PRELIMINARY GROUP REPORT FOR THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING OF SUBJECTS FROM THE PARAPSYCHOLOGY STUDY AT STANFORD RESEARCH INSTITUTE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00999A000200010047-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 9, 2014
• Sequence Number: 47
• Publication Date: December 1, 1974
• Content Type: REPORT

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Preliminary Group Report for the Psycholuical Testing of Subjects
From the Parapsychology Study at Stanford Research institute
During late summer and early fall, six subjects were referred to me for
testing for the parapsychology study at Stanford Research Institute.
Three of the subject's were designated as sensitive subjects and three
of the subjects were designated as controls. It was planned that I
would do the testing without knowledge of which subjects were considered
sensitive and which subjects were considered controls. However, in the
course of my contacts with these subjects, it proved impossible not VD
know which subjects belonged to which group, since I was to interview
each person in depth. Since personal experience with apparently extra-
sensory perception is a fairly dramatic event, subjects could not avoid
talking about these events and still be honest in an in-depth interview.
Consequently, a secondary plan was developed in which I would do the
psychological testing and write individual reports for each subject, and
Dr. Heenan would rend the test: blind and see whether he could pick out
three test records which seemed more similar to each other than the rest,
thereby discriminating between sensitive and non-sensitive subjects.
Dr. Heenan has not yet reviewed the test materials and so, since a pre-
liminary report is reqaested, I am giving my clinical impressionsof the
group data as pertains to the sensitive and control subjects.
Intellectual Functioning.
All of the subjects in this study.disnlayed distinctly above-average
intellectual abilities. Most subjects reached the superior range, and
several of the subjects reached the gifted range. As it happened, the
control subjects tended to show higher average intellectual functioning
scores than did sensitive subjects, although the difference could not be
said to be significant, given that there were only three subjects in each
group. Two of the subjects from the sensitive group showed highly
variable subtest scores within their intelligence test battery. This is,
some of the subskills would be extremely high and other subskills would
be extremely low. The variable patterns shown are consistent with
ambivalent motivation as regards learning tasks and academic situations.
I was able to spot no consistent trends as to which subskills tended to
be high and which subskills tended to be low. For all six subjects,
verbal and performance skills tended to be about evenly balanced, and
memory skills were approximately what would be expected, given the intelli-
gence scores attained. The number scores on memory tests as well as the
performances of the subjects themselves reflect a slight tendency toward
better memory for material which is organized logically or which appears
in a meaningful context than for rote memory material. In the control
group, this, tendency seems less pronounced and in fact one subject showed
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a clear preference for rote memory material. The subjects themselves
did not feel that any of the intelligence test material tapped skills
or propensities on their part which might be linked to their extra-
sensory capacities, and since the patterns of strength and weakness
within the test profiles varied so widely, I am inclined to accept
their judgment with one possible exception. It is possible that
. sensitive subjects tend to be holistic perceivers rather than analytic
perceivers; that is, to perceive in Gestalt rather than compartmentalized
v
, >elements. Psychological tests which are directly relevant to this
dif-
ference in perceptual style appear not to be standardized as yet and
,.LSO. it is difficult to follow this lead.
Personality Functioning.
When looked at from the point of view of psychopathology, the indi-
cators both in projective and in objective testing do not appear to me
to show marked trends, either for the six subjects taken together or for
the subjects in each groun. There does appear to be an interesting
'similarity in defensive style, particularly when this is taken together
with a similarity in interests and vocational aptitude:-, which can be seen
in a large number of the subjects both in sensitive and control groups.
To elaborate, all six subjects tended to have high feminine scores on
the masculinity-femininity scale of the M.M.P.I. That scale does not
measure sexual orientation but rather sex role stereotype. For example,
a person who is highly active in expressing his aggression, who is self
assertive and who adopts "masculine" interests in, say, sports, mechanics,
etc., is likely to get a high masculine score; a person who tends to be
fairly passive in expressing aggression, even manipulative, who tends to
be interested in the arts, in music, in aesthetic sensitivities, is likely
to gain a high feminine score. Both the men and the women in this group
of subjects tended to have high feminine scores. The trend is seen again
in the vocational aptitude survey, the Strong Vocational Interest Blank,
wherein all of the subjects tended to achieve high scores in music, art
and writing, but particularly in writing was consistent. The score
on writing aptitude appeared to be above average for the general popula-
tion in each subject and for several of the subjects it was one of the
highest scores obtained. These two trends in the objective personality
test data can be compared with another trend found in the projective
test data, namely on the Rorschach. Here, the responses of the subjects
tended to emphasize animal or human movement and to de-emphasize color.
This pattern is common in people who tend to be introspective, to have
a rich inner fantasy life, and in fact to prefer that kind of expression
of their emotions to interpersonal expression. The capacity to stand
back from one's feelings, observe them, analyze them, even savor them,
is common among artists and particularly among writers.
Unfortunately, two of the subjects from the sensitive group were
highly defensive about test-taking and their defensiveness was most
pronounced in the projective personality tests. The result was that
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they gave u-y minimal records, very few responses, and were close-mouthed
in talking about their responses. Hence, the pattern to which I refer can
be seen more clearly in the control subjects than in the sensitive subjects
even though it annears to occur for all six subjects. Currently I am
doing an item-by-item analysis of the subject's answers to the masculinity-
femininity scale of the M.M.P.I. to see whether the high scores obtained
are the product of interest patterns, aggression patterns, or both, and
whether the subjects tended to check the same items in order to achieve
their high scores or not. Closer content and sequential analysis of
the Rorschach records may also be instructive in this regard.
In the course of the testing, the control subjects began to tell me that
as they participated in the S.R.I. study, they appeared to be developing
more and more sensitivity on the experiments performed and each was not
certain that he should be properly classified as a control subject. In
talking with Dr. Puthoff, I learned that they did appear to be showing
some sensitivity but that their performances were not reliable and so
they still could be said to be importantly different from the sensitive
subjects. If the sensitive subjects could be induced to be less defensive
in test-taking, it is possible that their records would show a pattern
which could be distinguished from that of the control subjects. Since
that is not the case, we are left with a dilemma. A tendency toward
artistic interests, a rich fantasy life and an introversive style of
emotional expression may be accidental in all of these six subjects.
It may be characteristic- of persons who are willing to participate in
parapsychological studies. It may be characteristic of persons who have
some extrasensory capacity, whether great or small, or it may relate to
some other variable which happens to be common to these six subjects.
At least four of the subjects in this study describe to me an interest
in scientology and two of them indicate that they have been involved in
the Church of Scientology for some time. This commonality may account
for the similarity described above.
Should the pattern of emotional style and aesthetic interest prove relevant
to extrasensory capacity, it would seem that the Rorschach gets at the most
fundamental level of this quality. The Objective tests are more likely to
be measuring the end products of that fundamental level of emotional ex-
pression. Since my reading of projective test material is likely to be
colored by my acquaintance with the subjects and what they said about them-r,
selves. I will be interested to see whether Dr. Heenan can discern the
same pattern, and for my own curiosity I would like to be able to test
the sensitive subjects again, without them having read this report, to see
whether I can put them more at ease on a second contact and get more pro-
ductive records from them. Two of these subjects said frankly that they
were alienated at the thought of psychological testing because their
experience was that people with extrasensory capacity were written off as
nuts and that psychologists and psychiatrists always examined them with an
eye toward any pathology they could discover. If they could be reassured
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that' that was not the point of interest and at the same time not be
coached as to what kinds of responses I was interested in, another
session of projective testing might be productive. .
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Karen L. Nelson, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
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