How a Magic Trick Turns Skeptics Into Believers
On this page
Can a single word make you believe in magic?
Calling a trick 'psychic' instead of 'magic' makes people believe in supernatural powers and think less randomly.
In a university classroom in 2015, 91 psychology students gathered for what they thought was a standard lecture. Instead, they witnessed a performance that would challenge how they think about the impossible—depending entirely on which introduction they heard.
Key Findings
- The label completely changed how students explained what they saw.
- Those told it was 'psychic' attributed the effects to supernatural powers, while the 'magic' group saw clever tricks.
- Surprisingly, the 'psychic' group also showed more repetition avoidance—avoiding repeating numbers when trying to be random—a cognitive bias linked to paranormal belief.
- This bias persisted whether measured before or after the demonstration.
What Is This About?
The researchers split the students into two groups. One group was told they would see a demonstration by a psychic with supernatural abilities. The other group was told they'd watch a magician using sleight of hand and tricks. Both groups then watched the exact same performance. Before and after the show, the students completed tasks including generating random numbers in their heads and answered questions about how they thought the effects were achieved.
Experimental manipulation where 91 students watched an identical magic demonstration after being primed to believe the performer was either a psychic with supernatural abilities or a magician using tricks. Researchers measured how participants explained the effects and tested their random number generation patterns before and after the demonstration.
Participants primed with the 'psychic' label attributed the effects to supernatural powers and showed significantly more repetition avoidance (a cognitive bias linked to paranormal belief) compared to the 'magician' group, regardless of whether tested before or after the demonstration.
How Good Is the Evidence?
91 students participated—roughly the size of two average university lecture sections. The psychic-primed group showed significantly more repetition avoidance than the magician-primed group, a difference that remained stable across pre- and post-demonstration testing, suggesting the framing effect is robust rather than fleeting.
Parapsychology supporters might argue this shows how cultural framing suppresses or enhances anomalous experiences, suggesting that 'skeptical' labels inhibit genuine psi phenomena. Skeptics counter that this demonstrates the power of suggestion and confirmation bias—people see what they're told to see, explaining why psychic demonstrations fail under controlled conditions. Cognitive scientists see it as evidence that paranormal beliefs are cognitive states, not fixed traits, shaped by context like any other perception.
Mainstream: The study demonstrates normal psychological priming effects—labels activate belief schemas that bias interpretation and cognitive patterns. Moderate: Belief in the paranormal is a flexible cognitive state influenced by context, suggesting such beliefs are more about interpretation frameworks than fixed personality traits. Frontier: Contextual suggestion may act as a 'psi-conducive' or 'psi-inhibitory' state, potentially explaining why paranormal effects appear inconsistently in research.
Many think this study proves psychic powers are real because the 'psychic' group believed in them. Actually, it proves the opposite: the performance was identical for both groups—only the label changed. The study demonstrates how easily our beliefs can be manipulated by suggestion, not that supernatural abilities exist.
To establish that framing genuinely alters cognitive biases (not just reporting), we'd need replication with larger, diverse samples, behavioral measures beyond self-report, and controls for demand characteristics (where participants guess what researchers want to hear). This study meets the criteria for initial evidence but lacks the replication and methodological controls needed for definitive conclusions about cognitive flexibility.
It is concluded that pre-existing beliefs and contextual suggestions both influence people's interpretations of anomalous events and associated cognitive biases are likely flexible well into adulthood and change with actual life events.
Stance: Skeptical
What Does It Mean?
It's like telling someone a wine costs $100 versus $10 before they taste it—the exact same liquid tastes different based on the label. This study shows that 'psychic' versus 'magician' works the same way on our interpretation of impossible events.
This study illustrates how experimental labels can become self-fulfilling prophecies—participants didn't just report different beliefs, they actually performed differently on cognitive tasks based solely on which word they heard beforehand.
Understanding Terms
What This Study Claims
Findings
Labeling a performance as 'psychic' rather than 'magic' significantly increases the likelihood that viewers will attribute the effects to supernatural powers rather than conjuring tricks.
moderateExposure to 'psychic' framing produces greater repetition avoidance in random number generation tasks compared to 'magic' framing, suggesting this cognitive bias associated with paranormal belief is state-dependent rather than purely trait-like.
moderateParticipants' explanations of the anomalous event correlated positively with their prior traditional (religious) and non-traditional (paranormal) beliefs.
moderateInterpretations
Cognitive biases linked to paranormal beliefs remain flexible into adulthood and can shift based on contextual suggestions and life events.
weakThis summary is for general information about current research. It does not constitute medical advice. The scientific interpretation of these results is debated among researchers. If personally affected, please consult qualified professionals.