RESEARCH ARTICLE


Gender Differences in Sensation Seeking and Paranormal/Anomalous Experiences



Alejandro Parra*
Instituto de Psicología Paranormal, Salta 2015, 1137 Cirdad de Buenos Aires, Argentina


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Creative Commons License
© 2015 Alejandro Parra

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at Instituto de Psicología Paranormal, Salta 2015, 1137 cirdad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Fax: +5411 43056724; Tel: +5411 43056724; Email: rapp@fibertel.com.ar


Abstract

Sensation seeking is the tendency to pursue sensory pleasure and excitement. A body of research indicates that sensation seeking may contribute to paranormal/anomalous experiences. Examination of relations between sensations seeking and paranormal beliefs has resulted in a limited body of research. This paper hypothesizes that both – sensation seeking and paranormal/anomalous experiences – will be significantly and positively correlated. Two samples of 446 females and 162 males (Mage = 8.60, SD = 4.65) filled two questionnaires, Sensation Seeking Scale and a 10-item self-report inventory designed to collect information on spontaneous paranormal/anomalous experiences. An index of experiences (Index) was constructed to correlate with the sensations seeking. More than half have experienced different types of paranormal/ anomalous experiences, mainly telepathy and déjà-vu. The main hypothesis was supported for both, males (p = .002, one-tailed) and females (p < .001). Factor analysis showed that women tended to score higher than men, explaining the 6.5% of the variance. These findings also suggest that sensation seeking may have some utility in predicting subjects' psi performance.

Keywords: Gender differences , Paranormal/anomalous experiences, Paranormal beliefs, Sensation seeking.