[1] This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, aura reading, and some types of personality tests.
[2] The term "Barnum effect" was coined in 1956 by psychologist Paul Meehl in his essay "Wanted – A Good Cookbook", because he relates the vague personality descriptions used in certain "pseudo-successful" psychological tests to those given by showman P. T.
Only after the ratings were turned in, it was revealed that all students had received an identical vignette assembled by Forer from a newsstand astrology book.
Evidence also suggests that people with authoritarian or neurotic personalities or who have a greater than usual need for approval are more likely to manifest the Barnum effect.
[8] Later studies have found that subjects give higher accuracy ratings if the following are true:[16] In 1977, Ray Hyman wrote about the way in which hucksters exploit the Forer effect to take advantage of victims (or "marks").
For example, hucksters are more likely to be successful if they exude an air of confidence ("If you look and act as if you believe in what you are doing, you will be able to sell even a bad reading to most of your subjects"), if they "[m]ake creative use of the latest statistical abstracts, polls, and surveys" showing "what various subclasses of our society believe, do, want, worry about, and so on", if they employ "a gimmick, such as a crystal ball, tarot cards, or palm reading", if they are alert to the clues provided about their clients by such details as their "clothing, jewelry, mannerisms and speech", if they are not afraid of "hamming it up", and if they use flattery.
"Real psychologists are horrified by this practice", states Birnbaum, but they fail to criticize it vigorously enough in public, and so it continues to be treated with a respect it doesn't deserve.
While academic psychologists had focused in their studies on students, Dutton called for "analysis of the actual techniques and methods used by proficient cold readers".