The Barnum Effect: Why Horoscopes Are So Popular

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What if someone told you that they had created a personality profile just for you? Here is an extract: 'You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.

and whether they come from experts, lay people, or computers.Some theorists think that we believe that general Barnum-type statements apply to us because they are universally validand true for most people. Others think that Barnum effect statements work by managing to be both inclusive and somehow specific to the individual who reads them.

They can list normal characteristics of the reader’s group, such as “You find that studying is not always easy” for a group of students. Favorability may be the most important characteristic of a Barnum profile because our self-serving biases make us more likely to think that positive personality statements apply to usand the people closest to us rather than to other people, and less likely to think that negative personality statements apply to us than they do to others. As a result, we tend to rate favorable profiles as more accurate than unfavorable ones.

So, should you come across a statement that claims to say something specific about your personality, take a step back and consider whether it could apply to almost anyone else. Researchhas found that asking, “Does this interpretation describe me as a unique person?” rather than “Is this description accurate?” enables us to tell the difference between generalized feedback and feedback that actually applies to us as individuals.

 

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