Barnum effect can be described as the widespread tendency for people to accept personality feedback provided to them as accurate, even when the feedback itself is quite general and vague. Back in 1985, Dickson & Kelly administered a personality test to a group of students and then provided each participant with a personality profile that presumably described them. Yet vast majority of students rated the feedback as either a good or excellent description of their personality.See, this is the main reason why I tried to stay away from all those facebook personality quiz, considering they have absolutely no scientific backings; and of course it also concerns the facebook privacy policies, which is undoubtedly foolish.
Not only with personality profile, Barnum effects also describes the tendency for people to accept astrological predictions, palm readings, crystal ball gazing and so on.
Good, next time when you see a friend saying “Amazing test! So true!”, explain to him what is Barnum effect.
Edward Wong is a Year 3 Neuroscience student at University of Alberta, Canada.
October 18th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
So assuming that I take a personality test that has bulletproof scientific backings-> I agree with it->does that still mean there is a Barnum Effect??
haha and is there an “___ Effect” to describe the time when people highly disagree with the personality feedback????
aii mm hou yi see ah, I just really want to procrastinate on my own work ^^;
October 18th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Yes Connie; Barnum effect accounts for any personality descriptions that has no scientific backings (ie establishing a statistical significant relation)
And Barnum effect does not account for the disagreement between personality feedback and actual “personality” because it is just logic. Barnum effect tries to explain the tendency HOW people tends to believe in the rather vague descriptions from the so-called personality tests.