GROUPTHINK AND THE PARANORMAL

by Chris Chaos

(Groupthink, occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment”. Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups. A group is especially vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making.)

This phenomenon is displayed day in and day out and showcased in the world of a "paranormal investigator". This usually occurs within amateur ranks after they repeated watch a popular "ghost hunting" show on TV and then like minded individuals meet up and attempt to replicate what they viewed in the TV show. One prime example is concerning EVP's (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) and Orbs in photographs. Many of the shows focus on these unscientific and proven otherwise many times over occurrences. The individuals of these groups are so entrenched with the thoughts of a location being haunted they will see any little noise or out of place items as undisputed proof that there is a ghost there. In short they fall victim to Confirmation Bias and virtually ignore any and all evidence to the contrary.

An example of confirmation bias would be an assumption on the part of the investigator thinking that a location is haunted. They enter the premise to investigate and unscientifically take evidence; a simple audio recording with an unexplained sound instantly becomes a ghostly voice in an EVP. Random photographs are taken with their digital camera and later they find what they think are orbs, spirits or energy captured in digital form. Although studies conducted by the various camera manufacturers, in particular Kodak, all stated that these anomalies are either reflections, defects or dust captured by or in the camera itself. In addition the majority of the locations that self proclaimed ghost hunters investigate have been long abandoned and accumulated much dust. When the investigators enter these locations they stir up the dust and when they take photos or videos it is captured and then provides exclusive "evidence that the place is haunted." The skeptic in the more scientifically based research groups would not take the orbs or not readily explained audio recordings at face value as absolute proof that a ghost is haunting the location.  They will look into the matter with a much greater degree of thought in the quest for identification of what was actually captured. Even in some of the most cleanest of environments dust will get kicked up when people enter and disturb the scene which will undoubtedly be captured on camera.

Audio and EVPs captured are also the producers of false positives by amateur researchers. I have heard countless audio clips presented by ghost hunters claiming they have definitive proof that a ghost voice was caught by their equipment. As a listener that was not on location it is difficult to prove or disprove what the sound actually is. For the most part, many of the sounds/voices captured were from one of the team members due to poor planning and communication during the audio capturing exercises. One (of the many) fatal flaws that many investigative groups fall victim to is having way too many people on site, it is difficult to keep track of the locations of random roving members walking around the property. Maintaining silence at all times is also crucial to the progress of acquiring audio evidence. Too many expeditions are ruined and sabotaged due to group members creating additional noises that are picked up in the audio recording sessions and then mistaken as ghosts or explainable noises and sounds later during evidence review.

Groupthink also makes the group stagnant if they do not interact and compare notes with groups other than their own. The directional thinking becomes a one way street with no new processing being injected into said group. It is always best to get an outside opinion or someone to play devil's advocate to challenge all evidence deemed as positive. For each occurrence that is considered a "yes", come up with counter arguments of why it can be considered a "no".

The below are common symptoms and remedies for groupthink and extend to beyond the paranormal world.

SOME SYMPTOMS OF GROUPTHINK:
Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.
Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.
Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.
Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary.
Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.
Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.
Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.
Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

REMEDIES FOR GROUPTHINK:
a) The leader should assign the role of critical evaluator to each member
b) The leader should avoid stating preferences and expectations at the outset
c) Each member of the group should routinely discuss the groups' deliberations with a trusted associate and report back to the group on the associate's reactions
d) One or more experts should be invited to each meeting on a staggered basis. The outside experts should be encouraged to challenge views of the members.
e) At least one articulate and knowledgeable member should be given the role of devil's advocate (to question assumptions and plans)
f) The leader should make sure that a sizeable block of time is set aside to survey warning signals from rivals; leader and group construct alternative scenarios of rivals' intentions.

(Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey. He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings. Chris can be reached at AxisVideo@aol.com)

The Passage of Time

by Chris Chaos

I had a question about an observation that I had over the last few years....

Has anyone noticed that it appears that the passage of time seems to be going faster the older you get? Does it seem like the days, weeks, months and years are rolling by incredibly quick? For me it seems as if time started to gain acceleration when I was about 22 years old. I have always kept busy with schooling, work, hobbies and other pursuits in life so my time has always been occupied.

Now I know as a kid time seems to take forever since you are constantly looking forward to things: birthdays, Holidays, trips, your 13th b-day, your 18th b-day etc.... When you have your eye on a date when something exciting happens time feels like it never moves.

Now flash forward to adulthood, you are working on college, a job, a career, paying bills, having kids and the daily grind. You are constantly busy and bogged down with life that you do not have the time to stop and smell the roses per say.

Quite a few other adults that are doing something with their life have stated similar observations. On the flip side I noticed that people that have nothing going for them in life state the opposite, they can be heard stating, "I am so bored, I cannot wait for today to end." Why so you can do the exact same life loafing that you did today?

 

The times that I seem to notice the most (not due to ques such as alarm clocks) are 10 am, 12 noon, 3pm, 6pm and then 9pm. These blocks pop up the most and the time in between them appear to disappear without explanation.

