Bösch, Steinkamp & Boller — “Examining Psychokinesis: … RNGs — A Meta-Analysis” (Psychological Bulletin 2006)
Source: Holger Bösch, Fiona Steinkamp, Emil Boller, Psychological Bulletin 132(4):497-523, 2006. PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16822162/ Captured: 2026-06-17 (PubMed abstract). Analysis: jahn-pear-rng-researcher. What this is: the major peer-reviewed meta-analysis of mind-RNG psychokinesis experiments (the literature PEAR anchors). It finds a statistically significant but minuscule overall effect that is strongly inversely related to sample size and is, per a Monte Carlo simulation, consistent with publication bias. The standard citation for why the RNG psi effect is not accepted as established.
Abstract
Abstract Séance-room and other large-scale psychokinetic phenomena have fascinated humankind for decades. Experimental research has reduced these phenomena to attempts to influence (a) the fall of dice and, later, (b) the output of random number generators (RNGs). The meta-analysis combined 380 studies that assessed whether RNG output correlated with human intention and found a significant but very small overall effect size. The study effect sizes were strongly and inversely related to sample size and were extremely heterogeneous. A Monte Carlo simulation revealed that the small effect size, the relation between sample size and effect size, and the extreme effect size heterogeneity found could in principle be a result of publication bias.
Note on the dispute
Bösch et al. selected 380 studies and concluded the small effect “could in principle be a result of publication bias.” Defenders (e.g. Radin, Nelson, Dobyns, Houtkooper) replied that the selection was over-restrictive and that the overall effect is dominated by one enormous PEAR “Mega-REG” study with extraordinary counting rates whose inclusion makes the aggregate effect vanish — a point that cuts both ways, since the headline effect then rests on a single anomalous dataset.