European Journal of Parapsychology, 2000, 15, 68-78 Belief in the Paranormal and a Sense of Control over Life Harvey J. Irwin School of Psychology, University of New England, Australia Abstract: This study explored the hypothesis that paranormal beliefs stem in part from a need for control over life events. A sample of 174 Australian adults participated in a mail survey of paranormal beliefs, three spheres of locus of control, the desirability of control over life, and efforts to exert control over the physical environment. Canonical correlation analysis identified two pairs of canonical variates. The first pair suggested that a belief in broadly spiritual tenets tends to be endorsed by people, often women, who try to exert strict control over their physical environment but who publicly repudiate any desire for control over life events. The second pair of variates indicated that a belief in psi may be found among people, especially women, with an acknowledged desire for control and a conviction that they have the means to control events in the sociopolitical arena. The study reinforces the appropriateness of indexing several aspects of the control domain and seeking to relate these to clusters of paranormal beliefs. Additionally, the relevance of desire for control to the intensity of psi belief is documented for the first time. On the other hand, the study did not replicate the commonly observed association between paranormal belief and an external locus of control, and thus caution must be exercised in drawing any inferences about the relative contributions of aspects of the control domain to the development of paranormal belief. In recent years a major focus of research into the nature of paranormal belief has been the issue of the psychological functions served by these beliefs. Although the specific form of a person’s paranormal beliefs may be governed by various social processes, it is generally thought that there is an underlying “need to believe” (Krippner & Winkler, 1996) involving essentially psychodynamic factors such as personality and more fundamental personal needs. Thus, there is now a rapidly growing empirical literature on the psychological origins of belief in the paranormal (for reviews of this literature see Irwin, 1993, 1999; Vyse, 1997; Zusne & Jones, 1989). The objective of the present project was to investigate the intensity of paranormal beliefs in relation to aspects of the person’s control over life events. Several authors have speculated that endorsement of paranormal beliefs may be inspired at least in part by a fundamental need to have a sense of control over one’s everyday life. Alcock (1981, p. 40), Dag (1999), Frank (1977, pp. 556-557), Marks and Kammann (1980, p. 156), Schumaker (1990), Singer and Benassi (1981, p. 50), and Zusne and Jones (1982, p. 210) all advocate the significance in this context of a basic human psychological need for a sense of understanding of life events. An assurance of order and meaning in the physical and social world is thought to be essential for emotional security and psychological adjustment (Heider, 1958; Lefcourt, 1973). Traumatic events and anomalous experiences, however, pose a potential threat to a state of assurance, in essence because they can be taken to imply the world sometimes is uncertain, chaotic, and beyond the individual’s understanding and mastery. By incorporating a system of paranormal beliefs, it is said that the individual has a cognitive framework for effectively structuring many events and experiences in life so that they appear comprehensible and thereby able to be “mastered”, at least intellectually. Under this view paranormal belief constitutes a cognitive bias through which reality may be filtered without threatening the individual’s sense of emotional security. There is some empirical support for the view that the intensity of paranormal belief is related to aspects of control in the person’s daily life. The principal line of evidence concerns the personality variable of locus of control, that is, people’s inclination to perceive their fate to be in their own hands or alternatively, to be the consequence of external factors beyond their personal control. People who regard personal outcomes largely as contingent upon their own behaviour and attributes are said to have internal locus of control. By contrast, those with external locus of control feel that most things that happen to them in life are due to other powerful individuals and social institutions, luck, chance, or fate. Although there may be some variation across cultures (Davies & Kirkby, 1985; Groth- Marnat & Pegden, 1998; Tobacyk & Tobacyk, 1992), the general trend seems to be that paranormal belief is associated with an external locus of control. This relationship has been documented in regard to specific beliefs in ESP, precognition, psi more generally, witchcraft, superstitions, spiritualism, reincarnation, and extraordinary life forms (Alprin & Lester, 1995;