The Study That Helped Trigger Psychology's Replication Crisis

Published 2026-10-01

Quick Answer

In 2011, Daryl Bem published nine experiments in a top psychology journal appearing to show precognition; independent replications failed, and the episode became one of the central triggers of psychology's field-wide “replication crisis” — arguably a bigger and better outcome than the original claim. A separate line of research on “presentiment” (body responses before a random stimulus) remains genuinely contested on specific methodological grounds.

Two separate research threads asked essentially the same question with different methods — and one of them ended up changing how all of psychology is done, regardless of what you conclude about precognition itself.

The Study That Broke a Field

In 2011, Cornell psychologist Daryl Bem published "Feeling the Future" in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — one of the field's top journals. Nine experiments, over 1,000 participants, entirely normal methods. Nearly all nine came back statistically significant.

Then independent replication attempts failed. The more important story is what it triggered: if a paper following every normal rule of psychological research could produce an impossible result, what did that say about every other paper using those same methods? Bem's paper became one of the central sparks of psychology's "replication crisis" — a real, field-wide reckoning that led directly to lasting reforms.

Frequently Asked

What was Daryl Bem's 2011 study?

“Feeling the Future,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: nine experiments, over 1,000 participants, nearly all statistically significant, appearing to show people responding to events before they happened.

Did Bem's precognition findings hold up?

No — independent replication attempts failed. But the episode triggered a much bigger, more important event: psychology's “replication crisis,” which led to real reforms (pre-registration, larger samples, open data) that made the field more reliable.

What is presentiment research?

A separate line of work (Dean Radin, later Dick Bierman) measuring skin conductance, heart rate, and pupil size in the seconds before a randomly-chosen emotional or calm image appears. A 2012 meta-analysis of 90 experiments found a small, statistically significant difference before emotional images.

Is presentiment research still considered valid?

It's contested on a specific technical point: researcher Sam Schwarzkopf identified a baseline-correction artifact that could manufacture a fake effect from leftover signal between trials. The original researchers responded that the effect held even after excluding flawed studies. Neither side has fully settled it.

References & Resources

Bem, D. (2011). Feeling the future: Experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(3).

Mossbridge, J., Tressoldi, P. & Utts, J. (2012). Predictive physiological anticipation preceding seemingly unpredictable stimuli: a meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology.

Schwarzkopf, D.S. (2014). We should have seen this coming. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

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