Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about the science of personality assessments.
Speaker 1: Uh and full disclosure, we wanted to let you know
Speaker 1: that the reason we thought to do this topic today
Speaker 1: was that How Stuff Works actually hired an audience research
Speaker 1: firm to study our podcast audiences through surveys and statistical profiling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you took that survey that we put up
Speaker 1: on Facebook, that's what that was all about. Yeah, unless
Speaker 1: you think that this was just out of curiosity, you
Speaker 1: should always keep in mind that marketers and advertisers want
Speaker 1: to know everything about you, not because you're so interesting,
Speaker 1: but because it helps them sell you snack boxes and underwear. Yes,
Speaker 1: but anyway, they offered a personalized psychometric inventory for each
Speaker 1: of the individual podcast audiences, so each podcast got their
Speaker 1: own and it was based on a test originally compiled
Speaker 1: by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology subdivision of
Speaker 1: the a p A. And I thought this was really cool,
Speaker 1: Like they came up with a psychological profile. It was
Speaker 1: basically a personality sketch that listed key personality traits that
Speaker 1: were characteristics unique to each podcast audience. And so I
Speaker 1: picked like five of the traits they listed as unique
Speaker 1: to the archetypical stuff to blow your mind listener. So
Speaker 1: I thought you guys might be interested in this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's roll these out and then as we do, you
Speaker 1: can just think, well, to think yourself. Does that jive
Speaker 1: with my outlook on life and how I view myself? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so here we go. Number One, you tend to be
Speaker 1: independent thinkers, hesitant to accept the statements of others without
Speaker 1: adequate proof. Number two, you prefer a certain amount of
Speaker 1: change and variety and become dissatisfied when himmed in by
Speaker 1: restrictions and limitations. Three at times, you experience varying degrees
Speaker 1: of social anxiety. Number four, you were motivated by a
Speaker 1: strong desire for fairness and reciprocity in social situations. Five
Speaker 1: at times, you have serious doubts as to whether you've
Speaker 1: made the right decision or done the right thing. So,
Speaker 1: before we get into the meat of today's episode, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to mention that if you're a regular listener
Speaker 1: and you want to let us know how accurately this
Speaker 1: profile describes you. You can email us at blow the
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com and give us
Speaker 1: feedback on on the sketch. And unfortunately, everything I just
Speaker 1: said was made up. Yes, yes, this is a little
Speaker 1: slice of fiction, a slice of necessary fiction to get
Speaker 1: into our topic today. Yeah. So there was no audience survey,
Speaker 1: no survey data. We just threw together that sketch from
Speaker 1: a few pre existing generic descriptions. Hopefully nobody is upset
Speaker 1: about it, but if you are, you can contact how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works chief legal consultant Richard W. Glazer. That's right. Uh,
Speaker 1: but be honest, now, were you thinking for a second, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like me, I have to admit, when I've
Speaker 1: read through them, even knowing that that we have just
Speaker 1: made this up, I was thinking, Yeah, that's how I
Speaker 1: view it. As a co host of the show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am completely susceptible to this effect we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about today. I think if I had been in
Speaker 1: the audience's position here, I would have been like, Yep,
Speaker 1: that describes me. I think, at least in the kind
Speaker 1: of egotistical, self absorbed, self congratulatory way. We sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: tend to be. I'm sure that I tend to be
Speaker 1: on the inside. Uh. If you weren't convinced, congratulations for
Speaker 1: being a skeptical no at all. But if you were convinced,
Speaker 1: don't feel ashamed because you just displayed susceptibility to an
Speaker 1: effect that shows up in most humans, no matter how
Speaker 1: smart we are, and this is known as the former
Speaker 1: effect fo r e er or the Barnum effect. Both
Speaker 1: names refer to the exact same thing, and we'll probably
Speaker 1: use the terms interchangeably today, but mainly we're gonna use
Speaker 1: Barnum effect in the podcast because that's easier to say
Speaker 1: out loud. So the Barnum version of the name comes
Speaker 1: from the Circus Kingpin P. T. Barnum, and I'm thinking
Speaker 1: it could be ascribed to two different quotes attributed to Barnum,
Speaker 1: either that there's a sucker born every minute, which apparently
Speaker 1: he did not actually say, or that Barnum had something
Speaker 1: for everybody, and I think that latter one might be
Speaker 1: what's key here. And if he didn't have something for everybody,
Speaker 1: he wanted to sell a product, right, the circus product
Speaker 1: is intended for a wide audience, and he wants to
Speaker 1: draw in as many people's possible. Yeah, he's gotta he's
Speaker 1: got to push those jugglers, you know. But the Forwer
Speaker 1: title comes from the American psychologist Bertram Our Forwer, and
Speaker 1: he noticed this effect in a classic paper he published
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine. And this paper was called the Fallacy of
Speaker 1: Personal Validation, A classroom demonstration of gullibility. Now, to give
Speaker 1: you a little background on four Bertram R. Four He
Speaker 1: was born in nineteen fourteen died in two thousand, American psychologist,
Speaker 1: again famous for this personality test and his students. But
Speaker 1: he served as a psychologist and administrator in a military
Speaker 1: hospital in France during the Second World War, and then
Speaker 1: he worked in l a at a veteran's mental clinic.
Speaker 1: And also he had a private practice in Malibu. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what did Forer test with his students. Fourer had
Speaker 1: previously discussed with his students a sort of proto personality
Speaker 1: quiz called the Diagnostic interest blank or d i B.
Speaker 1: And this was a qualitatively evaluated test that he explained
Speaker 1: in the following language. He said quote, the d I
Speaker 1: B consists of a list of hobbies, reading materials, personal characteristics,
Speaker 1: job duties, and secret hopes and ambitions of one's ideal person.
Speaker 1: The test is interpreted qualitatively and personality dynamics are inferred
Speaker 1: along line similar to projective tests. So this is a
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be qualitatively evaluated by a perceptive and
Speaker 1: trained professional, somebody who knows what they're doing. And some
Speaker 1: of his students, when they heard about the test, asked
Speaker 1: to take it. They wanted to take the d IB
Speaker 1: and receive these tailored personality evaluations because you know, who
Speaker 1: doesn't want to take a personality quiz and learn a
Speaker 1: little bit about themselves? Right? I mean that's it just
Speaker 1: speaks to our egos as well as you know, most
Speaker 1: people's desires for self improvement. You know, we want to
Speaker 1: we want we want to fill out that Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragon's character sheet with our own attributes and figure out
Speaker 1: what we need A tweak with a magical ring or two? Right?
