OZ SHEEP GOAT SCALE X SLF MILD GOAT LO BELIEVER SCORE 14

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The Australian Sheep-Goat Scale (ASGS) is a psychological questionnaire used in parapsychology to measure a person’s belief in and experiences of paranormal phenomena.

Here’s a breakdown:

Aspect	Details
Origin	Developed by Michael Thalbourne (University of Adelaide, 1970s–80s).
Name	The terms “sheep” (believers in the paranormal, e.g., ESP, psychokinesis, life after death) vs. “goats” (skeptics or disbelievers) were coined earlier in parapsychology (Gertrude Schmeidler, 1940s).
Purpose	To quantify the degree of belief in the paranormal and look for correlations between belief and performance in psi experiments (ESP tests, psychokinesis trials, etc.).
Format	Self-report questionnaire with items (typically 18–30 statements) where respondents agree/disagree or rate their level of belief.
Content Areas	Includes belief in ESP, psychokinesis, life after death, precognition, and personal paranormal experiences.
Scoring	Higher scores = stronger belief/experience (a “sheep”), lower scores = skepticism (a “goat”).
Use in Research	- Frequently used in experimental parapsychology to test whether belief in psi correlates with success in psi tasks. - Also applied in psychology of religion and anomalistic psychology to explore belief systems.
Criticism	Some argue it conflates “belief” with “experience,” and results can be influenced by demand characteristics or cultural background.

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✅ In short:
The Australian Sheep-Goat Scale is a standardized survey tool that distinguishes between “sheep” (paranormal believers/experiencers) and “goats” (skeptics) in order to study how these orientations relate to paranormal claims and experimental outcomes.

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Would you like me to show you a sample list of the actual items/questions from the ASGS (as published in Thalbourne’s work), so you can see how it’s structured?

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