James Houran Theory Of Abnormal

1512 Words7 Pages

Ghosts and invisible, mysterious beings have “haunted” people from ancient times to today. A common question is why people believe in paranormal and psychic phenomena. Even though there is a line of scientific investigation assessing knowledge and aiding in the development of a well-educated society, the number of paranormal believers remains huge on average. As a result, such beliefs lead to the conclusion that in Western society there is a tendency to revive and retain paranormal beliefs from previous eras without any scientific evidence. One common explanation for this is based on the human need to believe in something despite the fact that many of those beliefs may seem false and illogical to other people, beliefs that are influenced by …show more content…

For clinical psychologist James Houran (2004), those who are convinced that they are in a haunted house are most likely to feel all that we attribute to the presence of a ghost. The curling of the curtain, a subtle grit on the floor boards, are fearsome noises. The person slowly feels the agitation and anxiety growing and becomes more vulnerable to fallacy. According to Wiseman, the scientific studies confirm the theory of Houran (2004), since, as his experience has taught him, those who believe in ghosts say they have experienced more bizarre experiences than those who doubt it. The best test of the self-hypothesis theory is to put someone susceptible to the idea of ghosts in a house after we say that it is haunted. The person will be more likely to claim that they witnessed unexplained phenomena. Why and where does our sophisticated brain detect entities that do not exist? The most reasonable explanation is given by the psychologist Justin Barrett (2004), who in an attempt to answer the fundamental question, "Why do we believe in God and the supernatural?" has developed an interesting theory. According to Barrett (2004), a special ability of the human mind is responsible for these experiences, namely the hypersensitive agency detection device (HADD). As he claims, we tend to see signs or agents (human beings) according to our feelings, desires and beliefs. For Barrett, the part of the brain involved in the detection of such agents is triggered whenever we want to interpret the actions of others around us in our day-to-day interactions. The operation of this area is so important that it is overloaded by making people trace human behaviours even in the most insignificant stimuli. They commonly see forms, objects and life that do not exist. The most powerful aspect that affects people’s beliefs and desire is the perception of control, which leads to the illusion of having

Open Document