Speaker 1: I am chaotic neutral for real. So Fourer acquiesced to
Speaker 1: their desire and a group of thirty nine students all
Speaker 1: took the test and handed in their papers. And then
Speaker 1: one week later Fourer met with the students again for
Speaker 1: class and he handed back the individually tailored personalityty vignettes,
Speaker 1: and each one was a list of thirteen perceived personality
Speaker 1: attributes under the student's name, and the students were instructed
Speaker 1: to keep the results private. That part was important because,
Speaker 1: in fact, thirteen personality features listed on each student's paper
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with what the students wrote on
Speaker 1: their test. Uh In fact, they were all exactly the
Speaker 1: same for each one of the thirty nine students. So
Speaker 1: there were thirteen statements listed on each of these thirty
Speaker 1: nine identical personality sketches, and we're gonna read through them
Speaker 1: real quick. Number one, you have a great need for
Speaker 1: other people to like and admire you. You have a
Speaker 1: tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great
Speaker 1: deal of unused capacity, which you have not turned your advantage.
Speaker 1: While you have some personality weaknesses, you were generally able
Speaker 1: to compensate for them. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems
Speaker 1: for you. Disciplined and self controlled outside, you tend to
Speaker 1: be worrisome and insecure inside. At times, you have serious
Speaker 1: doubts as to whether you've made the right decision or
Speaker 1: done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of
Speaker 1: change in variety and become dissatisfied when himmed in by
Speaker 1: restrictions and limitations. You pride yourself as an independent thinker
Speaker 1: and do not accept other statements without satisfactory proof. You
Speaker 1: have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing
Speaker 1: yourself to others. At times you were extroverted, affable, sociable,
Speaker 1: while at other times you were introverted, wary, reserved. Some
Speaker 1: of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is
Speaker 1: one of your major goals in life. So the brilliance
Speaker 1: of these is that, like just going through them there,
Speaker 1: knowing again that these are false, that these are just
Speaker 1: you know, could be thrown out to anybody. I found
Speaker 1: myself nodding my head and saying, yeah, I can, definitely
Speaker 1: I can. If I don't buy that statement outright, I
Speaker 1: can at least pick some data from my own personal
Speaker 1: history that could support that theory. Yeah, and that is
Speaker 1: exactly what the test ends up relying on. So for
Speaker 1: reveals in a footnote of his pay or that quote,
Speaker 1: these statements came largely from a new stand astrology book.
Speaker 1: So he just found a horoscope and picked out random
Speaker 1: statements that could apply to a capricorn a sagittarius, whoever
Speaker 1: it is, and students were then asked to rate on
Speaker 1: a scale of zero to five, with zero being poor
Speaker 1: and five being perfect, the accuracy of the d I
Speaker 1: B as a test, and then the accuracy of their
Speaker 1: own individual sketch as a portrayal of their personality. And
Speaker 1: then he also asked the students to go down the
Speaker 1: list and mark each of the thirteen statements as true, false,
Speaker 1: or question mark. Here were the results as rated by
Speaker 1: the students. The d I B got only one three,
Speaker 1: it got twenty five fours, and it got thirteen fives,
Speaker 1: So thirteen students thought it was perfect, thought it was
Speaker 1: really good, and one thought it was okay. So all
Speaker 1: of the students but one gave the test a four
Speaker 1: or five for accuracy. And then when it came to
Speaker 1: the individual sketches, all but five students rated their sketch
Speaker 1: of four or a five, So the students overwhelmingly thought
Speaker 1: the test was pretty good, too perfect, And an interesting
Speaker 1: thing for Or points out when comparing the student ratings
Speaker 1: of the test and the sketch against their item by
Speaker 1: item breakdown, is this quote for some individuals, the presence
Speaker 1: of eight true statements among the thirteen was considered sufficient
Speaker 1: evidence for acceptance of the sketch as perfect. M let
Speaker 1: that sink in for a second, eight out of thirteen
Speaker 1: is sixty two per cent. So for some students, even
Speaker 1: with these extremely vague statements, just getting sixty two percent
Speaker 1: right about them was enough for the test to count
Speaker 1: as a perfect hit. Yeah, how does that? How does
Speaker 1: that work? What's your definition of perfectnesses? Don't know? Well,
Speaker 1: I think it comes down to something four explains in
Speaker 1: his paper later about the discrepancy between our sort of
Speaker 1: like qualitative or quantitative analysis of the results and then
Speaker 1: the amount of confidence we're willing to attribute to a
Speaker 1: diagnostic tool as a whole. But what happened here? I mean,
Speaker 1: subsequent studies have repeatedly demonstrated the Barnum effect under various circumstances,
Speaker 1: So it's pretty safe to assume that four students weren't
Speaker 1: just particularly gullible. In Art Carroll's entry in the Skeptics Dictionary,
Speaker 1: he claims, quote, the test has been repeated hundreds of
Speaker 1: times with psychology students, and the average is still around
Speaker 1: four point two out of five or eighty four percent accurate.
