What is Barnum effect?

Barnum effect means that people can easily believe a general description of personality, thinking that this description is particularly suitable for them and accurately reveals their personality characteristics, even if the content is empty.

Barnum effect, also known as Fowler effect and astrology effect, is a psychological phenomenon proved by psychologist bertram Fowler in 1948. People often think that a general description of personality reveals their own characteristics very accurately. When people describe a person with some common, vague and broad adjectives, people tend to accept these descriptions easily and think that they are talking about themselves. As a well-known technician named Shoman barnum said when evaluating his performance, he is very popular because the program contains ingredients that everyone likes, so he makes "people get cheated every minute".

In 1950s, psychologist paul muller named Fowler after Phineas Taylor Barnum, a famous American circus artist. The experimental result was Barnum Effect. Barnum effect explains why many people think fortune tellers are "accurate" after consulting them, because people who ask fortune tellers have the characteristics of being easy to be hinted, but in fact, fortune tellers say almost the same things to everyone, which are general generalizations and descriptions.

Reason:

In psychology, the cause of Barnum effect is considered to be the role of subjective verification. Subjective verification can affect us, mainly because we want to trust our hearts. If we want to believe something, we can always collect evidence to support ourselves. Even if it doesn't matter, we can still find a logic and make it conform to our own ideas. In our hearts, "self" occupies most of the space, and everything about "me" is very important. Our license plate number, ringtone, computer desktop and bedroom wallpaper will be carefully designed by ourselves to reflect our unique personality.