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psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena.


Early history

According to anomalistic psychology, paranormal phenomena have naturalistic explanations resulting from psychological and physical factors which have given the false impression of paranormal activity to some people. There were many early publications that gave rational explanations for alleged
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
experiences. The physician John Ferriar wrote ''An Essay Towards a Theory of Apparitions'' in 1813 in which he argued that sightings of ghosts were the result of
optical illusions Within visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide variety; the ...
. Later, the French physician Alexandre Jacques François Brière de Boismont published ''On Hallucinations: Or, the Rational History of Apparitions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism, and Somnambulism'' in 1845 in which he claimed sightings of ghosts were the result of hallucinations.
William Benjamin Carpenter William Benjamin Carpenter CB FRS (29 October 1813 – 19 November 1885) was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London. Life Carpenter was born o ...
, in his book ''Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Etc: Historically and Scientifically Considered'' (1877), wrote that Spiritualist practices could be explained by fraud, delusion, hypnotism and suggestion. The British psychiatrist
Henry Maudsley Henry Maudsley FRCP (5 February 183523 January 1918) was a pioneering English psychiatrist, commemorated in the Maudsley Hospital in London and in the annual Maudsley Lecture of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Life and career Maudsley wa ...
, in ''Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings'' (1886), wrote that so-called supernatural experiences could be explained in terms of disorders of the mind and were simply "malobservations and misinterpretations of nature". In the 1890s, the German psychologist
Max Dessoir Maximilian Dessoir (8 February 1867 – 19 July 1947) was a German philosopher, psychologist and theorist of aesthetics. Career Dessoir was born in Berlin, into a German Jewish family, his parents being Ludwig Dessoir (1810-1874), "Germany's ...
and psychiatrist Albert Moll formed the "critical occultism" position. This viewpoint interpreted psychical phenomena naturalistically. All apparent cases were attributed to fraud, suggestion, unconscious cues or psychological factors. Moll wrote that practices such as Christian Science, Spiritualism and occultism were the result of fraud and hypnotic suggestion. Moll argued that suggestion explained the cures of Christian Science, as well as the apparently supernatural rapport between magnetisers and their somnambulists. He wrote that fraud and hypnotism could explain mediumistic phenomena. Lionel Weatherly (a psychiatrist) and
John Nevil Maskelyne John Nevil Maskelyne (22 December 183918 May 1917) was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet, along with other Victorian-era devices. He worked with magicians George Alfred Cooke and David Devant, and many of his illusions a ...
(a magician) wrote ''The Supernatural?'' (1891) which offered rational explanations for apparitions, paranormal and
religious experience A religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, or mystical experience) is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense ...
s and Spiritualism.
Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspe ...
, in his book ''General Psychopathology'' (1913), stated that all paranormal phenomena are manifestations of psychiatric symptoms. The German ''Zeitschrift für Kritischen Okkultismus'' (Journal for Critical Occultism) operated from 1926 to 1928. Kurtz, Paul. (1985). ''A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology''. Prometheus Books. p. 487. Psychologist
Richard Baerwald Richard Baerwald (1867–1929) was a German academic psychologist, in Berlin. Towards the end of his life he became interested in parapsychology and occultism (as it was interpreted at the period). He edited the ''Zeitschrift für Kritischen ...
was the editor, and the journal published articles by Dessoir, Moll and others. It contained "some of the most important skeptical investigations of claims of the paranormal". Other early scientists who studied anomalistic psychology include
Millais Culpin Millais Culpin FRCS (6 January 1874 in Ware, Hertfordshire – 14 September 1952 in St Albans, Hertfordshire) was an English physician and psychotherapist. He appears as a character in the ''Casualty 1907'' and ''Casualty 1909'' television serie ...
,
Joseph Jastrow Joseph Jastrow (January 30, 1863 – January 8, 1944) was a Polish-born American psychologist, noted for inventions in experimental psychology, design of experiments, and psychophysics. He also worked on the phenomena of optical illusions, ...
,
Charles Arthur Mercier Charles Arthur Mercier (21 June 1851 – 2 September 1919) was a British psychiatrist and leading expert on forensic psychiatry and insanity.Charles Arthur Mercier, M.D.Lond., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., Consulting Physician For Mental Diseases, Charin ...
and
Ivor Lloyd Tuckett Ivor Lloyd Tuckett (1 February 1873 – 28 November 1942) was a British professor of physiology, physician, and skeptic. Career Tuckett was born at Cleveland Gardens, London. He studied natural science and physiology at Trinity College, Cambridg ...
.