An excerpt from Wikipedia:

Time perception is a field of study within psychology and neuroscience that refers to the subjective experience of time, which is measured by someone's own perception of the duration of the indefinite and continuous unfolding of events. The perceived time interval between two successive events is referred to as perceived duration. Another person's perception of time cannot be directly experienced or understood, but it can be objectively studied and inferred through a number of scientific experiments. Time perception is a construction of the brain that is manipulable and distortable under certain circumstances. These temporal illusions help to expose the underlying neural mechanisms of time perception.

Pioneering work, emphasizing species-specific differences, was conducted by Karl Ernst von Baer. Experimental work began under the influence of the psycho-physical notions of Gustav Theodor Fechner with studies of the relationship between perceived and measured time.

William J. Friedman (1993) also contrasted two theories for a sense of time:

The strength model of time memory. This posits a memory trace that persists over time, by which one might judge the age of a memory (and therefore how long ago the event remembered occurred) from the strength of the trace. This conflicts with the fact that memories of recent events may fade more quickly than more distant memories.

The inference model suggests the time of an event is inferred from information about relations between the event in question and other events whose date or time is known.



(Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey. He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings. Chris can be reached at AxisVideo@aol.com) 

Ghost Hunting and Urban Exploration: Some Things to Consider

by Chris Chaos

How priming can set you up for failure. Priming is activating particular associations in memory. An example might be watching various paranormal shows on TV prior to investigating a location, or reading books concerning ghosts. Although popular concenses may state that the particular location IS haunted, consider all possibilities as to why and how people came to this conclusion about the location. Many locations get the attribute of being haunted for many reasons. Some may be for tourism reasons, others may be that it was a former mental hospital or prison where many atrocities have occurred. Some business owners have been known to start the rumor that their establishment is haunted to draw in interest and more business. For once you have a belief, it influences how you perceive all other relevant information. If you enter a location believing that it is haunted, then every noise you hear, every shadow that you see will convince you further that the place IS haunted. Most likely the noise that you heard came from another team member clumsily stomping around, or a mouse, a bird or possibly a homeless person that seeked shelter in the building that you are investigating. Entering a location with a neutral frame of mind will produce far greater and accurate results. For every piece of information that you gather that confirms your original thoughts and suspisions, try to find a piece that will disprove it. Opposing information is just as important as information that is confirming, if not even more important.

A healthy and appropriate amount of skepticism will usually yield correct results. With each piece of evidence that confirms your beliefs or what you suspected, please reserve some skepticism to test if the original theory is correct. Confirmation bias (a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions) is usually counter productive without "conflicting" evidence.

William Shakespeare said it best: "The error of our eye directs our mind: what error leads must err"

Usually when one has a solid belief in if a location is haunted or not they ignore all contridicting evidence. This is called Belief Perseverance (persistence of one's initial conceptions, such as when the basis for one's belief is discredited but an explanation of why the belief might be true survives). Many are enticed by the unknown and thrive on the thrill of the hunt, not really caring about the futilness of actually finding anything that is logical.

Amatuers fueled by the popular ghost hunting TV shows, riled up by the stories in Weird NJ and inspired by reading a ghost story may prematurly set off to a location and conduct an impromptu “ghost hunting” session having not properly conducted the research needed to come to any sort of logical conclusion. Usually this behavior is mirrored by individuals that feel the need to either vandalize, take souvenirs or drink and party at the location, disrespecting everything in the process.

"We hear and apprehend only what we already half know" Henry Thoreau

I never really liked the term “ghost hunter”, it always conjured up images of rednecks hopping into a pick up truck and heading off to an adventure. Also are you really hunting ghosts? Or are you investigating a specific location that was rumored to be haunted, using scientific measures to determine if the place is haunted or not? For us we do enjoy venturing to locations that even angels fear to tread. Many of the locations that we researched and documented are/were in danger of being torn down in the name of progress. As reported, after we walked through, took photos, did tests and noted the history and logged our experiences many of the locations have been torn down.

We have documented the history, researched why the location might have been deemed haunted, took photos/videos and conducted experiments to see if there were any spirits at the location. We consider ourselves urban explorers, documentors of historic architect, investigators of the paranormal, preservers of legend and lore. We preserve the various legends and lore of the place with the scientific research of the history of the location to come to our conclusions.

Sometimes this works backwards and the Misinformation Effect may marry Hindsight Bias. The Misinformation Effect is incorporating misinformation into one's memory of the event, after witnessing an event and receiving misleading information about it. Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism, is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there having been little or no objective basis for predicting it, prior to its occurrence. What this means is that you may go out and investigate a location, gather all your information and then when the investigation is complete an outside source may tarnish the gathered evidence by interjecting information that was misleading or bad information. You may look back and figure that whatever was said might have actually happened.

Happy exploring and documenting!

(Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey. He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings. Chris can be reached at AxisVideo@aol.com)

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