Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect
⚡ Contested ↗📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
This is the paper that shook psychology to its core. Daryl Bem ran nine experiments with over 1,000 Cornell students, flipping classic psychology experiments backward in time to test whether people can sense future events. Eight out of nine came back positive, with participants seemingly anticipating random stimuli — especially erotic images (because of course those grab attention, even from the future). The average effect was small but consistent. Thrill-seekers did even better, nearly doubling it. Bem ruled out faulty random-number generators with control simulations. Published in one of psychology's top journals, this paper became a lightning rod — sparking Bayesian critiques, failed replications, and helping launch psychology's entire replication crisis.
Research Notes
The most influential psi paper of the 21st century, published in JPSP and widely credited with catalyzing psychology's replication crisis. Central to Controversy #2 (Bem FTF). Prompted Bayesian reanalyses (Wagenmakers et al. 2011), failed replications (Galak et al. 2012), and a large-scale meta-analysis (Bem et al. 2015).
Nine experiments (total N = 1,050 Cornell undergraduates) tested for anomalous retroactive influence by time-reversing well-established psychological effects: precognitive approach to erotic stimuli, precognitive avoidance of negative stimuli, retroactive affective priming, retroactive habituation, and retroactive facilitation of recall. Eight of nine experiments yielded statistically significant results (one-tailed), with a mean effect size of d = 0.22. Stimulus seeking, a component of extraversion, correlated with psi performance in five experiments; high stimulus seekers achieved a mean d = 0.43. Both hardware-based and software-based RNGs were used across experiments, and control simulations with random inputs yielded null results, arguing against artifacts of inadequate randomization.
Links
Related Papers
Critiqued By
- A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Recent Extrasensory Perception Experiments: Comment on Storm, Tressoldi, and Di Risio (2010) — Rouder, Jeffrey N (2013)
- Cross-Examining the Case for Precognition: Comment on Mossbridge and Radin (2018) — Houran, James (2018)
- Why Most Research Findings About Psi Are False: The Replicability Crisis, the Psi Paradox and the Myth of Sisyphus — Rabeyron, Thomas (2020)
- Too Good to Be True: Publication Bias in Two Prominent Studies from Experimental Psychology — Francis, Gregory (2012)
- False-Positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Significant — Simmons, Joseph P (2011)
- Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair — Alcock, James E (2011)
- The Garden of Forking Paths: Why Multiple Comparisons Can Be a Problem, Even When There Is No "Fishing Expedition" or "P-Hacking" and the Research Hypothesis Was Posited Ahead of Time — Gelman, Andrew (2013)
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
- Fearing the Future of Empirical Psychology: Bem's (2011) Evidence of Psi as a Case Study of Deficiencies in Modal Research Practice — LeBel, Etienne P (2011)
- Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's 'Retroactive Facilitation of Recall' Effect — Ritchie, Stuart J (2012)
Same Research Program
Meta Analyzed By
Cited By
- Editors' Introduction to the Special Section on Replicability in Psychological Science: A Crisis of Confidence? — Pashler, Harold (2012)
- Experimental Investigation of Precognition in Yoga Practitioners — Alibalaei, Hassan (2025)
- Cross-Examining the Case for Precognition: Comment on Mossbridge and Radin (2018) — Houran, James (2018)
- Bayesian and Classical Hypothesis Testing: Practical Differences for a Controversial Area of Research — Kennedy, J.E (2014)
- Commentary: Reproducibility in Psychological Science: When Do Psychological Phenomena Exist? — Heino, Matti T. J (2017)
- Cognitive Styles and Psi: Psi Researchers Are More Similar to Skeptics Than to Lay Believers — Pehlivanova, M (2024)
- A fMRI Brain Imaging Study of Presentiment — Bierman, Dick J (2002)
- Mental Connection at Distance: Useful for Solving Difficult Tasks? — Tressoldi, Patrizio E (2011)
- Electrocortical Activity Prior to Unpredictable Stimuli in Meditators and Non-Meditators — Radin, Dean I (2011)
- Fearing the Future of Empirical Psychology: Bem's (2011) Evidence of Psi as a Case Study of Deficiencies in Modal Research Practice — LeBel, Etienne P (2011)
- Bem's 'Feeling the Future' (2011) Five Years Later: Its Impact on Scientific Literature — Silva, Bruno A (2017)
- Paranormal psychic believers and skeptics: a large-scale test of the cognitive differences hypothesis — Gray, Stephen J (2016)
- Precognition as a Form of Prospection: A Review of the Evidence — Mossbridge, Julia A (2018)
- Is the Methodological Revolution in Psychology Over or Just Beginning? — Kennedy, J.E (2016)
- Searching for the Impossible: Parapsychology's Elusive Quest — Reber, Arthur S (2019)
- Why Most Research Findings About Psi Are False: The Replicability Crisis, the Psi Paradox and the Myth of Sisyphus — Rabeyron, Thomas (2020)
- A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Bem's ESP Claim — Rouder, Jeffrey N (2011)
- A Call for an Open, Informed Study of All Aspects of Consciousness — Cardeña, Etzel (2014)
- Entertaining Without Endorsing: The Case for the Scientific Investigation of Anomalous Cognition — Schooler, Jonathan W (2018)
Replied To By
Replicated By
- Results from a Confirmatory Replication Study of Bem (2011): Precognitive Detection of Erotic Stimuli? — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2012)
- Retro-priming, priming, and double testing: psi and replication in a test–retest design — Rabeyron, Thomas (2014)
- Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi — Galak, Jeff (2012)
- Feeling the Future Again: Retroactive Avoidance of Negative Stimuli — Maier, Markus A (2014)
- Raising the value of research studies in psychological science by increasing the credibility of research reports: the transparent Psi project — Kekecs, Zoltan (2023)
Companion
- Unconscious Perception of Future Emotions: An Experiment in Presentiment — Radin, Dean I (1997)
- Must Psychologists Change the Way They Analyze Their Data? — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
- Appreciating Statistics — Utts, Jessica (2016)
- Commentary: Reproducibility in Psychological Science: When Do Psychological Phenomena Exist? — Heino, Matti T. J (2017)
- Mindless Statistics — Gigerenzer, Gerd (2004)
Also by these authors
More in Precognition
Sentiment and Presentiment in Twitter: Do Trends in Collective Mood "Feel the Future"?
A Preregistered Multi-Lab Replication of Maier et al. (2014, Exp. 4) Testing Retroactive Avoidance
Predictive Physiological Anticipation Preceding Seemingly Unpredictable Stimuli: An Update of Mossbridge et al.'s Meta-Analysis
Perspectives on Precognition
We Did See This Coming: Response to 'We Should Have Seen This Coming' by D. Sam Schwarzkopf
📋 Cite this paper
Bem, Daryl J (2011). Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021524
@article{bem_2011_feeling,
title = {Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect},
author = {Bem, Daryl J},
year = {2011},
journal = {Journal of Personality and Social Psychology},
doi = {10.1037/a0021524},
}