Modern research

The phrase "Anomalistic Psychology" was a term first suggested by the psychologists Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones in their book ''Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking'' (1989) which systematically addresses phenomena of human consciousness and behaviors that may appear to violate the laws of nature when they actually do not. The Canadian psychologist Graham Reed published a major work on the subject ''The Psychology of Anomalous Experience'' (1972). Various psychological publications have explained in detail how reported paranormal phenomena such as mediumship,
precognition Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...
,
out-of-body experience An out-of-body experience (OBE or sometimes OOBE) is a phenomenon in which a person perceives the world from a location outside their physical body. An OBE is a form of autoscopy (literally "seeing self"), although this term is more commonly us ...
s and
psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...
s can be explained by psychological factors without recourse to the supernatural. Researchers involved with anomalistic psychology try to provide plausible non-paranormal accounts, supported by empirical evidence, of how psychological and physical factors might combine to give the impression of paranormal activity when there had been none. Apart from deception or self-deception such explanations might involve cognitive biases, anomalous psychological states, dissociative states, hallucinations, personality factors, developmental issues and the nature of memory. The psychologist
David Marks David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who is best known for being an early member of the Beach Boys. While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a freq ...
wrote that paranormal phenomena can be explained by
magical thinking Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Examples include the idea that ...
,
mental image A mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of 'perceiving' some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses. There are ...
ry,
subjective validation Subjective validation, sometimes called personal validation effect, is a cognitive bias by which people will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. People whose opi ...
,
coincidence A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
, hidden causes, and fraud. Robert Baker wrote that many paranormal phenomena can be explained via psychological effects such as
hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
s,
sleep paralysis Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which one is conscious but is completely paralyzed. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episod ...
and hidden memories, a phenomenon in which experiences that originally make little conscious impression are filed away in the brain to be suddenly remembered later in an altered form. In his 1980 edition of ''ESP: A Scientific Evaluation'', C. E. M. Hansel noted that "after 100 years of research, not a single individual has been found who can demonstrate ESP to the satisfaction of independent investigators. For this reason alone it is unlikely that ESP exists".
Massimo Polidoro Massimo Polidoro (born 10 March 1969) is an Italian psychologist, writer, journalist, television personality, and co-founder and executive director of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences (CICAP). Early lif ...
, a professor of Anomalistic Psychology at the University of Milano Bicocca, Italy, taught the course "Scientific Method, Pseudoscience and Anomalistic Psychology". Another notable researcher is the British psychologist
Chris French Christopher Charles French (born 1956) is a British psychologist specialising in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. He is the head of the University of London's anomalistic Psychology Research Unit and ...
who set up the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit (APRU) in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London.


Hauntings

A psychological study (Klemperer, 1992) of ghosts wrote that visions of ghosts may arise from
hypnagogic Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the ''hypnagogic'' state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Its opposite state is described as the transitional state from sleep into wakefulness. Menta ...
hallucinations ("waking dreams" which are experienced in the transitional states to and from
sleep Sleep is a sedentary state of mind and body. It is characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, reduced muscle activity and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a de ...
). In an experiment (Lange and Houran, 1997) 22 subjects visited five areas of a performance
theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
and were asked to take note of the environment. Half of the subjects were informed that the locations they were in were haunted, whilst the other half were told that the building was simply under
renovation Renovation (also called remodeling) is the process of improving broken, damaged, or outdated structures. Renovations are typically done on either commercial or residential buildings. Additionally, renovation can refer to making something new, ...
. The subjects' perceptions in both groups were recorded to an experiential questionnaire which contained 10 subscales related to psychological and physiological perceptions. The results showed more intense perceptual experiences on nine of the ten subscales from the group that was told the building was haunted, which has indicated that
demand characteristics In social research, particularly in psychology, the term demand characteristic refers to an experimental artifact where participants form an interpretation of the experiment's purpose and subconsciously change their behavior to fit that interpretat ...
alone can stimulate paranormal experiences. A study (Lange and Houran, 1998) suggested that poltergeist experiences are
delusion A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or som ...
s "resulting from the affective and cognitive dynamics of percipients' interpretation of ambiguous stimuli". Two experiments into alleged
hauntings The list of reportedly haunted locations throughout the world, that are locations said to be haunted by ghosts or other supernatural beings, including demons. Reports of haunted locations are part of ghostlore, which is a form of folklore. Ar ...
(Wiseman ''et al''. 2003) discovered that the data supported the "notion that people consistently report unusual experiences in ‘haunted’ areas because of environmental factors, which may differ across locations." Some of these factors included "the variance of local magnetic fields, size of location and lighting level stimuli of which witnesses may not be consciously aware".


