How does a person's background affect their belief in the paranormal?

How does a person's background affect their belief in the paranormal?

Chris French (Anomalistic Psychologist) gives expert video advice on: Why do people believe in the paranormal?; Do most people believe in the paranormal?; How important are people's paranormal beliefs to them? and more...

The way that a person's is brought up - their general kind of background, is going to have a big influence on whether or not they believe in the paranormal. For start, someone who grows up in a household where the parents are very into the paranormal, lots of their time is spent discussing those kind of issues, maybe engaging in practices related to to the paranormal, then they are more likely to accept that all this stuff is real. Most of us get a lot of our worldview from our parents or from brothers and sisters as we were growing up. Another important factor is the relisous background of people. When it comes to religion, on the one hand there is the factor in most religions there is a belief in life after death. There is the notion that the soul can exist separately from the body, which makes it then easier, if you already accept that, to actually take on board the paranormal ideas. There are some religions that have very very negative attitudes towards parapsychology and then see it as dabbling in dark forces and see them as experiences which are best left alone that will color people's beliefs and attitudes.Theres no simple answer but very often when you look at one particular individual and the experiences they have had in their life you can see why they have a particular set of beliefs.