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Volume 13: Number 3: Article 8
Exploring the Limits of Direct Mental Influence: Two Studies Comparing "Blocking" and "Co-operating" Strategies1
Caroline Watt, John Ravenscroft and Zachary McDermott, Koestler
Parapsychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh,
7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK
Two studies are reported, with the aim to explore the limits of remote
mental influence2 effects. An "influencer" attempts to affect
the electrodermal activity (EDA) of a distant "influencee". The influencee
is asked to adopt two contrasting mental strategies: for one half of
the session, they co-operate with the influence attempt; for the other
half they block the influence attempt. Study one, with 32 participants
and three experimenter/influencers, found no difference in remote influence
effect on EDA between co-operating and blocking conditions (t
= -.202), and no overall evidence of a remote mental influence effect
(t = -.031). Study two, with 50 participants and two experimenter/influencers,
also found no difference for remote influence between co-operating and
blocking conditions (t = -.595), but evidence was found of an
overall remote influence effect (t = 1.806). Combining the data
of the two studies gave an effect size of r = +.13 (t
= 1.176). We also report on participant strategies, an exploratory variance
measure of remote influence, sex3 effects, experimenter effects,
and influencer/influencee sex pairings. It is concluded that we have
found no evidence that influencee's mental strategy affects remote mental
influence attempts. Thus there is as yet no indication as to the limiting
conditions of direct mental influence on living systems.
1The first study was previously reported at
the 1997 Annual Convention of the Parapsychological Association (Watt
et al., 1997).
2We use the term 'influence' without adopting
a particular explanatory framework. Rather, the terminology is chosen
to reflect how the task is presented to the participant.
3Although it is politically correct to use the
term "gender" in preference to "sex," the former is only appropriate
where participants' gender was actually measured. Our participants were
asked to indicate their sex from two categories — male or female — therefore
this is a measure of sex not gender.
Keywords: parapsychology, psychophysiology, mental strategies, remote
influence
FULL TEXT:
Exploring the Limits of Direct Mental Influence: Two Studies Comparing "Blocking" and "Co-operating" Strategies
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