Speaker 1: So why are we so eager to gobble up worthless
Speaker 1: effectively random assessments of ourselves. Well as as we'll discuss
Speaker 1: the you know, A lot of the answer lies in
Speaker 1: the presentation. You know, where this test was was taken
Speaker 1: and who has given it to them, and in the
Speaker 1: language in which it was administered. Right, it's a psychology professor,
Speaker 1: it's a you know, an authority figure administering this test
Speaker 1: to the students in a classroom in a center of learning. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's wrapped in the expected psychological lingo. Yes, But
Speaker 1: there's an even deeper issue going on with the nature
Speaker 1: of these evaluations that makes them work. And it's based
Speaker 1: on the interplay between two principles that four points out
Speaker 1: in his paper. And Uh. He four is referring to
Speaker 1: certain types of people like crystal gazers as one term
Speaker 1: he uses. I think that means like somebody looking into
Speaker 1: a crystal ball. He's talking about the psychics of his
Speaker 1: day and and things like that. He says, they might
Speaker 1: even unwittingly make use of these principles, but they are
Speaker 1: making use of them. And the principles are universal validity
Speaker 1: and personal validation. That his term is personal validation. But
Speaker 1: today we might know this as subjective validation, and the
Speaker 1: idea of universal validity is the it pretty much every
Speaker 1: single psychological trait can be observed in some degree in everybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it like if I say, at
Speaker 1: times you experience varying degrees of social anxiety. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's everybody. Yeah, yeah, with it with a few just
Speaker 1: complete space aliens, you know, eliminated from the mix. Everybody
Speaker 1: deals with some level of anxiety. Right, So another way
Speaker 1: of thinking about this is casting a wide net. And
Speaker 1: you can see a very similar parallel practice if you
Speaker 1: watch a psychic a group of people doing a cold
Speaker 1: reading on a crowd. So the psychic might stand up
Speaker 1: in front of a crowd and say, okay, I'm getting
Speaker 1: something from a spirit, a spirit of someone known to
Speaker 1: someone in the room. It's an older person, an older
Speaker 1: person named John or Jack. Does that mean anything to anyone?
Speaker 1: Something something starting with John or Jack, something starting with
Speaker 1: the letter J. And then one hand goes and an
Speaker 1: uncle named Jefferson exactly, Yeah, oh man, my uncle Jehosaphat
Speaker 1: And then uh, and then the psychic says, yes, that's right,
Speaker 1: Jehosaphat or Jefferson is here with us. And now we
Speaker 1: can talk to Jeffer Josa Fat And then the client
Speaker 1: later says, Wow, the psychics somehow knew something about Jehosaphen,
Speaker 1: when in fact the client has supplied the relevant specifics themselves.
Speaker 1: The psychic was just trawling with a very large net.
Speaker 1: It would be extremely weird if nobody in the room
Speaker 1: knew of a deceased family member whose name started with Jay. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the odds are with you that you're gonna
Speaker 1: catch somebody with that very vague, very general bit of bait. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then the other principle is this principle of personal
Speaker 1: or subjective validation. So how do you test the validity
Speaker 1: of a diagnostic instrument, whether it's a horoscope or a
Speaker 1: psychic or a supposedly professional and valid psychological personality test.
Speaker 1: You probably don't want to test it by using it
Speaker 1: on somebody and then saying how accurately did this describe you?
Speaker 1: Because this is subject to what for would call the
Speaker 1: fallacy of personal validation. Because you are you, and because
Speaker 1: you know the story of your own life so well,
Speaker 1: you can always find autobiographical hooks to hang almost any
Speaker 1: statement on, especially vague and general statements. So we mentioned
Speaker 1: the example a minute ago of social anxiety. Can you
Speaker 1: ever think of an instance where social anxiety had a
Speaker 1: meaningful role in your life? Yeah? Of course, Yeah, every day.
Speaker 1: Even somebody who's not particularly anxious, who doesn't have many
Speaker 1: problems with social anxiety, can think of an instance that
Speaker 1: was meaningful to them. Yeah, at the very least they
Speaker 1: were once children, and they had to within some point
Speaker 1: in their life where they felt a little awkward. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so simply put, subjective validation is when you find
Speaker 1: personal and unique accuracy in statements that could apply to
Speaker 1: many or all people. Yeah. And part of this just
Speaker 1: gets into our our our enormous capacity, uh, to place
Speaker 1: ourselves in any story too, just the fact that we
Speaker 1: are empathic organisms. Yeah, yeah, Um, we're always seeking meaning
Speaker 1: that relates to us. This sort of ties into something
Speaker 1: we talked about a while back in the Science of
Speaker 1: Coincidence episode, where you know, we're pattern seeking creatures, and
Speaker 1: we're constantly trying to find the pattern that means something
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, you know, you're talking about our ability
Speaker 1: to even essentially put ourselves in the shoes of extreme cases. Um,
Speaker 1: you know this This immediately makes me think of the
Speaker 1: popularity of uh, you know, any kind of fiction that
Speaker 1: deals with individuals with mental illness or in extreme cases, um,
Speaker 1: serial murderers. You know, because if you have a well
Speaker 1: executed serial killer story, um, you can still you still
Speaker 1: end up investing yourself in that person on some level.
Speaker 1: You end up empathizing with at least some aspect of
Speaker 1: their you know, ultimately broken psyche. Right. Yeah, so if
Speaker 1: you if you can connect with the serial killer's relationship
Speaker 1: with his mother or something like that, you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: is this really the story of me? Yeah, or like, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm obviously thinking of Hannibal. Yeah, Hannibal actually came up
Speaker 1: a couple of times in my mind. I'm looking through
Speaker 1: the research here, Um, I think it was Joyce Carol
Speaker 1: Oates has a book called Zombie that's essentially a retelling
Speaker 1: of of the Jeffrey Dalmer uh case, but with you know,
Speaker 1: fictionalized account and so even in this year, you're reading
Speaker 1: in it and you can't actually empathize with the murderous
Speaker 1: aspects of the main character. But ultimately it's about a
Speaker 1: guy who feels lost in life and doesn't exactly know
Speaker 1: where he fits, and you know, who can't empathize on
Speaker 1: some level at some point in their their timeline with
Speaker 1: an example like that, right, Yeah, in a way where
Speaker 1: all that cannibal Yeah, it makes me wonder if you
Speaker 1: if you administered a test like Forest test, and you
Speaker 1: had all of the personality statements leaning more towards the
Speaker 1: darker and the insane, like, what the acceptance level would be. Well,
Speaker 1: there actually is some commentary on that in the literature,
Speaker 1: and we can get to that in a bit. What
Speaker 1: are some other studies that What have other studies revealed
Speaker 1: about this, uh, this property? Well, there have been number one.
