Paranormal Belief Among College Students and Elderly People: A Comparative Study

Abstract

This is a comparative study conducted for assessing the prevalence of paranormal belief among college students and elderly people, and for identifying if paranormal belief increases with increasing age. This study was conducted on two groups: college students and elderly people. The sample included 50 college students aged 20–25 years and 50 elderly persons aged 40–65 years. The study was conducted using the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale which was developed by Tobacyk in 2004. The study compared the paranormal beliefs of college students with those of elderly people to determine the relationship between paranormal beliefs and age. The study findings revealed that due to the negative correlation between both variables, elderly people and age, hypothesis 1 is rejected. Hypothesis 2 has a non-significant result in six sub-domains between two variables (elderly and college students), indicating that the elderly population will have higher levels of paranormal beliefs in the individual sub-domains of the scale than their younger counterparts. Hypothesis 2 was rejected in one sub-domain (extraordinary life forms) because it yielded a significant result in the study.