WEBVTT - Something for Everybody: The Forer Effect 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.040 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.360 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:21.240 today we're gonna be talking about the science of personality assessments. 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.440 Uh and full disclosure, we wanted to let you know 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.520 that the reason we thought to do this topic today 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.000 was that How Stuff Works actually hired an audience research 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:37.720 firm to study our podcast audiences through surveys and statistical profiling. Yeah, 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:39.640 so if you took that survey that we put up 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.159 on Facebook, that's what that was all about. Yeah, unless 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.760 you think that this was just out of curiosity, you 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.880 should always keep in mind that marketers and advertisers want 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.040 to know everything about you, not because you're so interesting, 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.280 but because it helps them sell you snack boxes and underwear. Yes, 0:00:55.680 --> 0:01:00.480 but anyway, they offered a personalized psychometric inventory for each 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.280 of the individual podcast audiences, so each podcast got their 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.800 own and it was based on a test originally compiled 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.520 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology subdivision of 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:13.919 the a p A. And I thought this was really cool, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.800 Like they came up with a psychological profile. It was 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:21.480 basically a personality sketch that listed key personality traits that 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.720 were characteristics unique to each podcast audience. And so I 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.080 picked like five of the traits they listed as unique 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.000 to the archetypical stuff to blow your mind listener. So 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.360 I thought you guys might be interested in this. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.360 let's roll these out and then as we do, you 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.199 can just think, well, to think yourself. Does that jive 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.520 with my outlook on life and how I view myself? Yeah, 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.679 so here we go. Number One, you tend to be 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.480 independent thinkers, hesitant to accept the statements of others without 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.360 adequate proof. Number two, you prefer a certain amount of 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.960 change and variety and become dissatisfied when himmed in by 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:02.240 restrictions and limitations. Three at times, you experience varying degrees 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.920 of social anxiety. Number four, you were motivated by a 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:10.239 strong desire for fairness and reciprocity in social situations. Five 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:12.919 at times, you have serious doubts as to whether you've 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.359 made the right decision or done the right thing. So, 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:18.720 before we get into the meat of today's episode, I 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.160 just wanted to mention that if you're a regular listener 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.360 and you want to let us know how accurately this 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:26.440 profile describes you. You can email us at blow the 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:28.600 Mind at how stuff works dot com and give us 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:33.000 feedback on on the sketch. And unfortunately, everything I just 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.440 said was made up. Yes, yes, this is a little 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.520 slice of fiction, a slice of necessary fiction to get 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:43.400 into our topic today. Yeah. So there was no audience survey, 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.959 no survey data. We just threw together that sketch from 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.720 a few pre existing generic descriptions. Hopefully nobody is upset 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.760 about it, but if you are, you can contact how 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:58.240 Stuff Works chief legal consultant Richard W. Glazer. That's right. Uh, 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:02.400 but be honest, now, were you thinking for a second, Yeah, 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.360 that sounds like me, I have to admit, when I've 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.840 read through them, even knowing that that we have just 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:09.639 made this up, I was thinking, Yeah, that's how I 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:11.639 view it. As a co host of the show. Yeah, 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.480 I am completely susceptible to this effect we're going to 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.040 talk about today. I think if I had been in 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.480 the audience's position here, I would have been like, Yep, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:22.560 that describes me. I think, at least in the kind 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:27.760 of egotistical, self absorbed, self congratulatory way. We sometimes I'll 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:29.800 tend to be. I'm sure that I tend to be 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:33.880 on the inside. Uh. If you weren't convinced, congratulations for 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:37.200 being a skeptical no at all. But if you were convinced, 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.440 don't feel ashamed because you just displayed susceptibility to an 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.640 effect that shows up in most humans, no matter how 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.840 smart we are, and this is known as the former 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:52.160 effect fo r e er or the Barnum effect. Both 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.840 names refer to the exact same thing, and we'll probably 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.720 use the terms interchangeably today, but mainly we're gonna use 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.800 Barnum effect in the podcast because that's easier to say 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.480 out loud. So the Barnum version of the name comes 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.280 from the Circus Kingpin P. T. Barnum, and I'm thinking 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.680 it could be ascribed to two different quotes attributed to Barnum, 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.400 either that there's a sucker born every minute, which apparently 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:21.880 he did not actually say, or that Barnum had something 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.599 for everybody, and I think that latter one might be 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:27.760 what's key here. And if he didn't have something for everybody, 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.440 he wanted to sell a product, right, the circus product 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:34.640 is intended for a wide audience, and he wants to 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:36.880 draw in as many people's possible. Yeah, he's gotta he's 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.760 got to push those jugglers, you know. But the Forwer 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:45.000 title comes from the American psychologist Bertram Our Forwer, and 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.279 he noticed this effect in a classic paper he published 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.760 in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in nineteen 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.039 forty nine. And this paper was called the Fallacy of 0:04:55.120 --> 0:05:00.440 Personal Validation, A classroom demonstration of gullibility. Now, to give 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:04.120 you a little background on four Bertram R. Four He 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:08.360 was born in nineteen fourteen died in two thousand, American psychologist, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.440 again famous for this personality test and his students. But 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.760 he served as a psychologist and administrator in a military 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.680 hospital in France during the Second World War, and then 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.520 he worked in l a at a veteran's mental clinic. 