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| created | updated | title | tags | description | category | summary | start | location | ||
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| 2025-07-23 | 2025-07-23 | Sheep-Goat Effect |
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The sheep-goat effect is a term coined by parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler to describe the correlation between a person's belief in psi and their performance in psi experiments. | Esoteric & Historical Concept | 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 (sheep) to score better in ESP and Psychokinesis experiments than those who are... | 1942 | City University of New York |
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 (sheep) to score better in Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis 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
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Jacobsen, Annie. Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. ↩︎