The tendency to take the words of oracles, ancient or modern, as truth is known in psychology as the Forer effect or Barnum effect. Psychologists define it as the fact of believing that certain statements characterize us personally, while in fact they are applicable to a large number of individuals, because in reality they are vague and generic. With this Psychology-Online article we will try to better understand the Forer or Barnum effect, what it is and some examples that describe it.
Origin of the Barnum effect
Phineas Taylor Barnum He was born on July 5, 1810 in the United States of America and was a great circus entrepreneur, owner and director of the circus called “The Greatest Show on Earth.” He is famous for being a good publicist of his time, a crowd manipulator, to the point of describing himself as a great mystifier. His circus was famous because anyone could find something fun there: the attractions he proposed in the show were so numerous and varied that there was something for everyone’s tastes.
The expression Barnum effect was created by Paul Meehl who, in the 1950s, had conducted research on the validity of psychological tests used in psychiatric institutes. He had detected, in the reports of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, the high frequency of expressions such as “the patient has difficulty accepting his impulses”, “his emotional relationships are strongly disturbed”, “he suffers from sexual problems” etc These statements were actually applicable to all patientsand a series of tests did not involve anything specific or useful.
The expression was then used to designate not only the results of the tests, but also the statements of astrologers, graphologists, psychoanalysts, morphopsychologists, numerologists, etc. based on the same principle. Even today, psychological practices (including those that appear scientific) take great advantage of the Barnum effect; an inextinguishable source of success for impostors.
What is the Forer or Barnum effect
The Forer or Barnum effect, also called personal validation fallacy, consists of believing that a description accurately fits your person when the reality is a generic explanation that could adapt to many situations and be consistent with many people.
The Forer or Barnum effect has been the subject of numerous experiments that lead all in the same direction, and one of the most cited is that of Forer (which is why we sometimes talk about the Forer effect instead of Barnum): this psychology teacher has provided 39 of his students at the University of California with an analysis of their personality, after having subjected them to tests. In reality, she gave each of them the same text from a horoscope found in a popular magazine. Each of the students had been invited to judge the accuracy of the relationship on a scale of 0 to 5, where 5 was for “excellent” and 4 for “good”; the average score was 4.26.
Examples: horoscope, tarot and astrology
A practical example of the Forer or Barnum effect is found with horoscopes: twelve types of psycho-physical events, one for each zodiac sign, enough to describe billions of people in the world. Anyone can read the horoscope and think it was reasonable and quite accurate, and then discovering that he had read the indications for the wrong zodiac sign. Well, horoscopes take advantage of precisely the effect in question, that is, the tendency we have to accept vague descriptions as if they were tailor-made for us.
- Peter Glick and his collaborators found, from a group of 200 students aged 15 to 18, that skeptics of astrology who received from a supposed astrologer a flattering description of their personality they changed their minds and came to think that perhaps there was something interesting or true in this “science.”
- To be widely accepted, the Barnum profile need not be carried out by a prestigious expert: As part of an experiment carried out at the University of Illinois, one group of students was tested by a respected professor, and another by a psychology student. After receiving their “analysis”, students were invited to judge their appropriateness using a scale of 0 to 5; the average score was 4.38 for the first and 4.05 for the second.
Why do we fall into the Forer or Barnum effect?
This mental trap seems to explain why so many people take for granted that the predictions of astrologers, magicians, cartographers, graphologists and clairvoyants are so accurate; We actually make universal size dresses. This effect is triggered by a set of psychological mechanisms:
- We want to believe the good things about ourselves. One of the causes of the Forer effect is wishful thinking (that is, considering true what one would like it to be). Self-deception and vanity lead us to accept the observations that others (or a horoscope) make about our character, since we want these observations to be true, thinking that they are true. They apply exclusively to ourselves.
- We need everything to have an explanation. We tend to find an explanation and meaning for things, even where the meaning is vague, general and sometimes contradictory.
- When we believe something, we look for examples that confirm it.. For example, if those born under any zodiac sign define themselves as “self-critical”, it is easy for any of them to have had to engage in self-criticism; It is a cognitive process known as confirmation bias, which makes people accept the information that confirms their conviction, rejecting the rest. Given the multiplicity of situations experienced in the past, the diversity of behaviors adopted and their possible interpretations, it is easy to remember the specific illustrations that “confirm” the traits and tendencies in question.
- We believe what others believe. In general, if the Forer or Barnum effect is used by someone considered authoritative and followed by a large number of people, the mass perception: “If others believe in it, it must be true.”
- We want to know everything quickly and easily. A series of mental traps that work, unfortunately, also thanks to the desire to obtain easy and satisfactory answers, instead of investing time and energy to fully understand a situation in all its implications.
- We don’t know ourselves well. Subjects particularly sensitive to the Forer or Barnum effect are those who ardently desire to know themselves, those who are deferential, those who doubt themselves and turn to psychology. However, the vast majority of us believe that we can easily find psychological traits or unconscious tendencies in ourselves.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
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- Van Rillaer, J. (2003). Psychology of everyday life. A non-Freudian scientific riflessione. Bari: Edizioni Dedalo.