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.039 And also he had a private practice in Malibu. Yeah, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:31.040 so what did Forer test with his students. Fourer had 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.919 previously discussed with his students a sort of proto personality 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.200 quiz called the Diagnostic interest blank or d i B. 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:44.880 And this was a qualitatively evaluated test that he explained 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.760 in the following language. He said quote, the d I 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:52.280 B consists of a list of hobbies, reading materials, personal characteristics, 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.880 job duties, and secret hopes and ambitions of one's ideal person. 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:01.960 The test is interpreted qualitatively and personality dynamics are inferred 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:05.520 along line similar to projective tests. So this is a 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:10.200 it's supposed to be qualitatively evaluated by a perceptive and 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.919 trained professional, somebody who knows what they're doing. And some 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.360 of his students, when they heard about the test, asked 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.240 to take it. They wanted to take the d IB 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:24.159 and receive these tailored personality evaluations because you know, who 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.480 doesn't want to take a personality quiz and learn a 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:28.880 little bit about themselves? Right? I mean that's it just 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.800 speaks to our egos as well as you know, most 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.560 people's desires for self improvement. You know, we want to 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:36.680 we want we want to fill out that Dungeons and 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.680 Dragon's character sheet with our own attributes and figure out 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.240 what we need A tweak with a magical ring or two? Right? 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:47.000 I am chaotic neutral for real. So Fourer acquiesced to 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.640 their desire and a group of thirty nine students all 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.159 took the test and handed in their papers. And then 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.400 one week later Fourer met with the students again for 0:06:56.480 --> 0:07:00.800 class and he handed back the individually tailored personalityty vignettes, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:05.080 and each one was a list of thirteen perceived personality 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.920 attributes under the student's name, and the students were instructed 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.040 to keep the results private. That part was important because, 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.320 in fact, thirteen personality features listed on each student's paper 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:18.960 had nothing to do with what the students wrote on 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:23.120 their test. Uh In fact, they were all exactly the 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.040 same for each one of the thirty nine students. So 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.239 there were thirteen statements listed on each of these thirty 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.040 nine identical personality sketches, and we're gonna read through them 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.560 real quick. Number one, you have a great need for 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.040 other people to like and admire you. You have a 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.360 tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.800 deal of unused capacity, which you have not turned your advantage. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.200 While you have some personality weaknesses, you were generally able 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.240 to compensate for them. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.800 for you. Disciplined and self controlled outside, you tend to 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.440 be worrisome and insecure inside. At times, you have serious 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:00.800 doubts as to whether you've made the right decision or 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.240 done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.600 change in variety and become dissatisfied when himmed in by 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:10.320 restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.000 and do not accept other statements without satisfactory proof. You 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.640 have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.560 yourself to others. At times you were extroverted, affable, sociable, 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.320 while at other times you were introverted, wary, reserved. Some 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.360 of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.080 one of your major goals in life. So the brilliance 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.760 of these is that, like just going through them there, 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.679 knowing again that these are false, that these are just 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.360 you know, could be thrown out to anybody. I found 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.040 myself nodding my head and saying, yeah, I can, definitely 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.440 I can. If I don't buy that statement outright, I 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.400 can at least pick some data from my own personal 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.600 history that could support that theory. Yeah, and that is 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.200 exactly what the test ends up relying on. So for 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:00.840 reveals in a footnote of his pay or that quote, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.960 these statements came largely from a new stand astrology book. 