Confirmation Bias: Why We Remember the Fortuneteller's Hits and Forget Every Miss
Confirmation bias explains why we remember a fortune teller's hits and forget the misses, plus its mechanisms and self checks.
Results for "illusory correlation"
How can illusory correlation be reduced?
Research shows that educating people about how illusory correlation occurs helps lower the rate at which this phenomenon appears. In addition, gathering complete data, checking statistics carefully and being aware of cognitive bias are important steps for distinguishing between a real correlation and a correlation that exists only in perception.
From the article “Illusory correlation: why two events happening close together make the brain think one causes the other”
Illusory correlation: why two events happening close together make the brain think one causes the other
Illusory correlation is the brain seeing a link between two events when none exists, because rare and striking events grab attention and stick in memory.
Do People Turn to Divination More When They Feel Anxious? Research on Stress, Control and Ritual
Anxiety and ritual seeking track together in observational data, but experiments that induced lost control have not replicated.
Cold reading: The technique that makes a vague statement sound like it hits your private life
Cold reading uses body language, double-edged statements and the Barnum effect to make vague claims feel like an accurate reading of your private life.
Fortune tellers on social media: signs that someone is selling fear rather than sharing knowledge
Fortune telling on social media often exploits existing anxieties rather than supernatural ability. Spot vague statements, cold reading and upselling.
Why Humans See Patterns Where None Exist: From Faces in Clouds to Repeating Numbers in Life
Apophenia explains why the brain sees faces in clouds, repeating numbers and patterns in random data, plus where the line to delusion lies.
Do Highly Educated People Believe Less in Fortune Telling? Intuitive Thinking, Analytical Thinking, and Paranormal Belief
Higher education goes with lower belief in fortune telling, but the correlation is modest and mostly runs through thinking style rather than through degrees.
Why superstition never disappears: from Skinner's pigeon experiment to an evolutionary model
Superstition survives because our learning machinery produces it: chance coincidences become rituals, and false beliefs may cost less than missed causes.
Do spiritual believers 'see' more: the face-in-noise experiment and the lenient response threshold
Experiments show mystical believers report seeing faces in ambiguous images more often, yet their visual sensitivity is unchanged.