Hey, That Sounds Exactly Like Me!
Let me first start off by saying that you are a well-rounded and down-to-earth individual. You are energetic, friendly, kind, and always willing to help others without anything in return. You tend to be spontaneous and like to enjoy life at your own pace. Although sometimes, such lack of planning can leave you somewhat feeling lost and disoriented. Does this sound like the perfect description of you? If it does, then congrats! You just fell victim to the Barnum effect!
The Beauty of Human Psychology
The Barnum effect refers to how gullible you can be when reading descriptions of yourself. According to psychology, you’re always subconsciously able to interpret your own meaning into the statements you receive, tending to believe what you want to believe! This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune-telling, graphology, aura-reading, and some types of personality tests.
“There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute”
This common psychological effect got its name back in 1956 from psychologist Paul Meehl in his essay Wanted – A Good Cookbook in reference to the famous American showman P. T. Barnum, who is said to have stated that “there’s a sucker born every minute” and “we have something for everybody”.
The Barnum effect is also known as the Forer effect after American psychologist, Bertram Forer, who first exploited the phenomenon back in 1948. Forer gave a personality test to his students and promised a “unique” personality assessment back that they had to rate for accuracy on a scale of 0 to 5. Surprisingly, the average score was 4.26, but here comes the catch, Forer actually gave the same exact personality assessment back to all of his students! Interesting, huh?
“Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me”
It goes without saying that we’ve all fell victim to the Barnum effect on countless occasions. Be it reading your daily horoscope, taking a couple of those cliché personality tests on social media, heck, you might’ve even stumbled upon someone who claims that he/she can “read your fortune”! As much as I’d like to affirm that the “stars are indeed in your favor” and you are going to become rich and successful one day, but unfortunately, one does not simply see into the future. I mean if one could, don’t you think the dynamics of this world would’ve been different? Humanity would be in a state of turmoil to say the least!
Regardless, the Barnum effect is generally harmless but may cause grave consequences if you decide to take life-changing decisions based on falsely justified rationale! So how do you avoid falling victim to the Barnum effect? Simple, just ask yourself, is this statement broad enough to include all people in all situations? If your answer is yes, then chances are it has a touch of the Barnum effect.
