Chris French

Christopher French
Chris French at a Merseyside Skeptics Society Skeptics in the Pub event in April 2011
Born	Christopher Charles French (1956-04-06) 6 April 1956
Residence	Greenwich, London, England
Nationality	British
Education	B.A., PhD, CPsychol, FBPsS, FRSA
Alma mater	Helsby County Grammar School for Boys 1967–1974
Occupation	Psychologist
Employer	Goldsmiths Birkbeck College University of London
Organization	Anomalistic psychology Research Unit
Known for	The Skeptic (UK) magazine
Awards	Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association
Website	Goldsmiths Home Page

Christopher Charles French is a British psychologist specialising in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. He is the head of the University of London's Anomalistic psychology research unit and appears regularly in the media as an expert on testing paranormal claims.

Career

French is currently Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and is head of their Anomalistic psychology Research Unit which he founded in 2000.

On the importance of Anomalistic psychology he said in an interview on The Skeptic Zone,

Opinion poll after opinion poll tell us that the majority of population, in one way or another, do express belief in the paranormal. Most people, in any survey, with in endorse at least one paranormal claim. Now, either that means that paranormal forces really do exist, or it's telling us something really interesting about human psychology. So, either way, we should definitely take these types of claims seriously and try to understand what is going on.

The focus of his current research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. In addition to academic activities, such as conference presentations and invited talks in other departments, he frequently appears on radio and television presenting a sceptical view of paranormal claims. He has been consulted as an expert on a wide range of such claims including psychic abilities, recovered memory, telepathy, faith healing, past life regression, ghosts, UFO abductions, out-of-body experiences, astrology and so on.

Academia

French teaches a course entitled Psychology, Parapsychology and Pseudoscience as part of the BSc (Hons) Psychology programmes at both Goldsmiths College and Birkbeck College. He is a Chartered Psychologist and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

During his 2014 interview for the Skeptic Zone Podcast, Chris acknowledged that, as a skeptic, he believed in paranormal activities until he became more aware of the psychology behind why people believe, a point made clear to him through a book written by Professor of Psychology James Alcock:

I kind of fell into this trap myself...I used to be a believer, a true believer until quite well into my adulthood. And it was reading one particular book by James Alcock, called 'Parapsychology: Science or Magic,' that made me realize there was another way of explaining all these unusual experiences, and one that actually made a lot of sense to me!

He has authored or co-authored over 80 articles and chapters dealing with a wide variety of subjects in psychology, his work has been published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, the British Journal of Psychology and the British Journal of Clinical Psychology.

In August 1996, he organised and chaired an integrated paper session on the topic of The Psychology of Paranormal and Pseudoscientific Beliefs at the XXVI International Congress of Psychology in Montreal.

He also contributed to a symposium on The Psychology of Anomalous Experience at the British Science Association annual British Science Festival at the University of Birmingham in September 1996.

In July 1997, he chaired a symposium on The Psychology of Paranormal Belief at the Fifth European Congress of Psychology in Dublin. He presented a paper at a conference on Paranormal and Superstitious Beliefs: A Skeptical Examination at Manchester Metropolitan University on Friday 13, November, 1998.

In February 1999, he contributed to a symposium of the Royal Statistical Society (which he co-organised). In July 1999, he co-organised and presented a paper at a half-day conference on Parapsychology: Current Status and Future Prospects at Goldsmiths College and gave a paper at the Sixth European Congress of Psychology in Rome. In February 2001, he gave an invited presentation to the Institute for Cultural Research at the Royal Society of Medicine and he has organised two symposia at major conferences (Glasgow, March 2001; London, July 2001).

In 2004, French and colleagues conducted an experiment involving electromagnetic fields (EMF) and extremely low frequency sound waves (infrasound) phenomena that have been associated with allegedly haunted locations, the experiment did not establish a causal relationship between these phenomena and experiences of the subjects.

A study, led by French and published in 2008, explored the psychology of people who believed they had been abducted by aliens.

In January 2010, French was elected as a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Science communication

French is a former Editor-in-Chief of The Skeptic (UK) magazine. He presided over a relaunch, in 2009, in which the magazine expanded to 40 pages and assembled an editorial advisory board, including many big names (e.g. Tim Minchin, Stephen Fry, Richard Wiseman, Simon Singh). Since 2009, French has been a columnist for The Guardian newspaper exploring scepticism and anomalistic psychology.

He has appeared on various science programmes (e.g. Equinox, ScienceNow, All in the Mind) and documentaries (e.g. Heart of the Matter, Everyman) as well as numerous discussion programmes (e.g. Esther; The Time, The Place; Kilroy; This Morning).

In 1997, he was one of three sceptics sitting on a panel for a 90-minute live debate on UFOs broadcast at peak viewing time by the Strange but True? team to mark the 50th anniversary of UFOs.

In 1998, he took part in an investigation of reincarnation claims amongst the Druze people of Lebanon, broadcast as part of the To the Ends of the Earth series. This involved spending around three weeks in Lebanon with a film crew.

Chris French at the 2012 World Skeptics Congress in Berlin

He made regular appearances on ITV's programme Haunted Homes. He also makes appearances in the Channel 4 documentary series 'Tony Robinson and the Paranormal'.

In November 2013, French was featured as the keynote speaker for the 2013 Australian Skeptics National Convention in Canberra.

External links

• Chris French's Goldsmiths Homepage
• Chris French on Twitter
• Student BMJ; Medicine and magic
• Science Weekly: The paranormal, The Guardian, 28 September 2009

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• Chris French at the Internet Movie Database