Retrocausal Habituation and Induction of Boredom: A Successful Replication of Bem (2010; Studies 5 and 7)

Abstract

Bem (2010) reports evidence suggestive of unconscious retrocausal processes in human cognition. Bem’s findings appear to imply that under some circumstances, human subjects may display psychologically or physiologically meaningful reactions to future stimuli about whose occurrence they have no direct or indirect knowledge. This working paper describes a group replication attempt of Bem's (2010) studies 5 and 7, i.e. "time-reversed" affective habituation to highly arousing negative pictures and retrocausal induction of boredom/aversion to low arousing, mildly positive pictures (n=70). Evidence suggestive of a retrocausal influence of later stimulus display on subjects' preference ratings was found for affective habituation with high arousing negative stimuli; further, as in Bem's study 7, retrocausal boredom induction was found for subjects high in boredom proneness.

Keywords: Bem, ESP, Retrocausality, Habituation