An investigation of the I Ching using the Q-Sort Method and an RNG-PK design: II. the effect of reactance on psi

Abstract

In Part 1 of a two-part study, Storm and Rock (2014) emulated a synchronistic event in the laboratory by first instructing participants to construct a representation of their cognitive/emotional states using a Q-Sort Grid (64 I Ching descriptor-pairs were ranked from -7 to +7), followed by the creation of an outer event using a Random Number Generator (RNG) to generate an I Ching hexagram with an associated reading. Each participant generates (i) an RNG Score, (ii) Yang lines (whenever the RNG score is positive), and a QSort score, drawn from the Q-Sort Grid based on the hexagram that is generated. Q-Sort scores were positive for believers in psi (i.e., sheep), whose mean RNG score was also significantly above mean chance expectation (MCE). In the present study (Part 2), we report the results of a reactance treatment (Brehm and Brehm, 1981) which is hypothesized to compromise the performance of nonbelievers in psi (i.e., goats) who, through noncompliance, are predisposed to disproving the psi hypothesis. Participants were randomly assigned to a control condition (n = 58) or a treatment (reactance) condition (n = 62). Marginally significant reactance effects were found whereby the mean Q-Sort score was lower for (i) 'reactants' compared to 'controls', and (ii) reactant goats compared to control goats. So-called 'Indecisives' (mid-range scorers on the Rasch-scaled Australian Sheep-Goat Scale-Thalbourne, 1995; Lange and Thalbourne, 2002) produced the lowest scores on all three psi measures (even lower than goats), yet mean scores on two psi measures (RNG score and Yang lines) compared to their control cohorts, and compared to reactant goats, were higher rather than lower. It is suggested that more research on indecisives is warranted since their scoring patterns appear to be unpredictable, and may even contradict the conventional 'linear' understanding of the sheep-goat effect.