Dispirited

I’m sometimes asked how psychology might explain events that seem so strange that they suggest the existence of paranormal activity, for example when you’re thinking about a friend and how you haven’t talked to them for a while, and then the phone rings and it’s them. These events seem so very unlikely, it seems impossible that they could happen by chance. The explanation that it’s just a coincidence doesn’t seem very persuasive. However, sometimes an unpersuasive reason is the right one, and the reason why unusual events sometimes occur comes down to the law of large numbers.
Any event that can be possible, including bizarre coincidences, has some chance of it happening, even if that chance is very small. However, there are so many events, and so many people to potentially experience them, that even the most unlikely of coincidences is likely to happen now and again. Hence the picture…