Anomalistic psychology

In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, without the assumption that there is anything paranormal involved.

Definition

On the hypothesis that paranormal explanations do not exist, 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, in fact, there had been none. Such explanations might involve cognitive biases, anomalous psychological states, personality factors, developmental issues, the nature of memory, the psychology of deception and self-deception.^[1]

History

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. 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.^[2][3] The British psychiatrist Henry Maudsley in his book titled 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".^[4]

References

• What is anomalistic psychology?
• Prof Chris French explains anomalistic psychology on Pulse Project Expert Explanations.

Further reading

• Rawcliffe, D. H. (1952). The psychology of the occult. London: Derricke Ridgeway.
• Zusne, L., & Jones, W. H. (1982). Anomalistic psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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