Mediumship

Research and empirical evidence from psychology for over a hundred years has revealed that where there is not fraud, mediumship and Spiritualistic practices can be explained by psychological factors. Trance mediumship, which is claimed by the Spiritualists to be caused by discarnate spirits speaking through the medium, has been proven in some cases to be the emergence of alternate personalities from the medium's
subconscious mind In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. Scholarly use of the term The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...
. The medium may obtain information about their clients, called sitters, by secretly
eavesdropping Eavesdropping is the act of secretly or stealthily listening to the private conversation or communications of others without their consent in order to gather information. Etymology The verb ''eavesdrop'' is a back-formation from the noun ''eaves ...
on sitter's conversations or searching telephone directories, the
internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
and
newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
s before the sittings. Mediums are known for employing a technique called cold reading which involves obtaining information from the sitter's behavior,
clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...
,
posture Posture or posturing may refer to: Medicine * Human position ** Abnormal posturing, in neurotrauma ** Spinal posture ** List of human positions * Posturography Posturography is the technique used to quantify postural control in upright stance in ...
, and
jewellery Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a wester ...
. In a series of fake seance experiments (Wiseman ''et al''. 2003), an actor suggested to
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
believers and disbelievers that a table was levitating when, in fact, it remained stationary. After the seance, approximately one third of the participants incorrectly reported that the table had moved. The results showed a greater percentage of believers reporting that the table had moved. In another experiment the believers had also reported that a handbell had moved when it had remained stationary and expressed their belief that the fake seances contained genuine paranormal phenomena. The experiments strongly supported the notion that in the seance room, believers are more suggestible than disbelievers to suggestions that are consistent with their belief in paranormal phenomena. An experiment (O'Keeffe and Wiseman, 2005) involving 5 mediums found no evidence to support the notion that the mediums under controlled conditions were able to demonstrate paranormal or mediumistic ability.


Paranormal healing

A study in the British Medical Journal (Rose, 1954) investigated
spiritual healing Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. Practitioners use a number of names including various synonyms for ...
,
therapeutic touch Therapeutic touch (commonly shortened to "TT"), known by some as "non-contact therapeutic touch" (NCTT), is a pseudoscientific energy therapy which practitioners claim promotes healing and reduces pain and anxiety. "Therapeutic Touch" is a regi ...
and
faith healing Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healing ...
. In a hundred cases that were investigated no single case revealed that the healer's intervention alone resulted in any improvement or cure of a measurable organic disability. A trial was carried out by a group of scientists (Beutler, 1988) to see whether three treatment groups, paranormal
laying on of hands The laying on of hands is a religious practice. In Judaism ''semikhah'' ( he, סמיכה, "leaning f the hands) accompanies the conferring of a blessing or authority. In Christian churches, this practice is used as both a symbolic and formal met ...
, paranormal healing at a distance and no paranormal healing to test if they might reduce blood pressure. The data did not reveal any paranormal effects as no significant differences between the three treatment groups were found. The results concluded that the fall in blood pressure in all three of the groups was caused by the
psychosocial The psychosocial approach looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function. This approach is ...
approach and the
placebo effect A placebo ( ) is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like Saline (medicine), saline), sham surgery, and other procedures. In general ...
of the trial itself. One form of paranormal healing known as
psychic surgery An alleged psychic surgeon at work Psychic surgery is a pseudoscientific medical fraud in which practitioners create the illusion of performing surgery with their bare hands and use sleight of hand, fake blood, and animal parts to convince t ...
has been discovered to be the result of sleight of hand tricks. Psychic surgeons pretend to reach into the patient's body but the
skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different de ...
is never punctured, there are no scars and the
blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the cir ...
is released from packets hidden in the surgeon's hands.


