https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-...26tucker-1.pdf
Not the children, the parents, the above linked paper describes the normal hypothesis quite well.
Quote:
In the socio- psychological hypothesis (Brody, 1979), a normal hypothesis, it is pointed out that most of the children live in cultures with a belief in reincarnation. They are said to hear of deaths, and they then say that they were the deceased individu- als out of either fantasy or deception. After the two families have met, the family members remember the child’s statements and recognitions as being more impressive than they actually were since they have the wish that the de- ceased individual has reincarnated as the child. The birthmarks are said to be mere coincidences, and the behaviors indicative of the previous life are thought to be part of the self-delusion. A previous study comparing cases hav- ing written records made before the two families met with ones without records did not find support for such a theory (Stevenson and Schouten, 1998).
The paranormal hypothesis most often considered is that of reincarnation (there are others, such as possession and the “super-psi” hypothesis). Investi- gators have reported cases in which the children appeared to have knowledge about the previous personality that they could not have obtained through nor- mal means, and in some cases (as mentioned), written records were made be- fore the previous individual’s family was located (Haraldsson, 1991; Steven- son, 1974, 1975, 1977; Stevenson and Samararatne, 1988). This knowledge, considered along with the children’s identifications as the deceased individu- als, the matching birthmarks, and the unexpected behaviors, appears to sup- port the reincarnation explanation for the cases
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Then this article goes onto describe why the paranormal case makes the correlations make more sense. It however really could benefit from the peer review. The most egregious example is the following
Quote:
The above results can be considered in relation to the normal and paranor- mal hypotheses. In looking at the internal consistency of the scale, one area that produced surprising results was how the connection between the subject and the previous personality correlated with the remainder of the scale. A case is given points for distance between the two, be it lack of association between the families, geographical distance, or socioeconomic or caste difference. All of these correlated with the remainder of the scale, both as individual items and as a group. Thus, greater distance between the child and the previous per- sonality is associated with more evidence for a paranormal explanation. This is the exact opposite of what the socio-psychological hypothesis would predict, since it supposes that the children have acquired their knowledge about the previous personality through normal means. These results suggest that this is likely not the case.
As for the reincarnation hypothesis, it would not necessarily predict a posi- tive or negative correlation between distance and the strength of a case. What the positive correlation may suggest is that, while the long distance cases may well be reincarnation cases, some of the close proximity reincarnation cases may be diluted by others best explained through normal means.
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He completely ignores why the correlation scores would be higher for someone farther away. Simply the selection bias of the candidate who is reporting the person far away. The close cases start from the kid saying my friend lives in this house, then the parents knock on the door and find a few things similar and get involved with Stevenson.
In order for the far away case to exist something needs to trigger the connection. This would be the birth marks matching or a bunch of striking similarities. This process of self selection of the far away case which would require more evidence to warrant investigation would provide a higher rate of SOCs for cases far away in the Normal hypothesis.
It does not appear that anyone read this paper with scrutiny for the alternatives that could explain what the data is showing. Like much of the paranormal papers (and non-paranormal papers) the data is interpreted to fit the bias of the author.
As an aside do you believe that reincarnation is likely as described by Stevenson/Tucker? Do you believe that the process of reincarnation causes the birth defects found or do you believe that the soul selects a body that has genetic deformities that match to its physical injuries at time of death? To me the idea that matching birth defects to physical injuries seems like a very odd thing to classify as evidence of reincarnation. This type of evidence is given the highest score without comment in this particular paper. Maybe you can shed some light on why they consider the deformity matching as evidence of reincarnation.
In your readings do they ever discuss if the North American child’s Imaginary Friend is the same mechanism and do they ever investigate if they can find matching pairs to imaginary friends in the same manner.
Essentially belief in reincarnation shouldn’t affect the rate of reincarnation so when the same psychological behaviour occurs in non believing regions you should be able to build the same SOCs data and compare the two.
One more question
Are their fields of paranormal belief that you dismiss as quackery and on what basis do you dismiss them as quackery. I’m thinking like Horoscopes, ESP, Mentalists, homeopaths and on what basis do you assess the likelihood of truth.