Barnum Statement: How To Really Debunk Astrology

The notion of the Barnum statement uses a psychological phenomenon that explains why astrology and its family of pseudo-scientific practices are effective at convincing people.

A couple of years back, I took a standardised psychometric test to understand my personality traits better. The test was supposed to be rooted in proven psychological theories and statistical models.

At the end of the test, I got statistical results and descriptions of my personality traits. While I did not have access to the model data to prove the statistical results, the personality-trait-descriptions seemed odd. As I was reading through them, my scepticism-meter was tingling. I had the impression that I was reading through a horoscope from a gossip magazine.

This experience made me raise certain fundamental questions. And that is how I landed on literature covering Barnum statements and the Barnum effect.

In this essay, we will be investigating the psychology behind Barnum statements and the Barnum effect. As you read along, we will be debunking astrology and similar pseudo-scientific practices. By the end of the essay, you will have the tools to tackle any manipulative tactic that uses Barnum statements to cause the Barnum effect (there are surprisingly many in day-to-day life).

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Why is it Called “The Barnum Statement”?

The Barnum statement gets its name from P.T. Barnum who was a famous American showman, businessman, and politician. He is widely credited for the following quote:

“There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Apart from contextual reference, P.T. Barnum did not have much to do with the Barnum effect. The name was coined by psychologist Paul Meehl in 1956.

The Barnum effect, which is a consequence of Barnum statements is also known by the name of “the Forer effect” after Bertram Forer, a researcher who contributed significantly towards understanding the effect.

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The Forer Experiment

As a lecturing psychologist, Bertram Forer conducted a rather intriguing psychological experiment in 1948. Over the years, this experiment has come to be known as a “classic experiment” in the field of psychology.

Forer gave a psychology test to 39 of his psychology students. He then told them that they would each receive a brief personality vignette (description) based on their test results. A week later, Forer gave each of his students a purportedly individualized vignette. Following this, he asked each one of them to rate their respective feedback on how well it applied to them.

On average, the students rated the accuracy as 4.30 on a scale of 0.00 (very poor) to 5.00 (excellent). It was only after all the students had turned in their ratings that Forer revealed to them that he had tricked them in the experiment.

He had not given each student an individual personality report after the test. Instead, he had given them all an identical set of statements that he assembled from a newsstand astrology book.

So, why did the students fail to detect this? Forer attributed the effect to gullibility.

Barnum Statement — How Does it Cause the Barnum Effect?

As I had mentioned earlier, the Barnum effect typically manifests itself in response to the so-called “Barnum statements”. These are statements that appear to be applicable to a particular individual, but are actually formulated in such a general manner that they could be applicable to almost anyone. In Forer’s “classic” experiment, he used the following Barnum statements:

1. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.

2. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.

3. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.

4. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.

5. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.

6. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.

7. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.

8. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.

9. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.

10. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.

11. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.

12. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.

13. Security is one of your major goals in life.

Even as I am writing these statements down for this essay, I am tricked into believing how well these statements describe my own personality. Such is the convincing nature of Barnum statements.

Each of these statements is general enough to apply to anyone. At the same time, these statements exhibit a positive skew. That is, they describe largely positive characteristics that any person is likely to aspire for.

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How Do Hucksters Exploit Barnum Statements?

These so-called Barnum statements are used in standard techniques employed by astrologers, fortune-tellers, magicians, scam-artists, etc. Apart from the statements themselves, there are a few other psychological phenomena that are involved in the manifestation of the Barnum effect.

Human beings exhibit a tendency to accept any feedback (even a bogus one) as long as it comes from a person who is perceived as an authority or a respectable figure. Making use of this tendency, modern-day hucksters are typically well-versed with the latest statistical abstracts, polls, surveys, etc., and exhibit confidence when they use manipulative Barnum statements.

In addition to this, there is a phenomenon called subjective validation in play as well. Human beings tend to look for causal links between unrelated or random events, as long as the perceived causal link supports a belief, expectation, or hypothesis. Hucksters typically are aware of such beliefs and weave them into their statements which make them that much more convincing.

Final Thoughts

To conclude, you can ask yourself the following three questions in order to ascertain if you are being taken for a ride by an astrologist or a pseudo-scientific huckster:

1. Do you get the feeling that the statements from the evaluator apply only to you?

2. Do you believe in the authority of the evaluator rather than the merit of the method used?

3. Does the evaluator’s analysis list mostly positive traits?

If the answer to at least two out of three of these questions is “yes”, then you have reasons to be suspicious. Without having realized it, questions 2 and 3 had implicitly triggered my scepticism after I had read the results of my psychometric tests a few years back.

Michael Birnbaum, a professor of psychology who has also contributed to research in this field has the following to say about the Barnum effect:

“The moral of the Barnum Demonstration is that self-validation is no validation.

Do not be fooled by a psychic, quack psychotherapist, or a phony faith healer who uses this trick on you!

Be skeptical and ask for proof. Keep your money in your wallet, your wallet in your pocket, and your hand on your wallet.”

– Michael Birnbaum

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Reference: Bertram Forer (scientific article) and Michael Birnbaum.

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Further reading that might interest you: Why Earning More Leads To Lesser Satisfaction? and How Easy It Is Really To Predict The Future? 

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