Bruce Hood

I was born in Toronto, Canada, and my middle name is MacFarlane. This a legacy of my Scottish heritage on my father’s side. My mother is Australian and has the very unusual first name of Loyale. I used to believe for many years that she had two sisters called Hope and Faith, but that was just my fertile imagination. Why Toronto I hear you ask. My father was a journalist and plied his art on various continents. By the time I had finally settled in Dundee, Scotland, at 8 years of age, I had already lived in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. If you are wondering, I support Scotland during the Rugby World Cup. I have an older brother who was also born in Toronto, but he doesn’t have a mid-Atlantic accent like I do. He is sensible. He is a lawyer.

In Dundee, I went to school and then university where I studied psychology and socializing. I then went to Cambridge to conduct research on visual development in babies. Not because they are cute, but because their visual system is so interesting. I completed my Ph.D. in two years in 1991. That year I got married with a “Dr.” in front of my name to my wife who is a real doctor and would not marry me until I was doctored. After a brief research period in London, we both set off to Boston, Massachusetts, to sample some U.S. academic life for a year. By the time we were ready to travel, we were now three, as my eldest daughter had been born. When my wife wasn’t paying attention, I applied for and was given an associate professorship at Harvard. I interviewed without telling her. What was supposed to be just one year abroad in the United States turned into five. I do stuff like that all the time.

We decided that we wanted to raise our daughter in the U.K. because we did not want her to call us “Mom” and “Pop,” or by our first names. So, 10 years ago, we moved back to the countryside just south of Bath. If you have ever been there, you’ll know why. I work in the psychology department at the University of Bristol nearby. I conduct research, teach, and of course, write books. We have a second daughter now, and we all live in a medieval barn with mice. I also bought that without telling my wife. That’s where I am up to now.

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American/Pop Culture

Spirituality

SuperSense

Why We Believe in the Unbelievable

Talking Points

Hood’s 2006 presentation on this material at the British Association for the Advancement for Science Festival generated enormous media attention in the UK, Europe and Australia. In the U.S., in late 2007, Newsweek devoted an entire “On Science” feature to Hood’s work. An award-winning psychologist, Hood earned his degrees at British universities and has taught at Cambridge, Harvard and MIT. Though he returned to England to accept an endowed chair at the University of Bristol, he currently has grants from Rutgers, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Science to travel back and forth between the UK and America to give lectures.

Description

Innate belief in things beyond what’s rational or natural are common to humans. In fact, according to award-winning cognitive scientist Bruce Hood, this “super sense” is something we’re born with and essential to the way we learn to understand the world. We couldn’t live without it! Therefore it is unlikely that any effort to get rid of supernatural beliefs, or the superstitious behaviors that accompany them, will be successful. Moreover, these beliefs are essential in binding us together as a society.

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