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.800 So he just found a horoscope and picked out random 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.800 statements that could apply to a capricorn a sagittarius, whoever 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.480 it is, and students were then asked to rate on 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.400 a scale of zero to five, with zero being poor 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.400 and five being perfect, the accuracy of the d I 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.520 B as a test, and then the accuracy of their 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.680 own individual sketch as a portrayal of their personality. And 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.840 then he also asked the students to go down the 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.600 list and mark each of the thirteen statements as true, false, 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.640 or question mark. Here were the results as rated by 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.960 the students. The d I B got only one three, 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.520 it got twenty five fours, and it got thirteen fives, 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:55.400 So thirteen students thought it was perfect, thought it was 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.839 really good, and one thought it was okay. So all 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.000 of the students but one gave the test a four 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.480 or five for accuracy. And then when it came to 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:08.360 the individual sketches, all but five students rated their sketch 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:13.040 of four or a five, So the students overwhelmingly thought 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:17.160 the test was pretty good, too perfect, And an interesting 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.920 thing for Or points out when comparing the student ratings 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.520 of the test and the sketch against their item by 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:27.000 item breakdown, is this quote for some individuals, the presence 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:31.679 of eight true statements among the thirteen was considered sufficient 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:37.000 evidence for acceptance of the sketch as perfect. M let 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.839 that sink in for a second, eight out of thirteen 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:44.400 is sixty two per cent. So for some students, even 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.560 with these extremely vague statements, just getting sixty two percent 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:52.040 right about them was enough for the test to count 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:57.439 as a perfect hit. Yeah, how does that? How does 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.520 that work? What's your definition of perfectnesses? Don't know? Well, 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.960 I think it comes down to something four explains in 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.000 his paper later about the discrepancy between our sort of 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.040 like qualitative or quantitative analysis of the results and then 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.240 the amount of confidence we're willing to attribute to a 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:18.040 diagnostic tool as a whole. But what happened here? I mean, 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:23.960 subsequent studies have repeatedly demonstrated the Barnum effect under various circumstances, 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.000 So it's pretty safe to assume that four students weren't 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:32.360 just particularly gullible. In Art Carroll's entry in the Skeptics Dictionary, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.600 he claims, quote, the test has been repeated hundreds of 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.960 times with psychology students, and the average is still around 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:42.440 four point two out of five or eighty four percent accurate. 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.319 So why are we so eager to gobble up worthless 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:53.160 effectively random assessments of ourselves. Well as as we'll discuss 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:55.640 the you know, A lot of the answer lies in 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.640 the presentation. You know, where this test was was taken 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.679 and who has given it to them, and in the 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:06.280 language in which it was administered. Right, it's a psychology professor, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.920 it's a you know, an authority figure administering this test 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.400 to the students in a classroom in a center of learning. Uh. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:18.080 And it's wrapped in the expected psychological lingo. Yes, But 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.360 there's an even deeper issue going on with the nature 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.080 of these evaluations that makes them work. And it's based 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.080 on the interplay between two principles that four points out 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.920 in his paper. And Uh. He four is referring to 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.520 certain types of people like crystal gazers as one term 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.800 he uses. I think that means like somebody looking into 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.280 a crystal ball. He's talking about the psychics of his 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:42.640 day and and things like that. He says, they might 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.560 even unwittingly make use of these principles, but they are 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.880 making use of them. And the principles are universal validity 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.520 and personal validation. That his term is personal validation. But 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.720 today we might know this as subjective validation, and the 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.600 idea of universal validity is the it pretty much every 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:08.120 single psychological trait can be observed in some degree in everybody. 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:12.679 I mean, think about it like if I say, at 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:18.040 times you experience varying degrees of social anxiety. Yeah, that's 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.559 that's everybody. Yeah, yeah, with it with a few just 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:27.000 complete space aliens, you know, eliminated from the mix. Everybody 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.079 deals with some level of anxiety. Right, So another way 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.000 of thinking about this is casting a wide net. And 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.520 you can see a very similar parallel practice if you 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.160 watch a psychic a group of people doing a cold 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.720 reading on a crowd. So the psychic might stand up 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.040 in front of a crowd and say, okay, I'm getting 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.600 something from a spirit, a spirit of someone known to 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.640 someone in the room. It's an older person, an older 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.760 person named John or Jack. Does that mean anything to anyone? 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.120 Something something starting with John or Jack, something starting with 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.520 the letter J. And then one hand goes and an 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.480 uncle named Jefferson exactly, Yeah, oh man, my uncle Jehosaphat 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.480 And then uh, and then the psychic says, yes, that's right, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:11.960 Jehosaphat or Jefferson is here with us. And now we 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.040 can talk to Jeffer Josa Fat And then the client 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:20.359 later says, Wow, the psychics somehow knew something about Jehosaphen, 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:25.600 when in fact the client has supplied the relevant specifics themselves. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.200 The psychic was just trawling with a very large net. 