on paranormal beliefs

In spite of strong public expressions of skepticism from the scientific com munity, polls show that more than nine of ten American adults profess belie f in paranormal phenomena. Some scientists view this as a social problem, d irecting much blame (but little research) at a variety of sources including lack of critical thinking skills, fads, need for transcendent experiences, failure of the educational system, and cultural cycles. Social impact theo ry provides an alternative focus: it views paranormal beliefs as a natural consequence of social influence processes in interpersonal settings. In thi s study, subjects in a laboratory experiment were informed that some people believe pyramids harness a mysterious form of energy that preserves object s stored within them. They subsequently judged the relative freshness of fr uit stored in a box and in a pyramid-shaped container. Although the judged stimuli essentially were identical, we observed that (1) subjects reported more "pyramid power" effects after hearing the credulous judgements of a co nfederate posing as a subject; (2) influence was heightened by a high-statu s confederate; (3) influence scarcely diminished when a prior subject's (i. e., an absent confederate's) judgments were reported to the subject by the experimenter: and (4) removing paranormal implications heightened the confe derate's impact. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstra tion of the interpersonal transmission of paranormal beliefs and the first time that all three of social impact theory's "source" factors-strength, im mediacy, and number-have been tested in a single controlled experimental se tting.