Social Legitimacy, Dogmatism, and the Evaluation of Intense Experiences

Abstract

This analysis concerns the effects different types of experiences and different experience "triggers" have on the evaluation of intense experiences. Aesthetic, religious, and mystical experiences, independently operationalized for equal intensity, were evaluated under three triggering conditions. As predicted, results indicated that evaluation of both experiences and triggers tended to follow their social legitimacy. Dogmatism had a high correlation with social acquiescence and these two factors operated in different directions to affect evaluation of triggers and experiences. As a rule, social acquiescence positively correlated with evaluation of triggers and experiences, while dogmatism with social acquiescence partialled out tended to correlate negatively with the evaluation of experiences and triggers.