Browsing by Author "Rokka, Oona"

Objectives Previous research on the association between childhood family environment and paranormal thinking have focused on single factors such as parenting style or traumatic experiences. The topic has been investigated only in retrospective crosssectional studies with comparatively small or biased samples, while longitudinal studies with a follow-up from childhood to adulthood have been lacking. This study aimed to investigate whether prospectively assessed normative (ordinary-life) differences in emotional family atmosphere or stressful life events in childhood predict the development of paranormal thinking in adulthood. Methods The participants (n = 1295-2586) came from the Young Finns Study that is a Finnish population-based prospective follow-up study. Emotional family atmosphere and stressful life events in childhood were assessed with parent-filled questionnaires in 1980 (when the participants were 3-18-years old). The assessment of emotional family atmosphere included parents’ child-rearing attitudes, mental disorders, life satisfaction, and alcohol intoxication. Stressful life events, in turn, included house moves, school changes, parental separation, parental death or hospitalization, hospitalization of the child, and child’s absence from school. Paranormal thinking in adulthood was assessed with The Spiritual Acceptance questionnaire in 1997, 2001 and 2012 (when the participants were 20-50 years old). The associations of emotional family atmosphere and stressful life events with paranormal thinking in adulthood were examined using linear regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, and socioeconomic factors (parents’ annual income and educational level in childhood, and participants’ annual income and educational level in adulthood). Results and conclusions The main finding was that emotional family atmosphere or stressful life events in childhood were not crucial factors predicting the development of paranormal thinking in adulthood. Emotional family atmosphere in childhood had a statistically significant association with paranormal thinking in some analyses, but the effect size was very small (emotional atmosphere explained at most 0.3 % of variation in paranormal thinking) and the association did not sustain in all analyses. In conclusion, the results from this population-based longitudinal study suggest that the association of family environment in childhood with paranormal thinking may not be as strong as implied by previous retrospective cross-sectional studies. The current results do not support the idea that individuals grown up in emotionally adverse or stressful family environments would have a strongly elevated likelihood of developing paranormal thinking.