Psychokinesis

Cognitive biases have been found in some cases of
psychokinesis Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), or telekinesis (from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing a person ...
. A meta-analysis by Bösch, ''et al'' (2006) of 380 studies found that "statistical significance of the overall database provides no directive as to whether the phenomenon is genuine or not" and came to the conclusion that "publication bias appears to be the easiest and most encompassing explanation for the primary findings of the meta-analysis." According to
Richard Wiseman Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal ...
there are a number of ways for faking psychokinetic metal bending (PKMB) these include switching straight objects for pre-bent duplicates, the concealed application of force, and secretly inducing metallic fractures. Research has also suggested that (PKMB) effects can be created by verbal suggestion. On this subject (Harris, 1985) wrote: In an experimental study (Wiseman and Greening, 2005) two groups of participants were shown a
videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocasse ...
in which a fake psychic placed a bent key on a table. Participants in the first group heard the fake psychic suggest that the key was continuing to bend when it had remained stationary, whilst those in the second group did not. The results revealed that participants from the first group reported significantly more movement of the key than the second group. The findings were replicated in another study. The experiments had demonstrated that "testimony for PKMB after effects can be created by verbal suggestion, and therefore the testimony from individuals who have observed allegedly genuine demonstrations of such effects should not be seen as strong evidence in support of the paranormal".


Remote viewing

Research has suggested that in cases the participants of
remote viewing Remote viewing (RV) is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen subject, purportedly sensing with the mind. Typically a remote viewer is expected to give information about an object, event, person or location that is hidden ...
experiments are influenced by
subjective validation Subjective validation, sometimes called personal validation effect, is a cognitive bias by which people will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. People whose opi ...
, a process through which correspondences are perceived between stimuli that are in fact associated purely randomly. Sensory cues have also occurred in remote viewing experiments.


Telepathy

Research has discovered that in some cases telepathy can be explained by a covariation bias. In an experiment (Schienle ''et al''. 1996) 22 believers and 20 skeptics were asked to judge the covariation between transmitted symbols and the corresponding feedback given by a receiver. According to the results the believers overestimated the number of successful transmissions whilst the skeptics made accurate hit judgments. The results from another telepathy experiment involving 48 undergraduate college students (Rudski, 2002) were explained by
hindsight Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. People often believe that after an event ha ...
and confirmation biases.


Relationship with parapsychology

Anomalistic psychology is sometimes described as a sub-field of
parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...
, however, anomalistic psychology rejects the paranormal claims of parapsychology. According to
Chris French Christopher Charles French (born 1956) is a British psychologist specialising in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. He is the head of the University of London's anomalistic Psychology Research Unit and ...
: Anomalistic psychology has been reported to be on the rise. It is now offered as an option on many psychology degree programmes and is also an option on the A2 psychology syllabus in the UK.


See also

* Australian Sheep-Goat Scale * Psychology of paranormal belief


References


Further reading

* Gustav Jahoda. (1974). ''The Psychology of Superstition''. Jason Aronson, Inc. Publisher. *
David Marks David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who is best known for being an early member of the Beach Boys. While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a freq ...
. (2000). '' The Psychology of the Psychic''. Prometheus Books. * Andrew Neher. (2011). ''Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination''. Dover Publications. * John Schumaker. (1990). ''Wings of Illusion: The Origin, Nature and Future of Paranormal Belief''. Prometheus Books. *
Etzel Cardeña Etzel Cardeña (born 9 November 1957) is the Thorsen Professor of Psychology at Lund University, Sweden where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP). He has served as President of the Society of ...
, Steven Jay Lynn, Stanley Krippner. (2000). '' Varieties of Anomalous Experience''.
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...
.


External links


What is Anomalistic Psychology?

Prof Chris French explains anomalistic psychology on Pulse Project Expert Explanations.
{{Parapsychology Scientific method Scientific skepticism