The “Ghost” in the Lab: Believers’ and Non-Believers’ Implicit Responses to an Alleged Apparition

Abstract

Many nonbelievers may engage in supernatural thinking despite their statements to the contrary. Using belief in the afterlife as a test case, we examine, across two studies, the possible discrepancy between what people say they believe and how they reason implicitly. In Study 1, participants completed a mindfulness task during which a light went off unexpectedly. Half had previously been told that a ghost had recently been seen in the same room. Participants’ electrodermal responses and heart rate variability suggested implicit attributions to the “ghost,” and these physiological effects were unrelated to afterlife beliefs. In Study 2, compared to those in a control condition, participants who were informed that a ghost had been seen in the laboratory chose to sit further away from the alleged apparition. Surprisingly, this distancing was most pronounced among participants who did not believe in the afterlife. Cumulatively, the data indicate that self-report measures of supernatural belief may not fully capture private experience and implicit reasoning.