Am I Luckier Than You? Individual Differences in Precognition Performance

Parapsychological research has been unconvincing largely because studies claiming evidence for psi phenomena are not replicable. A more promising approach examines correlates of psi performance—factors that coincide with above- or below-chance results on luck-based tasks without known causal mechanisms. Individual differences like belief in ESP or extraversion have been linked to psi performance in forced-choice precognition experiments, where participants predict a future chance event by choosing from limited options. This thesis synthesizes existing literature on predictors of psi performance, identifies the best predictors, and tests them using current experimental paradigms while assessing their external validity in real-world settings.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The results found in parapsychological research have not been particularly persuasive, in large part due to a lack of replicability of those studies purporting evidence in support of the existence of psi phenomena. I propose that a more promising avenue of research into psi focuses on the potential correlates of psi performance (i.e. factors that correlate with above- or below-chance performance on luck-based tasks without any known causal mechanism). Specifically, individual differences, such as belief in ESP or extraversion, have been shown to correlate with psi performance in forced- choice precognition experiments (where participants predict a future chance- event by choosing one option from a limited number of options). Thus, the goal of this thesis was to synthesise existing literature on predictors of psi performance, to identify the best predictors of psi performance, and to test these predictors using the latest experimental paradigms while also examining its external validity in the real world.