Anomalistic psychology
In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, 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
The physician
In the 1890s, the German psychologist
Lionel Weatherly (a psychiatrist) and John Nevil Maskelyne (a magician) wrote The Supernatural? (1891) which offered rational explanations for apparitions, paranormal and religious experiences and Spiritualism.[7] Karl Jaspers, in his book General Psychopathology (1913), stated that all paranormal phenomena are manifestations of psychiatric symptoms.[8]
The German Zeitschrift für Kritischen Okkultismus (Journal for Critical Occultism) operated from 1926 to 1928.[9] Psychologist Richard Baerwald 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".[9]
Other early scientists who studied anomalistic psychology include
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.[10]
The Canadian psychologist Graham Reed published a major work on the subject The Psychology of Anomalous Experience (1972).[11]
Various psychological publications have explained in detail how reported paranormal phenomena such as mediumship, precognition, out-of-body experiences and psychics 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.[12]
The psychologist David Marks wrote that paranormal phenomena can be explained by magical thinking, mental imagery, subjective validation, coincidence, hidden causes, and fraud.[13] Robert Baker wrote that many paranormal phenomena can be explained via psychological effects such as hallucinations, sleep paralysis 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.[14]
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".[15]
Hauntings
A psychological study (Klemperer, 1992) of ghosts wrote that visions of ghosts may arise from hypnagogic hallucinations ("waking dreams" which are experienced in the transitional states to and from sleep).[18] In an experiment (Lange and Houran, 1997) 22 subjects visited five areas of a performance theatre 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. 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 alone can stimulate paranormal experiences.[19]
A study (Lange and Houran, 1998) suggested that poltergeist experiences are delusions "resulting from the affective and cognitive dynamics of percipients' interpretation of ambiguous stimuli".[20]
Two experiments into alleged
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.[22]
The medium may obtain information about their clients, called sitters, by secretly
In a series of fake seance experiments (Wiseman et al. 2003), an actor suggested to paranormal 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.[26]
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.[27]
Paranormal healing
A study in the
A trial was carried out by a group of scientists (Beutler, 1988) to see whether three treatment groups, paranormal
One form of paranormal healing known as psychic surgery 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 is never punctured, there are no scars and the blood is released from packets hidden in the surgeon's hands.[30]
Psychokinesis
According to Richard Wiseman 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:
If you are doing a really convincing job, then you should be able to put a bent key on the table and comment, 'Look, it is still bending', and have your spectators really believe that it is. This may sound the height of boldness; however, the effect is astounding – and combined with suggestion, it does work.[32]
In an experimental study (Wiseman and Greening, 2005) two groups of participants were shown a
Remote viewing
Research has suggested that in cases the participants of remote viewing experiments are influenced by subjective validation, 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.[34]
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.[35] The results from another telepathy experiment involving 48 undergraduate college students (Rudski, 2002) were explained by hindsight and confirmation biases.[36]
Relationship with parapsychology
Anomalistic psychology is sometimes described as a sub-field of parapsychology, however, anomalistic psychology rejects the paranormal claims of parapsychology. According to Chris French:
The difference between anomalistic psychology and parapsychology is in terms of the aims of what each discipline is about. Parapsychologists typically are actually searching for evidence to prove the reality of paranormal forces, to prove they really do exist. So the starting assumption is that paranormal things do happen, whereas anomalistic psychologists tend to start from the position that paranormal forces probably don't exist and that therefore we should be looking for other kinds of explanations, in particular the psychological explanations for those experiences that people typically label as paranormal.[37]
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.[38]
See also
- Australian Sheep-Goat Scale
- Psychology of paranormal belief
References
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- ^ Wolffram, Heather. (2012). ‘Trick’, ‘Manipulation’ and ‘Farce’: Albert Moll’s Critique of Occultism. Medical History 56(2): 277–295.
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- ^ "What is Anomalistic Psychology?". Goldsmiths, University of London.
- ^ Marks, David. (1988). The psychology of paranormal beliefs. Experientia, 44, 332–337.
- ISBN 978-1573920940
- ^ Hansel, C.E.M. (1980). "ESP and Parapsychology: A Critical Reevaluation". archive.org. Buffalo, N.Y. : Prometheus Books. p. 314. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
- ^ "Biography of Massimo Polidoro". Archived from the original on 2019-04-11. Retrieved 2013-10-13.
- ^ "Anomalistic psychology: What is it and why bother? | Psychology Today". www.psychologytoday.com.
- PMC 1884722. BMJ: British Medical Journal, Vol. 305, No. 6868 (Dec. 19–26), pp. 1518–1519.
- ^ Lange, R., and J. Houran. (1997). Context-induced paranormal experiences: Support for Houran and Lange's model of haunting phenomena. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 84, 1455–1458.
- ^ Lange, R., Houran, J. (1998). Delusions of the paranormal: A haunting question of perception. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 186 (10), 637–645.
- ^ Wiseman, R., C. Watt, P. Stevens, et al. (2003). An investigation into alleged “hauntings”. British Journal of Psychology, 94: 195–211.
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- ^ Wiseman, R., Greening, E., and Smith, M. (2003). Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the seance room. British Journal of Psychology, 94 (3): 285–297.
- ^ O'Keeffe, C. & Wiseman, R. (2005). Testing alleged mediumship: Methods and results. British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 96, 165–179.
- ^ Louis Rose. (1954). Some Aspects Of Paranormal Healing. British Medical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4900, pp. 1329–1332.
- ^ Beutler, J., Attevelt, J., Schouten, S., Faber, J., Mees, E., & Geijskes, G. (1988). Paranormal healing and hypertension. British Medical Journal, 296, 1491–1494.
- ^ Randy Moore. (1992). Debunking the Paranormal: We Should Teach Critical Thinking as a Necessity for Living, Not Just as a Tool for Science. The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 4–9.
- ^ Bösch, H., Steinkamp, F., Boller, E. (2006). Examining Psychokinesis: The Interaction of Human Intention with Random Number Generators. A Meta-Analysis Examining Psychokinesis: The Interaction of Human Intention with. Random Number Generators. A Meta-Analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132 (4): 497–523.
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- ^ Wiseman, R. & Greening, E. (2005). It's still bending': verbal suggestion and alleged psychokinetic ability. British Journal of Psychology, 96, 115–127.
- ^ Marks, David. (1981). Sensory cues invalidate remote viewing experiments. Nature 292: 177.
- ^ Schienle, A., Vaitl, D., and Stark, R. (1996). Covariation bias and paranormal belief. Psychological Reports, 78, 291–305.
- ^ Rudski, J. M. (2002). Hindsight and confirmation biases in an exercise in telepathy. Psychological Reports, 91, 899–906.
- ^ "Videojug". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on May 20, 2013.
- ^ "The rise of anomalistic psychology – and the fall of parapsychology?".
Further reading
- ISBN 978-0876681855
- ISBN 978-1573927987
- Andrew Neher. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0486261676
- John Schumaker. (1990). Wings of Illusion: The Origin, Nature and Future of Paranormal Belief. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0879756246
- ISBN 978-1557986252