The dissemination of divination in roman republican times

Materials A booklet similar to the one in experiment 1 was constructed. The first section
with stories used for experiment 1 was substituted with a story about the fictive Guzul people
of Central Australia. 46 They were described as having three different kinds of specialists,
whom they often used to determine the hidden causes of peoples' misfortune. The main
character is trying to find out why he has been sick for months and wants to know what to do
to get better. He has to choose one of three diviners. They are all deemed reliable and have a
good reputation. The only difference between them is the technique they employ to
communicate with a god. In order to increase the ecological validity, the different techniques
are relatively common divination techniques taken from the ethnographic literature. The
technique associated with intuitive physics is someone who communicates with a god by
listening to the sound of the wind in a cave, the intuitive biology technique is someone who
communicates by looking at the flight of the birds, and the intuitive psychology technique is
someone who communicates by ecstatic possession.
The sequence in which the three different techniques appeared, were randomized into 3
different sets.
Design and procedure Divination Type was a within subject variable and Set was a
between subjects variable. The procedure was the same as in experiment 1 and the same
instructions were given. The different sets were randomly assigned to the participants.
Results A one way ANOVA revealed that there were no overall effects of Set on Divination
Type. Therefore the different sets were collapsed into one for further statistical analysis. The
distribution was as expected (See fig. 4.7.)
46 For a translation of the story used see appendix 2.
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