Sheep-Goat Effect
The sheep-goat effect is a term coined by parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler in 1942 to describe the tendency for individuals who believe in psi phenomena to score better in ESP and psychokinesis experiments than skeptics.
The sheep-goat effect is a term coined by parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler in 1942 to describe the tendency for individuals who believe in psychic phenomena (sheep) to score better in ESP and PK experiments than those who are skeptical (goats).1
Schmeidler, a Harvard-educated experimental psychologist, conducted experiments with psychology students at the City University of New York. Her analysis of the data led her to create this distinction, which has become a well-known concept in Parapsychology. The sheep-goat divide is not only present in the general population but also existed within the U.S. military and intelligence communities, influencing the dynamics of government-sponsored psychic research.1
Sources
- Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩
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