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What psycholgy research finding hit a little too close for you? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For me it's: "Chronic cannabis use during adolescence impairs emotional development in adulthood" "Over achievement in crisis situations is an indicator of ADHD" Both of which provoke "Hmm, ya probably, and fuck you too"

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (3 children)

"What hit a little too close?"

The Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect or, less commonly, the Barnum–Forer effect, is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect

Too meta?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Is this where we mention "Insights", the coloured blocks that show your co-workers your work personality traits? As part of their analysis you get to do an overly-long personality quiz. Later, when you go to their seminar, you get a book full of descriptions about you that sound like the "cold reading" stuff that fortune tellers use. That stuff is BIG-time Forer effect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

https://youtu.be/I6uj1ruTmGQ?si=uCdT5LtsLiXlxIXE

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We talking about horoscopes here?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

As if self-diagnosing neuropsychologic conditions doesn't utilise the same principle?

"I'm so quirky, I forgot a thing once so I clearly have ADHD"

The Barnum effect in psychology refers to the gullibility of people when reading descriptions of themselves. By personality, we mean the ways in which people are different and unique. However, it is possible to give everyone the same description and people nevertheless rate the description as very very accurate.

They way I used to run this test was to give people some personality test on paper, then give everyone an envelope with a printout of their personality, have them rate the accuracy, and then reveal to everyone that they all got the same description. So, how can it be called accurate?

https://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/psych101/barnum_demo.htm