Discovery Lab Answers

Adrian Parker — Research Profile

The ESP-Nexus page for Adrian Parker is at Adrian Parker — full content is currently pending a generator pass, so what follows draws on the primary sources retrieved for this question.

Institutional affiliation

The sources retrieved identify Parker as being at the Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, with a contact address of Adrian.Parker@psy.gu.se ^[3].

Research strands visible in the retrieved sources

Parker’s work spans two fairly distinct areas: experimental/theoretical parapsychology and psychopathology-adjacent psychology — specifically the psychology of paranormal belief, schizotypy, and cognitive functioning. In the retrieved sources Parker appears both as a sole-authored theorist ^[3] and as a recurring co-author in a Manchester Metropolitan University group led by Neil Dagnall, Kenneth Drinkwater, and Andrew Denovan ^{[1][2][4][5][6]}.

1. Theoretical and interpretive work on psi

The most substantive solo-authored piece retrieved is a 2021 Journal of Scientific Exploration commentary in which Parker develops a theoretical framework Parker calls “thought-forms gone rogue” — a speculative model intended to bridge psi-friendly and psi-critical accounts ^[3]. The paper draws on research into autonomous entities, psychedelic experiences, consciousness studies, and philosophy of will (including Schopenhauer), and engages the question of whether apparently external anomalous phenomena might originate in mental processes that acquire a degree of functional autonomy. Parker notes methodological difficulties in working with psychedelics in psi research contexts ^[3]. The piece is explicitly a theoretical commentary rather than an experimental report.

2. Psychology of paranormal belief — measurement and structure

Several retrieved papers address the factorial structure of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS), a widely used 26-item self-report instrument ^[4][6]. Drinkwater, Denovan, Dagnall, and Parker (2017) used confirmatory factor analysis on a large sample (N = 3,744) and compared ten competing structural models ^[6]. The seven-factor bifactor model returned acceptable fit on multiple indices, while the two-factor oblique model showed unacceptable fit on all indices but SRMR ^[6]. The same paper found that women scored significantly higher on paranormal beliefs than men ^[6]. Parker and Goulding (2001) are cited within ^[4] as having noted the RPBS is the most widely used self-report measure of its type.

3. Schizotypy, paranormal belief, and probabilistic reasoning

Denovan, Dagnall, Drinkwater, and Parker (2018) used latent profile analysis (LPA) on a sample to identify four distinct groups defined by combinations of schizotypy and paranormal belief, ranging from low on both (43.9% of sample) to moderate schizotypy with high paranormal belief (8.9%) ^[4]. The study examined probabilistic reasoning performance — including the conjunction fallacy and perception of randomness — across these profiles, and reported gender differences in paranormal conjunction fallacy performance ^[4].

4. Urban legends, reality testing, and schizotypy

Dagnall, Denovan, Drinkwater, Parker, and Clough (2017) examined urban legend endorsement alongside paranormal belief, reality testing, and schizotypy in a sample of 222 participants, using structural equation modeling ^[5]. The confirmatory factor analysis work in this paper tested multiple RPBS factor structures and replicated findings of marginal or unacceptable fit for the standard two-factor model ^[5].

5. Executive functioning and perceived paranormal ability

Two 2021/2022 papers from the same Dagnall group examined executive functioning. Drinkwater, Dagnall, Denovan, Parker, and Escolà-Gascón (2021) assessed executive functioning across groups defined by self-reported paranormal ability (no ability, ability, practising) and found significant multivariate group differences, with contrasts between the “no ability” group and the combined “ability + practising” group showing medium-to-large effects on general executive function, working memory, attention tracking, and retrieval ^[2]. Decision-making did not differ significantly between those groups in that contrast ^[2].

A 2022 follow-up by the same author group used latent profile analysis to identify four paranormal experience profiles and examined their associations with executive functions, emotion regulation, and everyday memory ^[1]. A significant main effect of profile group emerged for both executive function and emotion regulation outcomes ^[1].

Skeptical critiques

What critics argue. The broader research program on paranormal belief and cognition — in which Parker participates — is subject to the standard critique of cross-sectional self-report designs: that common method variance inflates observed associations, and that cross-sectional data cannot establish whether cognitive profiles precede or follow paranormal belief formation. The papers themselves acknowledge this ^[1].

What the experimental data show. The 2022 LPA paper explicitly addresses common method variance by implementing procedural devices including rotating scale presentation order across participants ^[1]. The 2021 executive functioning paper used similar counterbalancing ^[2]. Both papers report statistically significant multivariate effects, but the retrieved excerpts do not resolve the directional causality question.

Analysis. Parker’s structural and measurement work on the RPBS sits within an ongoing debate about whether paranormal belief is best modeled as a unitary construct or a multidimensional one — the retrieved papers consistently find the two-factor oblique model fits poorly and favor more differentiated solutions ^[5][6]. Independent replication of the latent profile structures across samples other than those used in the originating studies has not been established from the retrieved sources alone.

For the full profile as it develops, see Adrian Parker.