Sci., Psi, and CSI: Police Officers and Students’ Paranormal TV Consumption, Real-Life Experience with Paranormal Phenomena, and Perceptions of Psychic Detectives

This study of the CSI effect, separately surveying 416 law-enforcement officers and 307 students, is an inquiry into the effects of paranormal-TV consumption on the respondents’ perceptions of the utility of psychic detectives in actual crime investigations. Grounded on the gratifications/cultivation model of media cultivation theory and in addition to other significant results, the authors found a significant positive relationship between paranormal-TV viewing and belief in psychics’ effectiveness at solving crimes among the sample of police who reported real-life experience with paranormal phenomena. This was an effect that persisted for the police after controlling for several other independent variables. The authors suggest that the “zones-of-relevance” construct that Bilandzic and Rössler ( 2004 ) posited as a primary element of their effects model constitutes the pivotal psychological mechanism that accounts for the differences between the students and police.