Speaker 1: It's just been reproduced many many times. And the strength
Speaker 1: of the effect varies when you change some of the
Speaker 1: test conditions, and we can talk about that later, but
Speaker 1: there's a pretty consistent result that the subjects of personality
Speaker 1: assessments tend to rate assessments as highly accurate in a
Speaker 1: way that's unique to them, even though the statements within
Speaker 1: the assessment are vague in general, and sometimes even when
Speaker 1: many of the individual statements in the list are subjectively
Speaker 1: perceived as wrong by the client. Remember when we talked
Speaker 1: about the people who got eight out of thirteen right,
Speaker 1: said that the test described them perfectly. So what's the
Speaker 1: impact of this in practice. Well, one of the things
Speaker 1: that Forror was personally worried about was that this could
Speaker 1: be used to validate or prop up the accuracy of
Speaker 1: very bad tools. So let's say you're an unscrupulous psychic
Speaker 1: or an unscrupulous psychotherapist. You can potentially use a combination
Speaker 1: of subjective validation and universal validity to get a very
Speaker 1: unhealthy amount of leverage over another person's common sense, and
Speaker 1: the exchange might go something like this. The psychic or
Speaker 1: unscrupulous psychologist makes a diagnosis of a person's personality, taking
Speaker 1: advantage of these, you know, very vague general traits and
Speaker 1: then leaning on the client's tendency towards subjective validation of
Speaker 1: the test. The client reads these things like in the
Speaker 1: test we talked about and says, yep, that's me, and
Speaker 1: then assumes that the psychic or the unscrupulous psychologist has
Speaker 1: access to powerful and accurate skills or diagnostic tools. Then
Speaker 1: the psychic or unscrupulous psychologist makes bolder, more specific, less
Speaker 1: credible diagnoses or or predictions that might not have been
Speaker 1: accepted on the first go round. But at this point
Speaker 1: the client thinks, well, he knew what he was talking
Speaker 1: about the last time, so he must know this time.
Speaker 1: I'm going to listen to him. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: kind of a confidence trick, right, I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's a matter of producing this sort of magical trick,
Speaker 1: this illusion that proves to the patient or the the mark,
Speaker 1: or however you want to want to look at them,
Speaker 1: the customer, proves to them that you have insight into
Speaker 1: who they are and what they're all about. And then
Speaker 1: when they start making comments that that don't jive as well,
Speaker 1: we just attribute it to their they know more about
Speaker 1: us than we know about us. Yeah, I remember when
Speaker 1: I was right last time. It's also very similar to
Speaker 1: the con maneuver. If you're trying to con somebody out
Speaker 1: of a large amount of money, say like, hey, invest
Speaker 1: in my pyramid scheme. It'll you know, I can give
Speaker 1: give you a million dollars. First you ask for a
Speaker 1: very small investment, and then you pay out what you
Speaker 1: promised on that small investment, and then they say, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: well it seems to work. And so then when you
Speaker 1: ask for a bigger investment, you can fly off to
Speaker 1: Hawaii with the money you probably wouldn't fly to Hawaii?
Speaker 1: Where would you fly to Cayman Islands or the Far
Speaker 1: East I'm thinking, or the halls of Dagon. Yeah, always
Speaker 1: a good place that it's tough to get the currency
Speaker 1: exchanged properly there, but still still a good place. A
Speaker 1: lot of hanging out in the depths, right, And this
Speaker 1: can be applied to more different types of diagnostic tools
Speaker 1: and instruments than you might think. I mean, so the
Speaker 1: obvious ones we've talked about are like the personal powers
Speaker 1: of a person who claims to be a psychic, or
Speaker 1: a certain type of psychological test, any one of these
Speaker 1: personality tests you can take. But other things might be
Speaker 1: methods of discerning personality, These like graphology. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard about graphology? Not until preparing this episode now yes.
Speaker 1: So So four claimed that he was prompted to perform
Speaker 1: this experiment after he was accosted in a nightclub by
Speaker 1: a graphologist. And a graphologist as a person who believes
Speaker 1: they can tell you all about your personality by looking
Speaker 1: at your handwriting. You know, this makes me think that
Speaker 1: this nightclub was either really cool or are really lame,
Speaker 1: Like there's no in between there If it involves being
Speaker 1: approached by a grapholo. It sounds pretty cool to me.
Speaker 1: I never get approached by graphologists when I'm out having
Speaker 1: a you know, at a bar or somewhere. I wish
Speaker 1: I would be, because that would be really interesting. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so graphology is widely considered a baseless pseudoscience, though I'm
Speaker 1: sure some people still believe in it, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of scary. But four wanted to demonstrate that he could,
Speaker 1: with deliberately faulty techniques, produce assessments that clients would find
Speaker 1: just as accurate as those provided by a professional graphologist.
Speaker 1: So repeat the same pattern I talked about a minute
Speaker 1: ago with the with the psychic or the unscrupulous psychologist,
Speaker 1: where they proved themselves and the and the accuracy of
Speaker 1: their diagnostic tools with some very general, vague statements, just
Speaker 1: relying on the fact that you're going to go, Wow,
Speaker 1: yeah it sounds like me and Bam, Now grophology works
Speaker 1: and I can get you to give me all your money.
Speaker 1: Now you don't have to go to a graphologist or
Speaker 1: you know, or even listen to the intro to this
Speaker 1: podcast to to have some introduction to the power of
Speaker 1: the for effect um. And as we were chatting about this,
Speaker 1: we kind of looked at at four different levels, Like
Speaker 1: at the very bottom level, you have essentially horoscopes and
Speaker 1: fortune cookies. And it's worth noting unfortune cookies that every time,
Speaker 1: even though we know those are just coming from a
Speaker 1: crate in the back of the Chinese restaurant, even though
Speaker 1: we really don't attribute any literal significance to what's coming
Speaker 1: out of the cookie, they still resonate of this because
Speaker 1: we still, at least for a second, we just we
Speaker 1: used to spend this belief just enough to engage in
Speaker 1: a worldview where the future is more than mystery and chance. Right, yeah, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to ask, what's your favorite fortune cookie you've
Speaker 1: ever gotten? Um, years and years and years ago, I
Speaker 1: got one that was said, one day you will write
Speaker 1: a book. I was like, yeah, that's great, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to do anyway, So, um so I kept
Speaker 1: that on. It's like, now they predicted the age of
Speaker 1: self publishing and then they were going to be right
Speaker 1: about no matter who opened that cookie. That's true, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know it, uh it was you know, even though
Speaker 1: I knew it was a vague statement. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like on some level, I took it as encouragement. Right, yeah, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm if I had gotten a fortune cookie that said
Speaker 1: you will write a book, I would still have that
Speaker 1: in my wallet and be like, Yep, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be a writer someday. That's how important I am. Uh No,
Speaker 1: my favorite fortune cookie I ever got was the one
Speaker 1: that said constant grinding will wear the iron rod down
Speaker 1: to a needle. Huh what does it mean? I'm not
Speaker 1: quite sure. Like it's telling you not to file yourself
Speaker 1: with the file you wear a mouth guard at night.
