A study comparing psychedelic enthusiasts and the general public (those who have had psychedelic experiences) found that enthusiasts tended to report a much greater positive effect on their quality of life. Enthusiasts also showed higher levels of directness, extraversion, and agreeableness. This indicates that recruitment strategies focused on including enthusiasts in psychedelic research can shape the outcomes obtained in the research. The paper was published in. Psychotropic Drugs Journal.
Psychedelic drugs are substances that can significantly alter perception, mood, thinking, and sense of self. These can change the way people experience colors, sounds, time, memories, emotions, and the meaning of events. Classic psychedelics include LSD, psilocybin from “magic mushrooms,” DMT, and mescaline. These substances primarily act on serotonin receptors in the brain.
Research sites are investigating the potential use of psychedelics to treat conditions such as depression, PTSD, anxiety, and substance use disorders. Their effects are highly dependent on dose, personality, expectations, mental state, physical environment, and social support. Psychedelics can carry risks, including panic, confusion, dangerous behavior when intoxicated, worsening of some mental illnesses, and legal repercussions if prohibited.
Study author Jonathan Benz and his colleagues noted that many studies of psychedelic users have reported highly positive self-reported effects. However, they suggest that this may exaggerate the real effects caused by biased selection, or even self-selection, of study participants. The problem is that the effects of psychedelics can only be tested on individuals who have consented to their use. These participants tend to be those who have already had particularly positive experiences with psychedelic use.
To test this hypothesis, researchers conducted a study to compare whether the impact of self-reported psychedelic experiences on quality of life differed between a convenience sample of psychedelic enthusiasts and the general population recruited through Prolific. They also wanted to see if the differences between the two groups remained even after controlling for mindset, environment, motivation for using psychedelic drugs, and personality traits.
This enthusiast group consisted of 583 individuals recruited through an anonymous survey posted on the Facebook and Instagram pages of a Swedish non-profit organization that disseminates information about psychedelic science (Nätverket för Psykedelisk Vetenskap). A snowball sampling technique was used to obtain more participants. The general population group consisted of 599 individuals recruited through Prolific, an online survey platform. Although they were required to have psychedelic experience, they were not recruited from any particular psychedelic community.
Study participants completed an assessment of the impact of their psychedelic experiences on their quality of life (e.g., “How did your most meaningful psychedelic experience affect the quality of your relationships with family, friends, yourself, society, and nature?”). They also answered questions about their mindset and physical setting during the experience (“To what extent did you experience your mindset or environment being optimal?”), motivation (“What motivates you to use psychedelic substances?”), and personality (using the IPIP-NEO-30 assessment).
The results showed that psychedelic enthusiasts tended to report a much higher impact on their quality of life from psychedelic experiences compared to the prolific group. The enthusiast group also reported having a more optimal mindset and environment while traveling, and were more likely to report taking medication for personal growth rather than enjoyment. Finally, hobbyists tended to be more open to new experiences, more extroverted, and more agreeable than participants in the prolific group.
Even after using statistical models to account for these differences in personality, mindset, environment, and motivation, simply belonging to an enthusiast group remained the strongest predictor of reporting a higher quality of life impact.
“As expected, participants recruited from hobbyist channels reported significantly greater benefits[of psychedelic use]than those recruited from public platforms. Even after controlling for mindset, environment, motivation, and personality, sample membership remained the strongest predictor of impact on quality of life,” the study authors concluded.
“The persistent effects of sample membership suggest that the two groups differ in additional ways not captured by our measurements, such as cultural expectations, social background, and demographics that shape the reported results. These results highlight the need for caution when interpreting the results of psychedelic studies that rely on highly dedicated user populations.”
This study highlights important methodological issues facing studies of psychedelic effects. However, the authors note some limitations. For example, the two groups had demographic differences. While the general sample was overwhelmingly from the United States, the hobbyist sample lacked data on the country of residence for most participants (although some resided in Sweden). This raises the possibility that cross-cultural differences may influence the results.
Additionally, it should be noted that a prolific sample likely includes many psychedelic enthusiasts as well. Therefore, the differences between the two groups in this study may underestimate the true differences between the general population and psychedelic enthusiasts.
The paper, “Selection Bias in Psychedelic Research: A Comparison of Self-Reported Quality of Life Effects Between Enthusiasts and General Population Samples,” was authored by Jonathan Bendz, Linus Schäfer, David Sjöström, Sverker Sikström, and Petri Kajonius.
