Leonard Zusne (1924–2003) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

. He published articles and books on the

history of psychology Psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes". Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India. Psychology as a field of ...

magical thinking Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Examples include the idea that ...

and

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

. Zusne worked as a Professor of Psychology at the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church and the campus architectural style is predominantly Collegiate Gothic. The school traces its origin to ...

. A critic of

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...

claims, he was influential in the field of

anomalistic psychology In psychology, anomalistic psychology is the study of human behaviour and experience connected with what is often called the paranormal, with few assumptions made about the validity (or otherwise) of the reported phenomena. Early history Accordin ...

Publications

*''Visual Perception of Form'' (1970)MacKay, Donald. (1971)
''Visual Perception of Form''
New Scientist. 10 June. p. 648. *''Biographical Dictionary of Psychology'' (1984) *''Magical Thinking and Parapsychology''. In ''A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology''. Edited by

Paul Kurtz Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was an American scientific skeptic and Secular humanism, secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University at Buff ...

. Prometheus Books. pp. 685–700. *''Eponyms in Psychology: A Dictionary and Biographical Sourcebook'' (1987) *''Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking'' ith Warren H. Jones(1989)

References

1924 births 2003 deaths 20th-century American psychologists American skeptics Anomalistic psychology Critics of parapsychology University of Tulsa alumni {{US-psychologist-stub