Rense Lange

The concept of transliminality (''a hypothesized tendency for psychological material to cross thresholds into or out of consciousness'') was anticipated by William James (1902/1982), but it was only recently given an empirical definition by Thalbourne in terms of a 29-item Transliminality Scale. This article presents the 17-item Revised Transliminality Scale (or RTS) that corrects age and gender biases, is unidimensional by a Rasch criterion, and has a reliability of .82. The scale defines a probabilistic hierarchy of items that address magical ideation, mystical experience, absorption, hyperaesthesia, manic experience, dream interpretation, and fantasy proneness. These findings validate the suggestions by James and Thalbourne that some mental phenomena share a common underlying dimension with selected sensory experiences (such being overwhelmed by smells, bright lights, sights, and sounds). Low scores on transliminality remain correlated with ''tough mindedness'' in on Cattell 16PF test, as well as ''self-control'' and ''rule consciousness,'' whereas high scores are associated with ''abstractedness'' and an ''openness to change'' on that test. An independent validation study confirmed the predictions implied by our definition of transliminality. Implications for test construction are discussed.

The ‘Valentine’s Day Blues’ is an enduring concept rooted in pop psychology that has unfortunately received little empirical attention. On this point, it is commonly assumed that the increasing commodification of romance plus the social trappings of Valentine’s Day can elicit stresses similar to those evoked by traditional holidays. Thus, women’s greater experience of ‘mattering’ and greater tendencies towards depression and rumination should place women at a greater risk of ‘Valentine’s Day Blues’ than men. Accordingly, when no Valentine’s Day gift is received such distress likely lasts longer in women than in men in addition to being stronger in general. These hypotheses were tested based on the data of 2,070 participants in a 2004 consumer sentiment survey who completed a 34-item online questionnaire within four weeks following Valentine’s Day. This questionnaire addressed anxiety, depression, rumination, and social anxiety as derived from existing instruments. Rasch scaling analyses found that men and women’s generalized depression (i.e., a combination of the four aforementioned item types) was greater for those not receiving a gift relative to that expressed by those who did receive a Valentine’s Day gift. However, while men rebounded after two weeks, women’s greater depression continued after three weeks. Of greatest clinical concern are 30-40 year olds, and those least affected were respondents over 40 years of age. Keywords: Emotion regulation, holiday depression, pop psychology, Rasch scaling, stress reactions.

This paper explores why people report haunting and poltergeist outbreaks, which have been traditionally interpreted as direct and dramatic evidence of spirits. Deliberate deceit and psychopathology can explain some cases, but a more complex process is often at work. Synthesizing qualitative and quantitative research, we conclude that most reports do not offer evidence of survival, but rather represent the predictable human tendency to interpret ambiguous psychological and physical phenomena as paranormal due to contextual factors that influence normal processes underlying imagination, cognition, and personality. 1. Why Do People Experience Haunting and Poltergeist Outbreaks? -- 2. Insights from a Social Science Perspective -- 3. Modeling Poltergeist-Like Episodes as Delusions - 3.1 Contextual Variables - 3.2 Process Variables - 3.3 Exogenous Variables -- 4. Epilogue

A sample of 36,592 online daters provided data on Commitment Readiness defined as “an individual’s desire and readiness to commit exclusively to one romantic partner” in relation to Age, Gender, and Parental Status (singles with and without children). Consistent with previous research, the women scored higher on Commitment Readiness than did the men. Furthermore, age and Commitment Readiness showed a strong inverted U-shaped relation, with younger and older respondents scoring lower on Commitment Readiness as compared to individuals aged 31-60 yrs. Interestingly, Commitment Readiness evidenced neither a significant effect of Parental Status nor an interaction of Gender by Parental Status. Besides the theoretical import of these results, our study illustrates the potential power of Internet research and provides a curious counterexample to criticisms of over-reliance on significance levels for correlational data. Keywords: commitment readiness, gender differences, invented syndromes, pop psychology.

Studies of the mediating factors of imaginary companions (ICs) in children and adults are well-represented in the literature. However, the nature and structure of behavioral expressions in IC characters have been less formally scrutinized. We examined these issues in a convenience sample of 389 adults. Of these, 155 self-reported childhood ICs and retrospectively characterized their IC phenomenology via a set of 14 items modified from previous research. Rasch analyses showed that IC experiences form a true probabilistic hierarchy whose structure varied little across respondents’ age, gender, having siblings, as well as the respondents’ number of past ICs, or their decision to inform others about their IC. This hierarchy starts with shallow (i.e., ostensibly ‘adaptive or positive’) experiences and transition to deep (i.e., relatively ‘maladaptive or negative’) contents at higher levels. Network analysis suggested that respondents invented ICs primarily to combat feelings of loneliness. However, contrary to the Rasch model, when comparing shallow vs deep IC experients’ answers, positive and negative perceptual contents lost their distinction, thereby severely distorting measurement. These distortions were sufficiently powerful to reliably predict respondents’ group membership. Results derived from retrospective accounts of childhood experiences, which might differ from IC contents and dynamics measured either in real-time or within adult populations. However, these findings suggest that ICs comprise a latent dimension of shallow-to-deep perceptions that might relate to schizotypal or dissociative phenomena manifesting in everyday contexts.