Speaker 1: Because if I if I had gotten that one, I
Speaker 1: would think, oh, well that was clearly forecasting that I
Speaker 1: grind my teeth and would need to wear a night guard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it could have been that. But look to it
Speaker 1: and take that fortune if you still have it to
Speaker 1: your dentist and say, look into it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: My dentist is moderately humorless, but okay, yeah, so you have.
Speaker 1: You have fortune cookies, which, like you point out, they're
Speaker 1: especially funny because we give them the significance even though,
Speaker 1: like let's say you're a person who believes in astrology,
Speaker 1: the fortune cookie doesn't even aspire to the astrology level
Speaker 1: because you know, they're all just pre printed ahead of
Speaker 1: time and they're they're in a box. Yeah, so at
Speaker 1: least the horoscope is the is the higher end of
Speaker 1: this level because it's at least rooted in this system.
Speaker 1: It's a system that doesn't have any validity to it.
Speaker 1: But if you suspend disbelief or engage in a little
Speaker 1: magical thinking, you can buy into the system and then
Speaker 1: buy into the results of the system. Right, But that
Speaker 1: was the first level. What's the next level? Then the
Speaker 1: next level we think, Uh, then the next level we
Speaker 1: think is, uh, the which X Men character are you?
Speaker 1: And and not necessarily just the which X Men character,
Speaker 1: but any of these various pseudo personality quizzes based in fiction. Uh,
Speaker 1: that end up. You know, it seems like for a
Speaker 1: while they were always rolling out on Facebook. Is like
Speaker 1: every day it was a new one. And you take
Speaker 1: this little, generally poorly executed quiz and generally with very
Speaker 1: leading questions to determine which X Men character, which Twilight
Speaker 1: character are you? Which which house and Harry Potter would
Speaker 1: you be in? That's right? I am gambit, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it would have questions like what would be your
Speaker 1: preferred weapon in a fight at Amantium clause or exploding
Speaker 1: playing cards, and that's just cheating because then the person
Speaker 1: is basically choosing which X Men character they want to
Speaker 1: be and just picking. Yeah. I think one of the
Speaker 1: problems was there ended up being websites where you could
Speaker 1: build your own, so people would just build them without
Speaker 1: any any thought into what makes you know, makes it
Speaker 1: seem like they work the better ones, and I think
Speaker 1: the ones that were not user generated tended to feel
Speaker 1: a little more like a personality test and it should
Speaker 1: be a surprise when it tells you that you are
Speaker 1: jug or not. And from from there we get into
Speaker 1: the next level, which, of course the PSITE involves psychic
Speaker 1: readings cold readings, where there's an actual intellect on the
Speaker 1: other side of the test, drawing you in, conning you
Speaker 1: with that, you know, with that with that little bit
Speaker 1: of generally appliable UH data, and then making more specific
Speaker 1: UH revelations visible about your your personal history and your
Speaker 1: future and uh your departed loved ones in the afterlife. Yeah. There,
Speaker 1: it's interactive and it's smart. The person knows what they're
Speaker 1: doing and they're working you, you know, it's not just
Speaker 1: like a kind of blank dumb statement that you have
Speaker 1: to read into. They're helping you read into it actively.
Speaker 1: And then, of course, in the level beyond that, you
Speaker 1: have the quote professional personality test. This is, of course,
Speaker 1: like Myers Briggs, the kind of test that a professional
Speaker 1: might come into your workplace and actually administer the test
Speaker 1: to everyone. Yeah, and we're certainly not saying that all
Speaker 1: professionally administered psychological tests are bunk, that that's not the case.
Speaker 1: What we are saying is that it's very possible for
Speaker 1: a psychologist to design a personality assessment that is bunk
Speaker 1: and you might very well not know it right. And
Speaker 1: you know, I would go even even further and say
Speaker 1: that I believe that people can use the cold reading
Speaker 1: techniques and psychic reading techniques for an overall positive experience
Speaker 1: with a person. But it kind of comes down to
Speaker 1: that the question. You know, it's like, if you let
Speaker 1: somebody go through the drawers in your house, are you
Speaker 1: going to trust them not to steal your civil way? Right?
Speaker 1: So that I'm positive their individuals, I know, their individuals
Speaker 1: who have had the experience with psych kicks and UH
Speaker 1: and cold readers and individuals using this technique where they
Speaker 1: at least feel that there is some sort of temporary,
Speaker 1: at least positive result from the experience. Oh yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier in this episode, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of it and I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: be cautious about it, I think I'm very susceptible to this.
Speaker 1: I think I could easily naturally be the kind of
Speaker 1: person that falls for it. If you tell me, at
Speaker 1: times you experience social anxiety, but also you're an independent thinker,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know that is me. So
Speaker 1: here's a big here's a big question that emerges. Are
Speaker 1: there ways to make generic assessments feel more accurate to people,
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're not instantating called out for
Speaker 1: for the kind of generalities that that are that are
Speaker 1: hallmark of this kind of manipulation. Yeah, I think the
Speaker 1: first number one key principle is keep the descriptions as
Speaker 1: vague and generally applicable as possible without it being too
Speaker 1: obvious that they're meaningless. And this is a fine line
Speaker 1: that that you have to walk with language if you're
Speaker 1: going to try to be a deceptive no good diagnostician. Um,
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't say, for example, you are an extrovert
Speaker 1: or an introvert. I mean, obviously you're one of the two, right,
Speaker 1: But you can say that without it being so clear.
