To Trust or Not to Trust? The Relationship Between Institutional Trust and Intention to Use Esoteric Practitioners’ Services

In recent years, paranormal beliefs and services have gained increasing popularity in Russia, with proof of such a trend starting from an increase in the amount of interest related to paranormal specialists on the Internet and ending with an increase in the number of purchases related to esoteric goods. Logically enough, such a tendency raises questions about the reasons why some people want to consult with paranormal specialists, and some do not. Due to the lack of relevant literature on this topic in the paranormal field, the goal of this study was to explore one of the most consistent associations existing in the similar field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) services, i.e the association between institutional trust and various intentions to use paranormal specialists' services (PSS). Similar to research in the CAM field, we expected that intentions to use PSS would have a negative association with institutional trust in conventional medicine and a positive one with institutional trust in alternative medicine. To test these hypotheses, a quota sample of Russian participants (n = 1498) completed an online survey that included measures related both to intentions to use PSS and to institutional trust. EFA and step-wise linear regression modeling were used on both of our measures, with the results indicating that while institutional trust in alternative medicine acts as a significant positive predictor for all types of intentions to use PSS, institutional trust in conventional medicine plays a role of a significant negative predictor for only some types of practices. Possible explanations for such results and limitations of the study are further discussed in this work.