Motivation and Belief in the Paranormal in a Remote Viewing Task

In two experiments, the hypothesis was tested that participants’ ability to remotely access the picture they would be shown in the nearest 15 min. depends of the magnitude of the reward. In Experiment 1, in the no-extra reward condition participants received a regular pay of £4 for participation independently of the success of their attempt to access the target picture, whereas in the extra-reward condition participants who successfully identified the picture were paid an additional sum of £80 on top of their regular pay. Results indicated that in the no-extra reward condition participants scored positively and significantly above zero, whereas in the extra reward condition the remote viewing score was negative and not significantly different from zero. In Experiment 2, the reward in the extra reward condition was decreased form £80 to £8 for a successful attempt. In both conditions of this experiment participants scored around zero. In both experiments, participants’ performance was at their best in the first 25 trials, and deteriorated during the subsequent 25 trials. In Experiment 1 the drop in performance was statistically significant. The study did not support the hypothesis that an additional material reward improves ESP performance. Nevertheless, the results partially support the ESP based experimenter’s expectancy effect.