National Prevention of Suicide and Mental Ill-Health (NASP), Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Percept Mot Skills. 2011 Dec;113(3):894-908. doi: 10.2466/09.22.PMS.113.6.894-908.
Often it is difficult to find a natural explanation as to why a surprising coincidence occurs. In attempting to find one, people may be inclined to accept paranormal explanations. The objective of this study was to investigate whether people with a lower threshold for being surprised by coincidences have a greater propensity to become believers compared to those with a higher threshold. Participants were exposed to artificial coincidences, which were formally defined as less or more probable, and were asked to provide remarkability ratings. Paranormal belief was measured by the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale. An analysis of the remarkability ratings revealed a significant interaction effect between Sheep-Goat score and type of coincidence, suggesting that people with lower thresholds of surprise, when experiencing coincidences, harbor higher paranormal belief than those with a higher threshold. The theoretical aspects of these findings were discussed.
通常很难找到一个自然的解释，说明为什么会发生令人惊讶的巧合。在试图找到一个解释时，人们可能倾向于接受超自然的解释。本研究的目的是调查那些对巧合感到惊讶的门槛较低的人是否比那些门槛较高的人更有可能成为信徒。参与者接触了人为的巧合，这些巧合被正式定义为可能性较小或较大，并被要求提供显著程度评分。超自然信仰通过澳大利亚绵羊山羊量表来衡量。对显著程度评分的分析显示，绵羊山羊评分和巧合类型之间存在显著的交互效应，这表明，当经历巧合时，惊讶门槛较低的人比惊讶门槛较高的人更倾向于持有更高的超自然信仰。讨论了这些发现的理论方面。
