Coincidences and Paranormal Belief

Inferior probabilistic reasoning skills and loose associations have been suggested to affect the propensity to experience coincidences, and thereby to lead to the development of belief in the paranormal. Whether probabilistic skills and loose associations affect the automatic reaction of surprise, or the subsequent cognitively controlled analysis, has not yet been investigated. The aim of this explorative study was to look at how sensitivity to coincidences is affected by requiring participants to assess coincidences in probabilistic terms (reflecting controlled processing) compared to relying on the emotion of surprise (automatic processing), with belief in the paranormal and loose associative processing as hypothetical moderator variables. Based on an experiment that exposed participants to fabricated coincidences, it was concluded that relying on automatic processing may affect judgments of coincidences differently than relying on controlled processing, but only when individual differences in paranormal belief and associative processing are taken into account.