Let’s dive into one of the strangest psychological experiments you might not have heard of. There’s a niche area called “parapsychology,” where researchers explore the realm of psychic phenomena. Yes, you read that right—psychic phenomena. Some of their findings can be quite astonishing. For instance, in one experiment, a participant is placed in a room alone and connected to a one-way video feed. An experimenter, in a separate room, can observe the participant, but the participant cannot see them. The experimenter randomly stares intensely at the participant through the video, and surprisingly, the participant’s stress levels seem to spike when they are being observed.
This might be quite shocking for those who are skeptical of psychic abilities: how could the participant possibly know when they were being stared at, unless they possessed some form of telepathy? Is there a logical explanation for this without conceding that telepathy is real?
Enter Dr. Matthew Caldwell, a Professor at the University of Cambridge. He approached these findings with skepticism and attempted to replicate them. His attempts yielded no evidence of such an effect. Great, you might think—this suggests there was something off about the initial studies. After all, the researcher behind them, Dr. Lila Hart, was a firm believer in psychic phenomena, which could have influenced her results.
But hold on—this is where it gets even weirder. Caldwell and Hart, being diligent scientists, decided to collaborate to understand their differing outcomes. They repeated the same experiment, meticulously agreeing on every detail. Caldwell carried out half of the trials, while Hart did the other half. The only variation was who was in charge of greeting the participants and executing the staring.
The outcome? When Hart conducted the staring, analysis indicated that participants exhibited a stress response, as if they possessed “psychic powers.” In contrast, when Caldwell performed the staring, no such effect was observed. Think about how bizarre this is. The only plausible explanation seems to be that some form of psychic ability exists, enabling individuals to sense when they’re being watched, but this only happens when the observer is a believer in psychic phenomena.
If you were previously skeptical about telepathy, your immediate reaction probably isn’t, “Wow, I should tell everyone I know that telepathy is real!” Even if you can’t fully explain this phenomenon (and I can’t either), it’s likely that you’re still hesitant to accept the existence of psychic powers, much like I am.
This skepticism is understandable. However, if you’ve recently come across intriguing psychological studies—such as those suggesting that changing your body posture can enhance performance in job interviews—you might be tempted to accept those findings without question. We’ve all been there—hearing about a captivating study, accepting its results because they seem intuitive, and adding it to our mental catalog of interesting facts to share.
The critical point is that we must maintain consistent standards of evidence when evaluating these studies, whether they sound sensible or outlandish. The investigation conducted by Caldwell and Hart adhered to recognized scientific norms and methodologies. If the evidence for telepathy is as compelling (or possibly even more so) than that supporting the body posture and confidence hypothesis, we need to treat them equally. If we’re willing to take other psychological studies at face value, we may also have to acknowledge that the parapsychological study genuinely indicates the existence of psychic powers. Conversely, if we’re not prepared to accept the telepathy conclusion, we should be more critical of the psychological studies circulating in the media.
In essence, if parapsychologists are conducting research that meets all the criteria we expect from reputable scientific studies and they discover evidence for psychic phenomena, we are left with two potential conclusions. Either we accept that the evidence for psychic phenomena is substantial. Or we recognize that our criteria for assessing scientific evidence may not be rigorous enough.
For a deeper exploration of this topic and what it means for the scientific community, check out this enlightening post by blogger Tom Richards, who inspired this discussion.