Speaker 1: I think it needs a little careful use of language.
Speaker 1: So you would try something like you're often able to
Speaker 1: find fulfillment in social events and relationships, but at times
Speaker 1: you feel like you need to be by yourself. Now,
Speaker 1: another possibility here comes to mind with the with the psychic,
Speaker 1: we're talking like, if the psychic were to say there's
Speaker 1: somebody in the room here who knew an old person
Speaker 1: who died, like that sounds just really fake. But if
Speaker 1: you were to phrase it more like somebody here lost
Speaker 1: an individual, they were really just a strong presence in
Speaker 1: their life. They were a real, you know, a personal hero,
Speaker 1: kind of a mentor a rock for you. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: you you change the way you're described, and you change
Speaker 1: the thing a job of it and uh, and then
Speaker 1: you might think, yeah, well, you know, my uncle Ben
Speaker 1: was kind of like that without it just being like,
Speaker 1: who's an old person I know that died. Oh, I
Speaker 1: can choose from six, you know, but it's still general
Speaker 1: enough that you could you can just throw that out
Speaker 1: there and see what you catch. Yeah, you're you're creating
Speaker 1: the illusion that you're narrowing the scope without really narrowing
Speaker 1: it by much. So choose your words carefully. In fact,
Speaker 1: I wanted to highlight it's in the spirit of one
Speaker 1: of my favorite quotes from Calvin and Hobbes, which is
Speaker 1: when Calvin's he's talking about how he used to hate
Speaker 1: writing assignments for school, but then he decides he loves
Speaker 1: them because he says, quote, the purpose of writing is
Speaker 1: to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.
Speaker 1: That's kind of true. So there are some specific words
Speaker 1: that will be very useful to you, useful modifiers like some.
Speaker 1: Isn't that a great word because some could mean anything
Speaker 1: from one percent to it includes all options except none
Speaker 1: or all. Yeah, it's like saying, if you were to
Speaker 1: say you're a real dirt bag, you're like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if the psychic really knows me. Sometimes you're a
Speaker 1: real dirt bag, and then you think, well, maybe I am.
Speaker 1: You know, whether you're mostly a dirt bag or only
Speaker 1: occasionally a dirt bag. That's true. Yeah, there's gotta be
Speaker 1: at least some moment in your personal history where you're like,
Speaker 1: I was kind of sliding towards the dirt bag level
Speaker 1: of the stem on that one. Yeah, so that sometimes
Speaker 1: some and then at times that's a great one because
Speaker 1: at times that that sounds like psychological test language. At
Speaker 1: the same time, you want to convince the mark here
Speaker 1: that the Barnum profile is unique, right, And this was
Speaker 1: key in Ford's experiment. Um uh. And he actually described
Speaker 1: the following scene after he had collected feedback on the test.
Speaker 1: He said he was going to read a list of
Speaker 1: selected traits out loud, and if the students had the
Speaker 1: trade on their profile, they needed to raise their hand.
Speaker 1: After four read the first trade, every hand in the
Speaker 1: room went up, and then the students burst out laugh thing.
Speaker 1: The moment the students realized their profiles were not unique,
Speaker 1: that's when they instantly knew the personality sketch was bunk. Right.
Speaker 1: So in this we get into the whole fortune cookie scenario, Like,
Speaker 1: if you know all the fortune cookies are the same,
Speaker 1: the only way you're gonna get into it is if
Speaker 1: you suspend disbelief or even just you know, it's hard
Speaker 1: to even have the magical thinking cranked up high enough
Speaker 1: to buy a fortune cookie. It's amazing how much that works.
Speaker 1: I mean, even knowing what we know about fortune cookies,
Speaker 1: not thinking they're magical. Imagine if you were sitting at
Speaker 1: a table and everybody opened their fortune cookie at the
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant and they all had the same fortune on them, Like,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't even feel as significant to you as it
Speaker 1: normally does when you normally know it's not significant, right,
Speaker 1: but if you have the at least the illusion that
Speaker 1: has been personally prepared for you, like nobody does this.
Speaker 1: But what if the fortune cookie chef came to your
Speaker 1: table as if they were going to you know, customer, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, did some sort of you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, some sort of ritual, right, or you know,
Speaker 1: did something scanned with some sort of device and then
Speaker 1: read it out on a meter and then wrote it down.
Speaker 1: You know, if you had tune preparation side fortune cookie preparation,
Speaker 1: this could be big. This would allow you to to
Speaker 1: perceive it as an individualized exercise and then you would say,
Speaker 1: of course you would buy it, even if it's like
Speaker 1: one of those really horrible fortune cookies that just throws
Speaker 1: out some little adage rather than even attempting to to
Speaker 1: forecast your future Yeah, so here's another one, be flattering,
Speaker 1: flatter the person. One of the findings of a nineteen
Speaker 1: literature review by Dixon and Kelly was that there's some
Speaker 1: evidence that positive or favorable assessments are more readily accepted
Speaker 1: as accurate. So if you're reading a list of traits
Speaker 1: that are your feedback from the personality test you took,
Speaker 1: if they're mostly negative, you're less likely to say this
Speaker 1: is very accurate. Then if they're mostly positive, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to mean that they're all positive. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would think that might not work if they're all
Speaker 1: just glowing reviews of you. So what I would do
Speaker 1: if I was designing one of these is make it
Speaker 1: eighty to nine percent really nice things about you and
Speaker 1: then a couple of harmless criticisms. Yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: have it. You know. It's kind of like buying a
Speaker 1: character in fiction, right. They need to have some flaws,
Speaker 1: they need to have some some some strengths. You need
Speaker 1: to be able to get behind the the idea that's
Speaker 1: a real person, but they have to be overall likable
Speaker 1: or nobody's going to buy them as the protagonist. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true for fiction. Because well,
Speaker 1: who doesn't love Snake Pliskin. He has positive attributes. You know,
Speaker 1: he's he stands up for what he believes in. He's
Speaker 1: true to himself. Yeah, and you know he's uh, he's
Speaker 1: he's also true to his crew. That's important too. You know,
Speaker 1: like when he gets out and he finally talks to
Speaker 1: the president, you know, the first thing he says is, like,
Speaker 1: these people, well, some of these people died for you.
