- Forer effect
The Forer effect (also called personal validation fallacy or the Barnum Effect after
P. T. Barnum 's observation that "we've got something for everyone") is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. The Forer effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of somepseudoscience s such asastrology andfortune telling , as well as many types ofpersonality tests .A related and more generic phenomenon effect is that of
subjective validation (Marks, 2000, p. 41). Subjective validation occurs when two unrelated or even random events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectancy, or hypothesis demands a relationship. Thus people seek a correspondence between their perception of their personality and the contents of a horoscope.Forer's demonstration
In 1948,
psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave apersonality test to his students. Afterward, he told his students they were each receiving a unique personality analysis that was based on the test's results and to rate their analysis on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent) on how well it applied to themselves. In reality, each received the same analysis:Only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that each student had received identical copies. On average, the rating was 4.26.
Forer had assembled this text from
horoscope s.Variables influencing the effect
Later studies have found that subjects give higher accuracy ratings if the following are true:
* the subject believes that the analysis applies only to them
* the subject believes in the authority of the evaluator
* the analysis lists mainly positive traitsSee (Dickson and Kelly 1985) for a review of the literature.ee also
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List of cognitive biases
*Cold reading
*John Edward References
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*External links
* [http://homepage.bluewin.ch/Ysewijn/english_Barnum.htm An autotest]
* [http://forer.netopti.net/ Online test demonstrating the effect]
* [http://www.skepdic.com/forer.html Skeptic's Dictionary: the Forer effect]
* [http://www.csicop.org/webmaster/randi/randi-astrology.rm The Forer effect demonstrated with horoscopes] (video,RealMedia format)
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btP_vy5cQq4 A demonstration of the Forer effect] byDerren Brown
* [http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/11/astrology-is-the-forer-effect-in-action/ The Forer Effect evidenced in astrology]
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