title: Repetition avoidance in responses to imaginary questions: the effect of respondents' belief in ESP.
abstract: 42 subjects were given the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator which demands checking either one of two response variants for each of 81 questions. Before, they had completed an imaginary questionnaire version, that is, checked 81 times either "a" or "b" without seeing any questions. Three main findings emerged. (1) Over all subjects, repetitions of the same response alternative were significantly avoided only in the imaginary version, indicating that item content in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator overrode response stereotypy. (2) On the imaginary version, repetition avoidance was significant for those subjects who said they believed in extrasensory perception (ESP) but not for nonbelievers, corroborating previous reports of an association between belief in ESP and repetition avoidance. (3) In comparison to nonbelievers, believers in ESP scored higher on the dimension "feeling" (as opposed to "thinking") of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This result is in line with the assumption that belief in ESP is associated with a style of thinking more typical for the right hemisphere.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Brugger
authors.forename: A T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Baumann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010268:Parapsychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires