For some people, belief in psi may be motivated more by a need for a sense of interconnectedness rather than for control and superiority.  Social connections and support are one of the widely recognized functions of religion (Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 2003).  Women, in particular, tend to value social and emotional connections (Campbell, 2002; Geary, 1998; Gilligan, 1993).  Religious, supernatural, or paranormal beliefs may be held primarily to fit into a social group or organization.  Alternatively, the beliefs themselves may reflect and reinforce the motivation for interconnectedness.  Blackmore (1994) noted that belief in psi may be more common among women because of their greater sense that the world is interconnected.  White (1997b), Braud (1997), and Tart (2002) have discussed the sense of interconnectedness that results from psi experiences.
The relationship between interconnectedness and transcendence merits investigation.  Deacon (1997) suggested that humans evolved an innate motivation to become part of something larger than oneself.  This motivation promotes social organization.  Deacon also suggested that this motivation, combined with a propensity to find meaning or symbolic relationships in all experiences, underlies mystical or religious beliefs.
People with a strong sense of connection may view the world as an interconnected whole that is meaningful and benevolent.   These views are similar to the “assumptive worldviews” that initial research suggests may be related to belief in  paranormal phenomena (Irwin, 2003).   This holistic worldview may also lead to  altruism because the world is not divided into an in-group versus outsiders.

McClenon (1994, 2002) proposed that paranormal demonstrations and beliefs  promote healing through placebo and hypnotic effects.  He argued that these healing benefits may have been the foundation for the evolution of  religion and paranormal beliefs.  He also noted that these benefits apply even if psi effects are not real, and that deception has been widely practiced to induce such beliefs.  
Schumaker (1995) similarly argued that transcendent myths and religious beliefs are important for mental health.   He proposed that the decline in the role of religion in culture has greatly hindered the ability for mental health healing and that a new balance between myth and reality needs to be found.  This appears to be a change from his earlier writing that paranormal and religious beliefs were driving humanity down a road of irrational self-destruction (Schumaker, 1990).
These ideas are closely related to the motivation for efficacy and control.  Placebo effects are basically self-healing by the body.  It has long been thought that expectation has a major role in placebo effects (Hyland, 2003; Shapiro & Morris, 1978;  White, Tursky, & Schwartz, 1985).   Certain modern medical practices may reduce expectations.  In particular, legal obligations for full disclosure and informed consent can be expected to reduce optimism and expectations.  The circumstances of psychic, spiritual, or alternative healing techniques may optimize self-healing in ways that are difficult to achieve in the standard medical profession.  
However, placebo effects have always been controversial.  After decades of research and experience, some question whether placebo effects exist at all (e.g., Hrobjartsson & Gotzxche, 2001).   Placebo effects and their relationship with other variables are inconsistent and unpredictable, even when procedures and subject populations are as similar as possible (Hyland, 2003; Shapiro & Morris, 1978).  Conditions for reasonably reliable results have not been identified.  Hypnosis also has a long history of controversy, including whether it exists and whether responses to suggestion are primarily limited to individuals with certain personality characteristics, notably fantasy proneness  (Baker, 1990; Spanos & Chaves, 1989).
The controversies about placebo and hypnotic effects raise questions about whether they are sufficiently powerful to have the role in evolution McClenon proposed.   It may be difficult to distinguish the evolutionary role of healing beliefs from other factors such as the motivations for meaning and purpose, efficacy, and superiority.  It is also possible that healing beliefs have a role primarily for certain personality types, such as fantasy proneness.
Placebo effects have many parallels with psi effects.  In addition to the inconsistent results and controversy about whether they are real, the mechanism of action for placebo effects is not known.  Like parapsychology, this results in negative definitions based on what it is not rather than what it is.  Also, the initial research efforts focused on identifying the characteristics of certain individuals who were “reactors;” however, those efforts were not sufficiently successful to maintain the interest of researchers (Shapiro & Morris, 1978;  White, Tursky, & Schwartz, 1985), which is similar to the experience with efforts to identify special subjects for psi experiments (Rao, 1965).  
Despite the similar properties, placebo effects have become much more widely accepted among scientists than psi effects.  In fact, controlling for possible placebo effects is a standard design criteria for medical research.  A more comprehensive comparison of the characteristics and scientific acceptance of placebo and psi effects might be revealing.