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta gotta stand by them. In the
Speaker 1: presidents too busy prepping, and that's where he decides to
Speaker 1: tear up the tape. So yeah, yeah, yeah, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: when a character is just too unlikable, stintly comes to mind.
Speaker 1: That show Last minut on Earth. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you watched this Will Forte in the league playing the
Speaker 1: this uh this man who survived after the apocalypse, and
Speaker 1: it's and then he starts encountering random survivors. But he's
Speaker 1: the center of it, and it's a good show. But
Speaker 1: the character is so unlikable that I ended one of
Speaker 1: the last episode I watched. I think I spent the
Speaker 1: whole thing just hoping cannibal wanderers would show up and
Speaker 1: eat him. Because it's like, I can't really get behind
Speaker 1: him because he's so despicable. Oh man, I think of
Speaker 1: this because just a couple of weeks ago, on July four,
Speaker 1: we in our house watched Jaws, which we do everywhere
Speaker 1: on July four. Yeah, but have you ever read the book? No,
Speaker 1: I haven't. Every single character is detestable. There. There's not
Speaker 1: a single even remotely likable character that I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have no idea whether that was intentional or not.
Speaker 1: But you just want the shark to eat them all weird,
Speaker 1: and they had to change it for the movie. It's
Speaker 1: to imagine that now with as like lovable as Quint
Speaker 1: is in the movie. Yeah, that's weird. No I read.
Speaker 1: I read Peter Benchley's Beast about the Giant Squid. But
Speaker 1: that's the only Benchley book I've ever read. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: never ventured into the Benchley deep cuts. That's that's the
Speaker 1: only cut I've listened to. But it was fun in
Speaker 1: the day, somebody fights a giant squid of the chainsaw. Wait,
Speaker 1: let's get back. Oh yeah, yeah, we have one more.
Speaker 1: And this one is pretty simple project high status and
Speaker 1: scientific authority. It kind of like, if you put this
Speaker 1: in the guise of the psychic reader or the magician,
Speaker 1: Like where a fancy cloak, have a cool beard, right, Like,
Speaker 1: drape yourself in the authority of the station you're in.
Speaker 1: And if you're trying to, uh to pull this off
Speaker 1: as like a personality assessment thing, like, have some sort
Speaker 1: of scientific authority to you throw out some scientific lingo,
Speaker 1: have some sort of gadget that you will whip out
Speaker 1: at your table side fortune cookie preparation, right. I I
Speaker 1: actually tried to incorporate this into the little deception I
Speaker 1: used at the beginning of the episode when I said
Speaker 1: that the test we used was a survey created by
Speaker 1: the Society for Personality and Social Psychology subdivision of the
Speaker 1: A p A, which is a real subdivision. Don't know
Speaker 1: if they've ever created a test, but if it sounded
Speaker 1: accurate because you're throwing out some some some jargon, throwing
Speaker 1: out the name of an organization in your mind kind
Speaker 1: of stops listening and just sort of checks it off, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds that sounds accurate. Yeah. Now, there of course
Speaker 1: a number of positives here. As we was, we touched
Speaker 1: on you know, you can have fun with a fortune cookie.
Speaker 1: You can enjoy your horoscope. You can. People love these
Speaker 1: online personality quizzes. Yeah, you can appreciate the you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of personal satisfaction in finding out that you're
Speaker 1: Wolverine um. And in some cases I maintain you can
Speaker 1: you know, and the right kind of psychic can can
Speaker 1: get inside your head a little bit and have a
Speaker 1: positive effect on you. I mean you could argue that
Speaker 1: to a certain experient therapists. You're using the same the
Speaker 1: same devices, they're just using it with some sort of
Speaker 1: ethical um structure employe. Oh yeah, this is a thing
Speaker 1: that is I've read pointed out about some psychics before,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't have to be true that they have
Speaker 1: psychic powers, like the paranormal doesn't have to exist for
Speaker 1: them to perhaps have insights that are useful to you.
Speaker 1: So there's an actually a really good article on this,
Speaker 1: and I'll link to this in the landing page for
Speaker 1: this episode. Susan Krauss a Whitburn's when it comes to
Speaker 1: personality test, a dose of skepticism is a good thing.
Speaker 1: And this is from Psychology Today, and she presents first
Speaker 1: of all, the dark side of the for effect um
Speaker 1: as as really coming down the key three key at things. One,
Speaker 1: it allows others to scam you out of money, right
Speaker 1: because because of that thing for mentioned where if if
Speaker 1: it works on you once, now you have logged in
Speaker 1: your brain. Okay, this device is worth trusting. And that
Speaker 1: device could be a particular test, could be the apology,
Speaker 1: could be a psychic on TV, could be an advertising
Speaker 1: um slogan, you know, like, oh, they really kind of
Speaker 1: got into who I am. They know who I am,
Speaker 1: I should buy this champoo. Um. Number two, it makes
Speaker 1: you more susceptible to bad advice. You kind of touched
Speaker 1: them that already, but yeah, they're they're they're in your head.
Speaker 1: You're you're trusting them, and now they can start telling
Speaker 1: you all sorts of horrible things. And then the number three,
Speaker 1: it makes you less susceptible to good advice that isn't
Speaker 1: as lubricated. Oh man, So if somebody so, let's say
Speaker 1: you take a very well designed psychology test that gives
Speaker 1: you a good profile of your personality that has all
Speaker 1: kinds of specifics that aren't as well packaged as these
Speaker 1: vague generalities you would get in another test, you might
Speaker 1: actually not trust the good feedback. Yeah, or imagine the
Speaker 1: pyramid scheme guy. You know, like he's coming up, he's
Speaker 1: buying your drinks. He's really laying it on thick. You're
Speaker 1: really buying into what he's selling because he's selling it
Speaker 1: so well, and he's he's already gained your trust. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: your actual accountant is saying, hey, you really need to
Speaker 1: be careful about these investments. But your actual accountants kind
Speaker 1: of boring and you can make yourself and he doesn't.
Speaker 1: His information isn't as well lubricated as that of the charlatan.
