Paranormal Psychology sounds academic, but if you dig into it, it’s more about understanding the human side of paranormal experiences. Think about it, no matter what phenomena we might experience (apparitions, poltergeist activity or the sense of being watched) there’s always a human way of trying to understand it.
As paranormal investigators, we spend a lot of time in environments where there are expectation, emotion, and history. And those things can influence how experiences occur. Paranormal psychology looks at both the experience and the person having that experience (experiencer).
For example, someone hears a whisper in a location. The sound itself might be real, but how it’s processed, remembered, and even reported can vary from person to person. Things like suggestibility, attention, mood, or beliefs play a big part. That doesn’t mean the event didn’t happen—it means the way it’s understood can shift depending on who was there at the time.
Another part of paranormal psychology is expectation and “priming” (also known as front loading). If you are at location is and it is said to be “one of the most haunted in the country,” you are more likely to notice subtle noises, drafts, or changes in atmosphere as paranormal. This doesn’t mean those things didn’t happen, it just highlights how it can shape an experience. As investigators, being aware of this helps us approach how we gather information in a more clear and balanced way.
And, It also helps us understand why these experiences can be so meaningful to the people who have them. Belief in the paranormal, whether it’s ghosts, synchronicities, or psychic impressions, can often feel quite emotional. For many, it’s a sense of comfort that there’s more to life than our physical world.
From a practical angle, being aware of paranormal psychology can help in the following ways:
Interviewing witnesses – Asking open questions, listening without judgment, and remembering there can be memory biases.
Managing group investigations – Being aware of suggestion and possible influences.
Supporting experiencers – Sometimes, people don’t just want answers; they want to be heard – this encourages investigators to be more empathetic.
And let’s not forget, it also makes us better critical thinkers. We are (according to psychology) “pattern-seeking creatures”. We’re prone to pareidolia, false memories, and confirmation bias. Knowing this doesn’t diminish the paranormal; it helps us filter through the noise so that when something genuinely unexplainable happens, we can recognise it with more confidence.
So, in short, paranormal psychology isn’t about replacing paranormal explanations with psychological ones. It’s about working with both. It gives us something to lean on when asking better questions or showing empathy when interviewing witnesses.
If you’re interested in diving deeper, an area you can check out it “Anomalistic Psychology. In particular any work or research by Professor Chris French. Even just reading up on cognitive biases or memory research can help when you work on your next case.
At the end of the day, every investigation is as much about people as it is about phenomena. And the more we understand about the human mind, the better we can honour the experiences we’re invited to explore.