The usual explanations in parapsychology for the inability to obtain reliable psi effects involve speculations about unconscious, instinctive fear of psi (e.g., Batcheldor, 1984; Braude, 1997; Ehrenwald, 1978; Eisenbud, 1992; Radin, 1989; Tart, 1984)  and suppression of psi to prevent information overload (e.g., Bergson, 1914; Ehrenwald, 1978; Koestler, 1972).  
However, the widespread interest in psi and extensive efforts of some people to cultivate psi abilities are not consistent with these speculations about fear of  psi.  It may be true that some people fear psi, but there is strong evidence that many others do not and, in fact, some people desire to develop useful psi abilities, as evidenced by the perpetual popularity of books and courses on developing psi abilities (e.g., Robinson & Carlson-Finnerty, 1999) and the continuing existence of commercial psychics.  Similarly, the speculations about information overload overlook the fact that instances of striking psi occur without information overload.  These speculations do not explain why instances of striking psi do not occur more frequently and with greater control.  
The speculations about fear and information overload, combined with the unreliable, unuseful nature of psi effects, imply that psi has more adverse effects than benefits.  Experimental parapsychology assumes that psi is a widespread human ability;  however, psi would not be expected to evolve as a human ability if it caused substantial adverse effects and little benefits.
The arguments about unconscious fear of psi have direct spiritual assumptions that are rarely acknowledged.  Given the implausibility of evolution producing an ability that has the characteristics of psi, one possibility is that the source of psi is supernatural or external to living people.  The instinctive propensity to fear snakes (Tallis, 2002, pp. 135-138) provides a useful comparison.  Such instinctive fears make sense for reacting to external threats like snakes, but do not offer a rationale for the evolution of an ability that appears to have negligible material benefit and serious adverse effects that need to be suppressed.  Following this line of thought, an instinctive fear of psi would imply that the source of psi is external to people.  Alternatively, psi could be a pre-existing, innate spiritual ability that is detrimental in the material world as suggested by Bergson (1914).  Either of these approaches identifies psi with a dualistic spiritual realm rather than as a human ability that emerged through evolution.
In terms of motivations, the lack of control of psi is the main theme emerging from empirical findings on fear of psi (Siegel, 1986; Tart, 1986; Tart & Labore, 1986).  The need for research on various aspects of the motivation for control and attitude toward psi was noted earlier.  Given the human need for control, fear of psi is probably a result of the lack of control rather than a cause, which is contrary to the rationale that fear causes psi effects to be unreliable.

The efforts to achieve control of psi in experimental parapsychology have not produced significant scientific progress.  When psi phenomena are examined without the implicit bias for control, the relationship with spirituality emerges as the central organizing factor.  The primary effect of psi experiences appears to be enhanced meaning in life and spirituality.  Reliable use of psi for material self-interest in a manner that is scientifically convincing has not occurred and, at this point, does not seem likely.
It is not surprising that those who are by disposition materialistic, pragmatic, and rational find the evidence for psi to not be remotely convincing.  If psi phenomena had a degree of predictability and usefulness, the scientific community could assign a label to the unknown process and begin developing methods for control and practical application.  That would not be noticeably different from the situation with the established physical forces.  People with pragmatic, materialistic values cannot be expected to be interested in something that has no pragmatic, materialistic use.
People more attracted to transcendence continue to have experiences that they describe as providing absolutely certain knowledge that there is a spiritual realm (James, 1902/1982;  Miller & C’de Baca, 2001; Ring, 1984).  These people find substantial commonalities among their experiences and the after-effects.  The fact that others with more externally focused, materialistic dispositions do not have such experiences and are skeptical is irrelevant to the interpretation of their experiences.   They feel that they are dealing with direct experience and knowledge, not philosophical theories, academic rationalizations, or speculations.  As William James (1902/1982) noted, there is no point in trying to convince them that their experiences are not real.  
Paranormal and mystical experiences have several characteristics in common, including inspiring a sense of meaning and purpose in life.  Science, on the other hand, is often described as fulfilling the needs for control and efficacy, but not the needs for meaning, purpose, values, and self-worth.   However, this argument may not fully appreciate the diversity of motivations associated with different personality types.  For some people, scientific understanding may provide a sense of meaning and purpose.  For others, transcendent experiences may provide meaning and purpose, and for others, enforcing the authority of tradition may provide meaning and purpose.
Objective scientists must recognize that they cannot prove scientifically that the reports of subjective transcendent experiences do not have some validity that is beyond current scientific understanding.  Paranormal phenomena that are viewed as miracles initiated by supernatural powers to inspire spiritual growth are largely outside the domain of science, similar to many other religious beliefs.   The extent to which attitudes toward such matters are based on personal dispositions rather than scientific knowledge deserves recognition.
Tensions among those with transcendent, authoritarian, and scientific dispositions have been common in the history of paranormal and religious beliefs.  The motivation for superiority is not limited to authoritarian personalities and can contaminate both science and spirituality.  This motivation can prevent proponents of science from being objective and rational, and prevent proponents of spirituality from being compassionate and ethical.  The aggressive promotion of a particular belief system can be a form of competition and dominance similar to sports.  Such aggressiveness can be seen on both sides of psi beliefs but is particularly strong for some of the skeptics.  Each side can see the irrational drive for superiority in their opponents but has difficulty acknowledging it in themselves.
Science can do much to sort out the web of motivations and to create better understanding among people with different dispositions.  The ideas presented here are a plausible beginning and have some initial empirical support.
A useful next step would be to develop measures that address various factors including motivations for transcendence, connectedness, aspects of control and efficacy, superiority, authority, and healing.  Measuring exposure to basic social and cultural factors related to belief in the paranormal would also be useful, particularly for identifying people who do not have strong personal motivations and tend to go along with social and cultural influences.  The mix of factors could be characterized for an individual and for different types of paranormal experiences and beliefs.   For example, it would be useful to measure the mix of factors associated with (a) experiences that could be actual psi, (b) experiences that appear to be misinterpreted as psi, and (c) skepticism about psi.  The motivation for superiority, in particular, has been under appreciated in research – perhaps because many scientists prefer to overlook that aspect of their own personality.
Exploring factors of humility and gratitude versus efficacy and superiority may be particularly valuable.  The tangible lesson from the failure to develop useful applications of psi is that motivations for efficacy and superiority may not be applicable in this domain.  Successful research strategies in this area must identify and adapt to the properties of the phenomena.  The evidence for psi and its association with transcendent experiences may hint that there may be a spiritual realm that is tentatively encouraging development in a transcendent, humble, non-self-serving, non-materialistic direction.