Do you believe in ghosts? Do you shudder when a black cat crosses your path? Or do you think that it is possible to have a sixth sense or to be able to read someone else’s thoughts?
In the Dukes Club’s first purely academic webinar, Nick Lee Head of 6th form at Eaton Square School in London, introduced Eaton Square’s Head of Psychology, Debora D’Auria whom he described as having an academic wanderlust and a passion for exploring ideas, theories and controversies.
A highly qualified educator and AQA examiner, Deb has been teaching A-level psychology in grammar settings since 2004. She has also received private commissions from both the British Psychological Society and The Arts Council for advocacy work.
It was whilst studying Fine Art at UAL, Deb discovered that ‘fine’ art in fact means ‘end’ art, or art for art’s sake. Her hope for this lecture was that it would be an exercise in ‘fine’ academia, and she didn’t disappoint.
The talk focused on anomalistic psychology, the study of human experiences and behaviour in connection with paranormal or superstitious beliefs, and demonstrated how the various aspects of cognitive, evolutionary, biological and psychodynamic psychology come together when we try to understand this aspect of the human condition.
We explored the duality of these beliefs and how they can be both beneficial and harmful in human society. They can be dangerous, sometimes for example, resulting in confirmation bias leading humans to develop a false database of what we think of as evidence – as demonstrated by the story of Skinner’s pigeons. But on the flip side, superstitions can be harmless and can even help us identify with ourselves and with our social group, giving people a sense of control and efficacy. How many sports personalities do we know who have a lucky talisman or ritual?
From our poor ability to judge probability, to our tendency to see faces in random inanimate objects, superstitions can arise from a variety of human foibles. Deb’s demonstration of how easy it is to trick our auditory system through simple suggestion certainly left the audience spooked!
But whatever you claim to believe, studies have shown that significantly more than half of us have a belief in the paranormal, so to study it and understand it will lead to a greater understanding of ourselves.
Listen to the talk: