Effector Forer (Barnum effect and subjective validation)
"We have something for everyone." - PT Barnum
Forer or Barnum effect is also known as the subjective validation effect or the personal validation effect. (The expression, "Barnum effect" seems to have originated with psychologist Paul Meehl, in deference to the PT Barnum circus reputation as a master of psychological manipulation).
psychologist BR Forer found that people tend to accept vague and general personal descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to anyone. Consider the following as if you were presented with an assessment of Your personality:
"You have the need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to criticize. Even if you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate. You have a considerable capacity have not used in your benefit. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. Sometimes you have serious doubts whether you did right or you made the right decision. prefer a certain amount of change and variety and you get to be disappointed when you're surrounded by restriccciones and limitations. I autoufanas also be an independent thinker and not accept the statements of others without satisfactory proof. But you found inadvisable be too frank in letting you know others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. "
Forer gave a personality test to his students, ignored their answers, and gave each student the above evaluation. He asked to evaluate it from 0 to 5, "5" meaning the recipient felt the assessment as an "excellent" assessment and "4" meaning that the outcome was good. The average class rating was 4.26. This happened in 1948. The test has been repeated hundreds of sometimes psychology students and the average is still around 4.2.
In short, Forer convinced people that he could successfully read their character. Its accuracy stunned his subjects, though his personality analysis were taken from the astrological column a newsstand without taking into account their Sun Signs. The Forer effect seems to explain, at least in part, why many people think that the pseudo "work." Astrology, astrotherapy, biorhythms, fortune telling, palmistry, enneagram, fortune telling, graphology, etc.., Seem to work because apparently provide accurate analysis of personality. Studies these pseudo-scientists show that there are valid tools for assessing the personality, but each has many satisfied customers who are convinced they are accurate. However, the multitude of personal or subjective validation of such pseudo-sciences are not relevant to their accuracy.
The most common explanation given for responding to the Forer effect are in terms of hope, wishful thinking, vanity and the tendency to try to make the experience something unusual, though Forer's own explanation was in terms of human gullibility . People tend to accept claims about themselves in proportion to their desire that the claims are truth rather than in proportion to the empirical accuracy of the claims as measured by some non-subjective standard. We tend to accept questionable and even false statements about ourselves, if we consider positive or flattering enough. Often give many liberal interpretations to vague or inconsistent claims about ourselves in order to make such statements make sense. Individuals seeking advice from psychics, mediums, fortune tellers, mind readers, handwriting, etc., Often ignore the false or questionable in many cases by their own words or actions, provide most of the information erroneously attributed to pseudo-scientific advisor. Many of these individuals often feel that the directors have provided profound and personal information. However, such subjective validation is of little scientific value.
Psychologist Barry Beyerstein believes that "hope and uncertainty evoke powerful psychological processes that keep all the readers of pseudoscientific and occult personality in the business." We are constantly trying to "make sense of the barrage of disconnected information we face daily," and "we become so good filling and making a reasonable scenario data so inarticulate that sometimes we sense of the absurd. " Too often we fill the gaps and provide a coherent picture of what we hear and see even if a careful examination of the evidence would reveal that the information is vague, confusing, obscure, inconsistent and incomprehensible. Psychic mediums, for example, often make many ambiguous questions in rapid succession offline so that it seems to be accessing personal information about individuals. In fact, the medium needs to have some understanding of the subject's personal life, well, the subject voluntarily and unknowingly provide all the associations and validations necessary. Mediums will assist in this process by using cold reading techniques.
David Marks and Richard Kamman argue that once a belief or expectation is found, especially one that resolves an uncomfortable uncertainty, predisposes the observer to notice new information that confirms the belief, and dismiss the evidence against it. This self-perpetuating mechanism consolidates the original error and builds confidence over where the opposition arguments are seen too fragmentary to cancel the assumed belief.
whereas a pseudoscientific counselor inspects an assessment of character forged a customer can easily trap errors and direct the people illusion well-intentioned.
Barry Beyerstein suggests the following test to determine whether the apparent authentically as pseudoscientific above may or may not be due to the Forer effect, the confirmation bias, or other psychological factors. (Note: the proposed test also uses subjective or personal validation and is not intended to prove the truth of any personality assessment tool, but to counteract the tendency to self-deception about such matters).
... adequate proof reading would have a large number of customers removing their names after identification (coded in such a way that could later be reallocated to rightful owners.) After everyone had read the anonymous profiles of all, I would ask everyone to choose the best to describe it. If the reader has enough material included, unique and relevant members of the group, on average, should be able to go beyond the chance to choose their part.
Beyerstein notes that "any method of reading occult or pseudoscientific personality ... has successfully passed such a test. "
Forer effect, however, only partially explains why so many people accept as accurate the occult and pseudo-scientific procedures personality assessment. Cold reading, communal reinforcement, and selective reasoning also underlie these delusions. Also, it must be admitted that while many of the claims valuation of a pseudo read are vague and general, some are specific. Some of these specific claims when applied to a large number of people, some by chance will be an accurate description of a few. One would expect a number of specific valuation statements but are of little scientific importance in validating the overall estimate.
There have been many studies of the Forer effect. Kelly Dickson and examined many of these studies and concluded which together is significant support for the general proposition that Forer profiles are generally perceived as correct by the subjects in the study. In addition, there is a growing acceptance of the profile if this is labeled as "for you." Favorable ratings are "more readily accepted as accurate descriptions of the personalities of the subjects that bad." But the adverse claims are "more readily accepted when they come from people with high status of people of lower status." We have also found that subjects can generally distinguish between statements that are thoughtful (but that could be applicable to most people) and those that are unique (accurate for them but not for other people). There is also evidence that personality traits such as neuroticism, need for approval, and authoritarianism are absolutely related to belief in standard profiles Forer. Unfortunately, most studies have been done only Forer university students.
http://www.skepdic.com/forer.html
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