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.520 It would be extremely weird if nobody in the room 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.720 knew of a deceased family member whose name started with Jay. Yeah. Yeah, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:38.520 it's just the odds are with you that you're gonna 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:43.880 catch somebody with that very vague, very general bit of bait. Yeah. 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.360 But then the other principle is this principle of personal 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:52.080 or subjective validation. So how do you test the validity 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:55.240 of a diagnostic instrument, whether it's a horoscope or a 0:14:55.280 --> 0:15:00.320 psychic or a supposedly professional and valid psychological personality test. 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.560 You probably don't want to test it by using it 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:07.680 on somebody and then saying how accurately did this describe you? 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.840 Because this is subject to what for would call the 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.440 fallacy of personal validation. Because you are you, and because 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.360 you know the story of your own life so well, 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.160 you can always find autobiographical hooks to hang almost any 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:28.400 statement on, especially vague and general statements. So we mentioned 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.320 the example a minute ago of social anxiety. Can you 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.720 ever think of an instance where social anxiety had a 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:40.200 meaningful role in your life? Yeah? Of course, Yeah, every day. 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.600 Even somebody who's not particularly anxious, who doesn't have many 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.080 problems with social anxiety, can think of an instance that 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.400 was meaningful to them. Yeah, at the very least they 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.400 were once children, and they had to within some point 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:54.800 in their life where they felt a little awkward. Yeah. 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.680 And so simply put, subjective validation is when you find 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.600 personal and unique accuracy in statements that could apply to 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.520 many or all people. Yeah. And part of this just 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:09.800 gets into our our our enormous capacity, uh, to place 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.840 ourselves in any story too, just the fact that we 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.680 are empathic organisms. Yeah, yeah, Um, we're always seeking meaning 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.000 that relates to us. This sort of ties into something 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.040 we talked about a while back in the Science of 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.600 Coincidence episode, where you know, we're pattern seeking creatures, and 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.760 we're constantly trying to find the pattern that means something 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.400 to me. Yeah, you know, you're talking about our ability 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:38.400 to even essentially put ourselves in the shoes of extreme cases. Um, 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:40.360 you know this This immediately makes me think of the 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.720 popularity of uh, you know, any kind of fiction that 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:49.120 deals with individuals with mental illness or in extreme cases, um, 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.280 serial murderers. You know, because if you have a well 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:57.360 executed serial killer story, um, you can still you still 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.160 end up investing yourself in that person on some level. 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.560 You end up empathizing with at least some aspect of 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:07.639 their you know, ultimately broken psyche. Right. Yeah, so if 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.520 you if you can connect with the serial killer's relationship 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.840 with his mother or something like that, you're like, oh, no, 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:19.240 is this really the story of me? Yeah, or like, uh, 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:23.879 I'm obviously thinking of Hannibal. Yeah, Hannibal actually came up 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:25.800 a couple of times in my mind. I'm looking through 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.680 the research here, Um, I think it was Joyce Carol 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.480 Oates has a book called Zombie that's essentially a retelling 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:37.119 of of the Jeffrey Dalmer uh case, but with you know, 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.280 fictionalized account and so even in this year, you're reading 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:45.240 in it and you can't actually empathize with the murderous 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.399 aspects of the main character. But ultimately it's about a 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.639 guy who feels lost in life and doesn't exactly know 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.679 where he fits, and you know, who can't empathize on 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.560 some level at some point in their their timeline with 0:17:57.640 --> 0:17:59.840 an example like that, right, Yeah, in a way where 0:17:59.880 --> 0:18:02.879 all that cannibal Yeah, it makes me wonder if you 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:07.159 if you administered a test like Forest test, and you 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:12.080 had all of the personality statements leaning more towards the 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:16.280 darker and the insane, like, what the acceptance level would be. Well, 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.680 there actually is some commentary on that in the literature, 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.159 and we can get to that in a bit. What 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.200 are some other studies that What have other studies revealed 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.200 about this, uh, this property? Well, there have been number one. 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.400 It's just been reproduced many many times. And the strength 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:33.679 of the effect varies when you change some of the 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.520 test conditions, and we can talk about that later, but 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.760 there's a pretty consistent result that the subjects of personality 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.639 assessments tend to rate assessments as highly accurate in a 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.120 way that's unique to them, even though the statements within 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.680 the assessment are vague in general, and sometimes even when 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.640 many of the individual statements in the list are subjectively 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.440 perceived as wrong by the client. Remember when we talked 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.280 about the people who got eight out of thirteen right, 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:06.040 said that the test described them perfectly. So what's the 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.240 impact of this in practice. Well, one of the things 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.440 that Forror was personally worried about was that this could 