| Abstract/Results: | ABSTRACT:
Within parapsychology, research exploring the relevance of specific psychological or individual differences for manifestations of micro-PK in the laboratory has not been popular. Where experiments have identified possible variables, these have, unfortunately, not been sufficiently replicated to persuasively demonstrate which individuals may be able to perform PK and under what optimal conditions (Roe, 2001). However, recent studies by the first author have identified and reproduced an interaction effect between an individual difference factor and a situational factor – participant lability and target systems lability (Holt & Roe, 2006; Roe & Holt, 2006). Originally defined by Braud (1981) as a system’s capacity to change, it has been theorised from previous research that high levels of lability are related to enhanced psi performance. The present project aims to conceptually replicate these promising findings using an automated RNG task based upon the ancient divination method of the I Ching. Initially adapted as a task for parapsychological research by Rubin and Honorton (1971) due to its innate utilisation of a random process, it is attractive as a method for testing PK because it allows for a controlled PK experiment that is also engaging and personally relevant (Roe, Holt, & Simmonds, 2003) and has proved reasonably successful in previous PK studies (Storm & Thalbourne, 1998-1999). The I Ching selects 1 of 64 possible readings called hexagrams which are intended to relate to a person situation or decision that the client seeks advice upon. If participants are able to rate each hexagram’s relative applicability to their situation this could further enhance the sensitivity of the outcome measure.
DESIGN - An opportunity sample of fifty voluntary adult participants will complete an initial battery of measures in order to construct a metric of lability, (to be categorized as being high, medium, low), including measures of creativity and absorption, plus recording basic demographic details. During the experimental procedure the participants are required to consider a personal question to pose for the I Ching reading before manually rating the applicability of their sixty-four hexagrams in order of relevance to that question on a grid using a Q-sort procedure. Once satisfied with the placing, participants will then be introduced to the automated I Ching computer program and still keeping the same personal question in mind, cast three hexagrams for a further reading. The computer generated I Ching will use three sources of randomness: a ‘live’ random number generator (Live); a pseudo random computer function (Pseudo); a predetermined list of random numbers derived from published tables (Table) – the methods categorized as being high, medium and low lability, respectively. The participants will remain blind as to the randomization throughout the experiment.
Data collection is ongoing and it is anticipated that the proposed experiment will be completed by July 2010 so that we will be able to present final analyses at the conference. Principal analyses will focus on the interaction effects on PK performance between the categorized conditions of participant and target systems lability following Stanford’s (1978) conformance behaviour model and previous research by Braud (1981).
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Reference:
| Martin, H., Drennan, S.L., & Roe, C.A. (2010, September). Exploring lability interaction between individual and situational variables on PK-RNG performance using the I Ching. Paper presented at the Society for Psychical Research 34th International Conference, Sheffield University.
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