Enoksen-Dickerson2018

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Enoksen-Dickerson2018
BibType ARTICLE
Key Enoksen-Dickerson2018
Author(s) Anette Einan Enoksen, Paul Dickerson
Title ‘That proves my point’: How mediums reconstrue disconfirmation in medium–sitter interactions
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Confirmation, Epistemics, Epistemology, Paranormal, Psychics, Truth Claims
Publisher
Year 2018
Language English
City
Month
Journal British Journal of Social Psychology
Volume 57
Number 2
Pages 386–403
URL Link
DOI 10.1111/bjso.12241
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Previous research has examined how the talk of mediums attends to the epistemological status of their readings. Such work has identified that mediums frequently use question-framed propositions that are typically confirmed by the sitter, thereby conferring epistemological status on the medium. This study seeks to investigate what happens when the sitter disconfirms the propositions of the medium. The study focuses on the ways in which such disconfirmation can be responded to such that it is reconstrued as evidence of the psychic nature of the medium's reading. Televised demonstrations of psychic readings involving British and US mediums and their sitters are analysed. The results suggest that mediums rework disconfirmation as proof in several ways: first, by emphasizing the different access that sitter and medium have to knowledge (e.g., about the future); second, as evidence that the medium has access to the actual voice of the deceased (and may therefore mishear what the deceased has said to them); and third, as revealing an important truth that has hitherto been concealed from the sitter. The implications of these findings are considered for cases where speakers bring different and potentially competing, epistemological resources to an interaction.

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