"You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic."
If you rated this out of 5, where 0 is very poor and 5 is excellent, what would you give it?
The above was written to demonstrate what's known as the Forer, or Barnum, effect. It is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.
(full article at Wikipedia)
This is one of the things that "psychics" and cold-readers take advantage of when providing someone with a reading. Along with fishing for information, reading a person's dress and vocabulary, along with just plain guessing.
The JREF has a great article about the experiences and accuracy of someone pretending to be a legitimate "psychic reader", it's really fascinating stuff, especially how accurate people thought she was.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
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