Howdy folks! Welcome to the Greatest Blog On Earth...or something like that. Anyway, at the very least, welcome to another edition of Cognitive Biases Bootcamp, a companion series to my Logical Fallacies Bootcamp. Today’s Cognitive Bias du jour is… The Barnum Effect!
Why are horoscopes, fortune tellers, personality tests, and “what kind of Scandinavian root vegetable are you” tests popular? In no small part to this cognitive bias.
The Barnum Effect is the tendency for people to believe that (often) flattering statements made about them are true and specific to them, even though the information in the statement is actually vague and generic. For example, “you are a kind person who likes the company of friends, but also likes a bit of private time.”
Gosh! Wow! That’s so me!
And most people on the planet who reads that statement “about them” will nod in agreement as well.
This started out known as the Forer Effect, for the psychologist who pioneered research into this bias in the 1940’s. In one now classic experiment in 1948, Forer administered a “personality test” to a group of 39 of his students and told them they would each soon receive a short customized result that revealed something about their personality.
A week later, Forer handed members of each group of students a card with a list of statements that was supposedly specific to THEM, and asked them to rate its accuracy on a scale of 0 to 5 (with 0 being very poor and 5 being excellent). The average was 4.30. Wow, pretty accurate test, right!
Well...there was a catch.
You see, each student, unbeknownst to them or the others in the group, all received EXACTLY THE SAME RESULTS. Results that said (to give a few specific examples of some of what was on the results card):
You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof.
You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
And, of course, subsequent research shows that the Barnum Effect is strongest when the generic statements applied are positive — people tend to want to believe positive things about themselves, so “You’re a gentle person that loves small furry animals” is much more likely to land and given a thumbs-up rating than something like “You often dream of getting revenge upon those you believe have wronged you.” Adding modifiers to make the statement more generic, such as adding “at times” to a statement makes them even more likely to be accepted by the receiving person.
Sooo...what’s the big deal if we happen to like our egos stroked a little?
Well, the potential abuse of this bias by those with ill intent. The popular name became the Barnum Effect for a reason, as Barnum is often credited with saying “There’s a sucker born every minute.” (Spoiler: There’s no evidence he ever said this).
Grifters of all sorts over history have used the Barnum Effect to relieve their marks of their money and property. Think of how generic psychics and mediums are. The horoscope in the local newspapers might be a harmless bit of fluff, but a predator intent on milking some people of their hard-earned cash by convincing them of their enormous paranormal powers, for example, is quite another.
Another reason to be aware of this bias is our modern digital environment. Apps that make content recommendations for users, like Spotify, Netflix, etc. often do use algorithms looking at users past activity to create results, but a lot of their recommendations are still pretty generic and would apply to most people. By tweaking users by labeling such recommendations as “Recommendations for you” or some similar phrasing to make it seem more personal, their hoping to tap a bit into that Barnum Effect. So, just another aspect of digital advertising to be aware of. Not especially nefarious in this case, but still an example of trying to use human biases to guide consumer behavior.
There’s another avenue this manifests itself: Personality tests. The vast majority of personality tests don’t really give you results that are all that “customized.” The famous Briggs-Meyer Test, for example, gives vague results that can literally change from day to day if you take if repeatedly, but people still go “Oh, that’s so me” when they get those results. Uh, yeah. It’s you and 99% of other people at some point, whether it’s today, tomorrow, or next Wednesday.
And those personality tests are big business. Fortune 500 companies have administered these tests to their employees looking for management material, for example.
An oldie but goodie about why Briggs-Meyers is of, uh, questionable accuracy:
Probably gonna get some hatemail from the Myers-Briggs fanboys out there, but meh. The history of the test is fascinating but nothing about it screams “scientific rigor” or “accurate.”
Point is, you’re taking a personality test, whether it be the Myers-Briggs or “what brand of Spaghetti are you?” on Facebook, do it for fun, not for real results.
So, what to do? Are we all doomed to fall prey to the next door-to-door palm reader in the neighborhood? Of course not. But by keeping our “skeptical radar” alert, we, being knowledgeable about the existence of this bias, can be more aware of it in ourselves, and perhaps as important, when someone is trying to use that bias.