the role of cognitive control in paranormal beliefs: a study based on performance in go/no-go task

Introduction: cognitive control plays a role in human behavior and mental processes and affects paranormal beliefs. this study aims to investigate the role of cognitive control in paranormal beliefs using the go/no-go task. methods: a total of 92 people were selected based on low, middle, and high scores in the revised paranormal belief scale (r-pbs) and assigned to 3 groups. the groups included 30 severe paranormal believers (13 females with a mean age of 25.3 years), 31 mild paranormal believers (14 females with a mean age of 26.4 years), and 31 skeptics (16 females with a mean age of 25.8 years). all participants were tested on the go/no-go task. a multivariate analysis of variance was conducted with the given groups (severe paranormal believers, mild paranormal believers, and skeptics) as the independent variable and the go/no-go subscales scores as dependent variables. results: the findings showed a significant difference between the mean scores in errors of go (f(2, 89)=7.20, p=0.01), errors of no-go (f(2, 89)=11.81, p=0.01), and reaction time (f(2, 89)=21.46, p=0.01) between the groups. conclusion: the severe and mild paranormal believers had lower accuracy and slower reaction times than the skeptics group. therefore, severe paranormal believers and mild paranormal believers had a weakness in all go/no-go subscale scores. this finding suggests that paranormal beliefs may be related to poor cognitive control.