Speaker 1: So she has for key recommendations to avoid the pitfalls,
Speaker 1: just to you know, just to keep it in your
Speaker 1: mind as you're moving through life. Number one, No a
Speaker 1: fortune cookie when you see one. Obviously that's that's my
Speaker 1: summation of this particular one. But yeah, like you know
Speaker 1: what you're dealing with. Yeah, beyond the lookout for statements
Speaker 1: they're universally valid and recognize them as such. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the second way you look for evidence of validity.
Speaker 1: Read between the lines, look for that ambiguity we've been
Speaker 1: talking about. Is this a statement that could apply to anyone?
Speaker 1: And I'm just grabbing onto the bait. And then finally
Speaker 1: trust actual professionals as opposed to advertisements and TV psychics? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: wait no, maybe you haven't encountered my favorite TV psychic. Uh,
Speaker 1: doctor you're so great? Now, Doctor you're so great, has
Speaker 1: some really interesting things to say about how smart I am. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: doctor you're so Yeah. Well they can they can be
Speaker 1: very convincing. I you know, I don't watch as much
Speaker 1: TV these days, and out, like you know, the old days,
Speaker 1: you turn on the TV and you just had to
Speaker 1: absorb what it gave you. So I don't even know
Speaker 1: what's out there. Are there other YouTube psychics the way
Speaker 1: there used to be TV psychics? I would hope so.
Speaker 1: But like, there was the guy with the gray plastic hair.
Speaker 1: Do you remember him? No? What is that? Oh goodness,
Speaker 1: I should have. I should have thought to look him
Speaker 1: up before the podcast episode. But he had it was
Speaker 1: like this just normal looking, kind of doughey dude, and
Speaker 1: he had hair that was singingly made out of plastic.
Speaker 1: I just googled psychic gray plastic hair and the first
Speaker 1: result is Dorian gray syndrome. M Well, now I'm even
Speaker 1: more intrigued as that he may have This man may
Speaker 1: have suffered from some sort of disorder than involved in
Speaker 1: aging painting. But but certainly there was just a whole
Speaker 1: world's gallery of TV psychics back in the day. Certainly,
Speaker 1: but you know they're each unique one and all. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but again there's still the other positive side to this
Speaker 1: is that allows us to really get into our music, right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course. We were talking about this the
Speaker 1: other day with the the general miracle themes of pop music,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about this in contrast to the
Speaker 1: way you handle specificity versus generality and fiction. If you're
Speaker 1: writing a short story or novel or something like that,
Speaker 1: you don't want to sketch characters in a general way.
Speaker 1: You want to sketch them in a specific way, to
Speaker 1: have interesting, unique details that make them who they are.
Speaker 1: For some reason, in fiction we connect better with specifically
Speaker 1: drawn characters. But in pop music, very often, if you
Speaker 1: look at the lyrics, they are utterly devoid of specifics.
Speaker 1: They are they're they're doing this game where you paint
Speaker 1: in extremely vague generalities that could apply to almost any
Speaker 1: person at any time, and people do seem to respond
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, because often the generalities are you know,
Speaker 1: kind of mantras that you can get behind, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: statements of power like like I remember, like when I
Speaker 1: would listen to like Nine Nails in high school, there
Speaker 1: would be you know, it seems like in more than
Speaker 1: one song you would throw in that line nothing could
Speaker 1: stopped me now, you know, and kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: dark Gothy Nine Nails la. But you listen to me like, yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing can stop me now you kind of pumping yourself
Speaker 1: up with it. This is about my life, yeah, because
Speaker 1: I am facing a challenge that I should not be
Speaker 1: stopped from. How did he know so much about me?
Speaker 1: Trent just knows. Trent Trent is a man of insight. Um. Likewise,
Speaker 1: another one for me several years back, like a definite
Speaker 1: pop example, the band LaRue had a track Bulletproof, where
Speaker 1: the chorus was next time baby, I'll be bulletproof. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what's even possibly specifically about, but even
Speaker 1: you know, I would listen to and it was a
Speaker 1: catchy tune and I would think, Yeah, I'm gonna be bulletproof.
Speaker 1: You can't stop me? Yeah, the same kind of it's
Speaker 1: the same. Yeah, it's the Trent principle, the tread principle.
Speaker 1: How about yourself? Any pop songs that resonate with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just looking back in my history in my music player app.
Speaker 1: I think it's funny looking at the contrast between different
Speaker 1: types of lyrics. Like one of the things I see
Speaker 1: is Lauretta Lens don't come home a drinking with Loving
Speaker 1: on your mind, which I mean that's a pretty specific song,
Speaker 1: like that tells a specific story. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: you've got don't stop thinking about Tomorrow. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's how much more general could it be? You could
Speaker 1: be like, wow, they really, they really got me because
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the weekend or that you know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to get something done tomorrow. The mac knows, the
Speaker 1: mac knows how we think, right, and of course that
Speaker 1: that that does underlign like the two big trends in
Speaker 1: song like you have those those ultra specific songs or
Speaker 1: even narrative songs. Yeah, Like I'm thinking like Gordon Lightfoot
Speaker 1: type of vibe where you're telling a very definite story
Speaker 1: about a particular scenario and with its own ups and downs.
Speaker 1: And then on the other side, don't stop thinking about tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The generic anthems that you can just copy and paste
Speaker 1: your life onto. Indeed, the classification of anthems is key alright, Sody,
Speaker 1: you have it, the for effect, the Barnum effect, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, it's all around us. It's
Speaker 1: it's in our it's in our religious lives, it's in
Speaker 1: our secular lives. It's in our advertising, it's in uh,
Speaker 1: it's in our our culinary taste. So we know that
Speaker 1: everyone has has something to share on this particular topic.
Speaker 1: So we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: check out stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That
Speaker 1: is the mothership. That's where you'll find all the episodes.
Speaker 1: You'll find blog post videos, you'll find links out to
Speaker 1: our social media account. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Speaker 1: And if you want to let us know how you
Speaker 1: reacted initially to our story about the audience survey, or
Speaker 1: if you want to tell us a story you have
Speaker 1: about somebody falling for the horror effect or the Barnum effect,
Speaker 1: you can let us know at blow the Mind at
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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com