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The 50 item IPIP representation of the Goldberg (1992) markers for the big five factor structure was used (Big-Five Factor Markers, n.d.). This contains five subscales:

• Extraversion (E - 10 items). Sample item “I am the life of the party”. • Agreeableness (A - 10 items). Sample item “I am not interested in other

people’s problems” (reverse scored).

• Conscientiousness (C - 10 items). Sample item “I pay attention to details”. • Emotional Stability (ES - 10 items). Sample item “I seldom feel blue”. • Intellect/Imagination (II - 10 items). Sample item “I have excellent ideas”. The scale was answered using a five point Likert scale ranging from Very Inaccurate to Very Accurate. The reliability of the questionnaire (Cronbach’s alpha) for each

subscale in this sample was E (n=52) 0.88, A (n=53) 0.72, C (n=51) 0.83, ES (n=52) 0.82, II (n=53) 0.72.

5.3.6 Demographics

A set of demographic questions was also included assessing participant’s gender, age, ethnicity, occupational status and educational attainment.

5.3.7 Participants

Participants were recruited through paranormal groups and sceptic societies. A total of 61 questionnaires were returned. Respondents (30 male and 31 female) ranged in age from 24 to 79 years, with a mean age of 44.84 years (SD = 13.014 years).

5.4 Procedure

Questionnaires were distributed to members of paranormal groups and sceptical groups at group meetings and conferences. Respondents were asked to either

complete the questionnaire at the time, take one home to complete and return, or they could have the questionnaire emailed to them to fill in. The order of presentation of the questionnaires within the questionnaire pack was randomised to account for any possible biasing factors due to order of presentation, and the pack that

participants were sent was randomly selected.

Ethical approval was received from the University of Central Lancashire Ethics Committee. Additionally, consideration was given to participant’s perception of the personality variables being assessed in relation to their paranormal belief. Care was taken to ensure that the study was presented in a neutral manner, and debriefing information was careful to contain information stating that paranormal

believers/EVPers might be more likely to find patterns in white noise, but also that this may show that they are more accurate at perceiving patterns in noise. There can be a suspicion of academic studies regarding paranormal phenomena within the believer population, as there is a suspicion that academia may be pathologising paranormal experiences (Steffen, Wilde & Cooper, 2018). Participants were also given ample opportunity to discuss any concerns in an informal setting both before taking part and during the debrief.

5.5 Results 5.5.1 PIEQ

To identify any differences between EVPers and non-EVPers, five questions were identified from the PIEQ questionnaire that related directly to participant’s belief

in EVP as a paranormal phenomenon that facilitated communication with the spirit world. These questions were:

• How many times have you experienced EVP that you consider evidence of communication with the dead?

• To what extent to you think EVP is a paranormal phenomenon?

• To what extent do you think EVPs are misperceptions of normal (i.e. non- paranormal) sounds (reverse scored)

• To what extent do you think EVPs provide evidence that some aspect of personality survives bodily/physical death?

• To what extent do you consider EVP to be a scientific technique?

Twelve questions were also identified from part 2 of the PIEQ, that related to the type of experience participants had reported of EVP. Sample questions are:

• How many times have you experienced EVP that are personal to you (e.g. from a relative or friend)?

• How many times have the EVP voices responded directly to your questions? The four questions identified as being indicative of participant’s belief in EVP as a paranormal phenomenon that facilitated communication with the spirit world were scored on a 7 point scale, ranging from Strongly Disagree through to Strongly Agree. For scoring purposes, responses were coded from zero (Strongly Disagree) to 7

(Strongly Agree). EVP sceptics were assigned as participants who scored a total of zero across all four questions, indicating no belief in EVP as a paranormal phenomenon. This was considered to be the optimum way for the current study to separate out the EVP sceptics, as they reported strongly disagreeing with the statements regarding EVP being a paranormal phenomenon, and additionally using this strict criterion would exclude participants who could potentially hold more complicated and less definite views (for instance there may be participants who believe that EVP is a paranormal phenomenon, have not experienced EVP, and do not consider it to be a scientific technique, but who still believe that they provide evidence that some aspect of personality survives bodily/physical death). This group additionally reported having had no actual experiences of EVP, indicating that they both did not believe in the

phenomenon and had not experienced it either. These participants were designated as non-EVPers.

The second half of the questionnaire was only completed by participants who had experienced what they considered to be a genuine EVP voice. This group also reported a high level of belief in EVP as a paranormal phenomenon when responding to the selected PIEQ questions, and therefore displayed a high level of both belief and experience in the phenomenon. These participants were designated as high EVPers.

The remaining participants displayed a high level of belief in the phenomenon, however they did not report practical experience, and were therefore classed as low- EVPers.

In summary, this classification produced three groups of participants: • Non-EVPers (low belief and low experience)

• Low-EVPers (high belief and low experience) • High-EVPers (high belief and high experience).

A reliability analysis was carried out on the 17 items selected. Cronbach’s alpha showed that the questions reached acceptable reliability, ⍺ = 0.879. All of the items appeared to be worth using, resulting in a decreased alpha if they were removed, except for the reverse scored item, which would increase the alpha if removed to ⍺ = 0.909. When examining the participant responses, it was noted that a number of participants appeared to have mis-read the question. For example, they had stated that they thought EVP was a paranormal phenomenon, they had experienced EVP that they considered communication with the dead a number of times, and they thought that EVP provided evidence that some aspect of personality survives bodily death, however on the reverse scored item they selected that they also thought that EVPs are misperceptions of normal (i.e. non-paranormal) sounds. Because of this, the reverse scored item was removed from the questions used to split the participants into groups.

The PIEQ questionnaire was designed in two sections, one to be answered by all participants concerning paranormal experience and belief in EVP, and the second half was only to be answered by participants who have actively recorded EVPs. Because of this, participants naturally fell into three groups rather than two – the first being non- EVPers who had no belief/experience and had been recruited from paranormal sceptic groups, so were actively sceptical as opposed to agnostic, the second being low-EVPers

who believed in the paranormal and the concept of EVP but who had not actively practiced EVP, and the third group was high-EVPers, who believe in the paranormal and regularly practice EVP techniques. The four questions from the first part of the PIEQ were answered on a 7 point scale, from Strongly Disagree through to Strongly Agree, with 12 questions from the second part also answered on a 7 point Likert scale, but with answers ranging from “never” to “51+ times”. The participants were split according to their scores on the scale, with participants who scored zero being assigned as non-EVPers, participants who had responded to the second part of the PIEQ (regarding actual experience of EVP) being assigned as high-EVPers, and the remainder of the participants being assigned as low-EVPers (as they displayed belief in EVP but had no actual experience of the technique).

A one-way between groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore any differences between these three EVP groups. The group sizes were 11 non-EVP, 26 low-EVP and 21 high-EVP), and when the Levene test for homogeneity of variances was calculated, a number of subscales showed a significant result, indicating a violation of homogeneity of variances.

Skewness and kurtosis values were calculated, which suggested that the normality was acceptable to proceed with.

Results can be seen in Table 1.