Research
Interests: Frank
T. McAndrew,
Ph.D.
Creepiness
A
current area of interest for me is the experience of "creepiness" and
the psychology underlying paranormal experiences such as seeing ghosts
and experiencing a house as "haunted." I am also interested in
distinguishing different types of creepiness, as I believe that creepy
places, creepy people, and creepy things may press somewhat different
buttons in our brains. Knox students who have
worked on this research with me so far include Sara Koehnke, Jonathan
Doriscar, and Nicolette Schmidt.
McAndrew, F. T. (Book in
Progress). Essays on Creepiness.
McAndrew, F. T., Doriscar, J. E., Schmidt, N. T., & Niebauer,
C. (IN REVIEW). Explorations in Creepiness:Tolerance for ambiguity and
susceptibility to not just right experiences predicts the ease of
getting creeped out. Journal of Research in Personality, (also presented as a poster at the 2022 (February)
meeting of the Society for
Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), San Francisco.
McAndrew, F.T. (IN PRESS). The
psychology, geography, and architecture of horror. In G.
Yeşildağ (Ed.), Architecture and Fear. Istanbul: Ondokuzonbir Press.
McAndrew, F. T. (2022, January 4). The Psychology of Haunted Houses. Invited class lecture (virtual) at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida.
McAndrew, F. T. (2021, December 9). Why people see ghosts. Invited virtual lecture to the“Rationality Enhancement Group" at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany.
McAndrew, F. T. (2021, October 20). Encounters with Ghosts. Online
Lecture for the "Profs & Pints" Lecture Series.
McAndrew, F. T. (2021, October 12). Why some people see ghosts and others don't. In Out of the ooze:
Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2020). The
Psychology, Geography and Architecture
of Horror:
How Places Creep Us Out. Evolutionary
Studies in Imaginative Culture, 4(2), 47-61. (available online October 7,
2019)
McAndrew, F. T. (2020, December 12). Where
is that fine line between
terror and delight? In
Out of the Ooze:
Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today
Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T.
(2020, June 1). Why
Face Mask Give Us the Creeps. In
Out of the Ooze:
Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today
Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T.
(2019, October 28).
Why we
love big, blood-curdling screams. Appears in dozens of media
outlets, including The Conversation,
Time Magazine, Discover Magazine, The Big Think, LiveScience, &
Medical Xpress.
McAndrew, F. T. (2019, October 28). How
stories about haunted
houses
become self-perpetuating.
Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture Blog,
McAndrew, F. T. (2019, October 21). Houses
of Horror. Aeon Magazine,
McAndrew, F. T. (2019, September 6). The
Psychology Behind Why Clowns
Creep You Out. Essay published in over two
dozen news outlets
including CNN,
Quartz,
The
Wire, The
Conversation, & Popular
Science.
McAndrew, F. T. (2019). Why
lifelike dolls and robots creep you
out. In
Out of the Ooze:
Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today
Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2018, October 30). Creeped-Out:
The psychology of
Creepiness and Horror. Invited talk at Western Illinois University (Quad City
Campus), Moline, Illinois.
McAndrew, F. T. (2018, October 11). Why
We Fear the Zombie
Apocalypse. In Out of the Ooze:
Navigating the 21st Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today
Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2018, January 29). The
Winchester Mystery House and
Other Haunted Places. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2017, October 25). How
the God You Worship Influences
the Ghosts You See. The
Conversation, Quartz,
The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The
Raw
Story, The Associated Press, The Houston Chronicle.
McAndrew, F. T. (2017, October 16). The
Role of Creepy Characters in
Popular Culture. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew,
F. T. (2017, October 1). Creepy
Halloween Destinations. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew,
F. T. (2017, September 22). A
Reflection on Creepy Mustaches and Creepy
Hobbies. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2017, July 4). How
to avoid creeping women out. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2017, May 2). A
Reflection on Near Death
Experiences. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2017, April 12). Communicating
with the Dead:
Mediums, Seances, & Ouija Boards. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2017, January 11). The
Creepiness of Japan's
Suicide Forest. In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2016, December 9). Haunted
Houses: What Keeps
the Legends Alive? In
Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T,, &
Koehnke, S. S. (2016). On
the nature of creepiness. New
Ideas in Psychology, 43, 10-15.
McAndrew, F. T. (2016, November 10). The
Perils of a Life in Isolation. [Published by invitation; not peer
reviewed.
This
appeared in several different outlets, including The Conversation, Psychology Today,
Intellectual Takeout, IFL Science, The Associated Press, & Inner
Self.]
McAndrew, F. T. (2016, October). Creeped Out: Evolution, Psychology,
& Creepiness. Invited talk to the Evolutionary
Psychology Lab Group at Vrije University (VU), Amsterdam.
McAndrew, F. T. (2016, September 29). The
Psychology Behind Why
Clowns Creep Us Out. [Published by invitation; not peer reviewed.
This
appeared in more than a dozen different outlets, including PBS
Newshour, CNN, The Daily Mail,
Scientific American, The Daily Beast, The Conversation, RawStory, Time,
Quartz, Business Insider, Salon, Psychology Today, IFL Science, The
Washington Post, The Bangor Daily News, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
&
The New Republic]
McAndrew, F. T. (2016, June 6). How
can we better understand the
"Office Creep?" HRZone,
Siftmedia, U. K.
McAndrew,
F. T. (2016, March). Who
are the Creepiest Celebrities? In Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T. (2015, October). Evolutionary
psychology
explains why haunted houses creep us out. . [Published by invitation;
not peer-reviewed. This appeared in more than a dozen different
outlets, including Time,
Newsweek,
The Conversation, Quartz.com, Livescience, & Business Insider)
McAndrew, F. T.
(2015,
September). Why
some people see ghosts and other apparitions. In Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew,
F. T. (2015, May). How
we decide who's creepy. In Out
of the Ooze: Navigating the 21st
Century with a Stone-Age Mind. Psychology Today Magazine Blog.
McAndrew, F. T., & Koehnke, S. S. (2015, May; 2013,
January). Can "Getting
the Creeps" be an Evolutionary Adaptation? Poster presented at
the annual meeting of the Human
Behavior and Evolution Society, Columbia, Missouri, and also at
the annual meeting of the Society
for
Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), New Orleans,
Louisiana.
Results
of the Knox creepiness study (2012)