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:18.960 be used to validate or prop up the accuracy of 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.800 very bad tools. So let's say you're an unscrupulous psychic 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:28.679 or an unscrupulous psychotherapist. You can potentially use a combination 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.720 of subjective validation and universal validity to get a very 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.679 unhealthy amount of leverage over another person's common sense, and 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.359 the exchange might go something like this. The psychic or 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.399 unscrupulous psychologist makes a diagnosis of a person's personality, taking 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.439 advantage of these, you know, very vague general traits and 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.480 then leaning on the client's tendency towards subjective validation of 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.920 the test. The client reads these things like in the 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.639 test we talked about and says, yep, that's me, and 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.960 then assumes that the psychic or the unscrupulous psychologist has 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:09.600 access to powerful and accurate skills or diagnostic tools. Then 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.760 the psychic or unscrupulous psychologist makes bolder, more specific, less 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.200 credible diagnoses or or predictions that might not have been 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.840 accepted on the first go round. But at this point 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.000 the client thinks, well, he knew what he was talking 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.879 about the last time, so he must know this time. 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:27.919 I'm going to listen to him. Yeah, I mean it's 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:29.879 kind of a confidence trick, right, I mean, it's a 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.960 it's it's a matter of producing this sort of magical trick, 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:39.600 this illusion that proves to the patient or the the mark, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:41.320 or however you want to want to look at them, 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:44.280 the customer, proves to them that you have insight into 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.080 who they are and what they're all about. And then 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:51.000 when they start making comments that that don't jive as well, 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.439 we just attribute it to their they know more about 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:55.440 us than we know about us. Yeah, I remember when 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.919 I was right last time. It's also very similar to 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.520 the con maneuver. If you're trying to con somebody out 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.720 of a large amount of money, say like, hey, invest 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:07.480 in my pyramid scheme. It'll you know, I can give 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.040 give you a million dollars. First you ask for a 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.200 very small investment, and then you pay out what you 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:17.240 promised on that small investment, and then they say, wow, okay, 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.720 well it seems to work. And so then when you 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.240 ask for a bigger investment, you can fly off to 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.760 Hawaii with the money you probably wouldn't fly to Hawaii? 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.440 Where would you fly to Cayman Islands or the Far 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.399 East I'm thinking, or the halls of Dagon. Yeah, always 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:32.880 a good place that it's tough to get the currency 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.320 exchanged properly there, but still still a good place. A 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.800 lot of hanging out in the depths, right, And this 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.360 can be applied to more different types of diagnostic tools 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:44.600 and instruments than you might think. I mean, so the 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.800 obvious ones we've talked about are like the personal powers 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.520 of a person who claims to be a psychic, or 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.120 a certain type of psychological test, any one of these 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.240 personality tests you can take. But other things might be 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:02.119 methods of discerning personality, These like graphology. Have you ever 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:06.240 heard about graphology? Not until preparing this episode now yes. 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.679 So So four claimed that he was prompted to perform 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:13.000 this experiment after he was accosted in a nightclub by 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.480 a graphologist. And a graphologist as a person who believes 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:18.840 they can tell you all about your personality by looking 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:21.800 at your handwriting. You know, this makes me think that 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:27.200 this nightclub was either really cool or are really lame, 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:29.679 Like there's no in between there If it involves being 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:31.719 approached by a grapholo. It sounds pretty cool to me. 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.160 I never get approached by graphologists when I'm out having 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.000 a you know, at a bar or somewhere. I wish 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:40.760 I would be, because that would be really interesting. But yeah, 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.560 so graphology is widely considered a baseless pseudoscience, though I'm 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.040 sure some people still believe in it, and that's kind 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.280 of scary. But four wanted to demonstrate that he could, 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:55.160 with deliberately faulty techniques, produce assessments that clients would find 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:59.200 just as accurate as those provided by a professional graphologist. 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:02.480 So repeat the same pattern I talked about a minute 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.680 ago with the with the psychic or the unscrupulous psychologist, 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:09.280 where they proved themselves and the and the accuracy of 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:12.919 their diagnostic tools with some very general, vague statements, just 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.040 relying on the fact that you're going to go, Wow, 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:18.880 yeah it sounds like me and Bam, Now grophology works 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:21.280 and I can get you to give me all your money. 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:24.760 Now you don't have to go to a graphologist or 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:26.600 you know, or even listen to the intro to this 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:31.560 podcast to to have some introduction to the power of 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:34.840 the for effect um. And as we were chatting about this, 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:39.119 we kind of looked at at four different levels, Like 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.879