The second name—the Forer effect—comes from Bertram Forer, a psychologist who studied the technique Barnum used. In 1948, Forer conducted an experiment: he gave each of his psychology students an individual characteristic based on personality analysis, and then asked them to rate the accuracy of the description on a five-point scale. Forer used the following expressions in the experiment:
You tend to criticize yourself.
Safety is one of your main goals in life.
Sometimes you have serious doubts about whether you made the right decision.
The overall results showed an average accuracy uk b2b leads rating of 4.3 out of 5 points. Thus, a large number of participants in the experiment accepted Forer's comments as an accurate description of their unique personality. In fact, Forer gave everyone exactly the same text that he took from the horoscope.
This experiment has been repeated many times by other researchers in numerous variations, but the results have not changed: subjects tend to believe the information they are presented with. It is important to fulfill only three conditions.
First, a person should make sure that this material is specially prepared for him.
Second, the subject must feel that a person who is authoritative for him is leading the process: for example, in Forer's experiments, he was an unconditional authority for his students.
And thirdly, the resulting image should give mostly positive evaluations. Thus, the Barnum effect leads to the popularity of horoscopes, palmistry, homeopathy and other pseudosciences.
Applications of the Barnum Effect
Many people are familiar with this effect and use it for their own purposes - often to their advantage (though not always). Astrological horoscope makers, astrologers themselves, palmists, homeopaths, psychics, mediums, soothsayers, mind readers, even marketers use this influence for profit in one way or another. Even if we assume that there are people with foresight, they are insignificant compared to those who pretend to be.
For example, what is called cold reading is just a set of tricks that such people use to create the illusion that they know more about people than they do. But in this case, a cold read is more powerful than a long description because it uses a person's physical characteristics to make assumptions. With cold reading, all this is also packed into a shell of vague images and predictions, and the effect is sometimes very strong, since external factors are also taken into account.
Can the Barnum effect be used for good?
From the Barnum effect, the Rosenthal effect follows smoothly - the tendency of a person to behave in accordance with a prediction, description and prophecy. On the other hand, a person may not feel as he is, which will cause his psychological condition to worsen.
You need to understand that many people are charging you or trying to profit from their images. In addition, after communicating with such people, an extremely unpleasant feeling remains, as if someone climbed into the soul and trampled it well.
The Barnum effect can be used (albeit in a modified form) for your own purposes in self-improvement. For example, affirmations are great at helping you become more confident, calm, and relaxed. Meditation does the same thing. There is no reason to listen to an outsider to increase self-esteem and list good qualities - you can achieve all this yourself.
