The Barnum Effect

The Barnum effect, named after the US circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum, is where we take general personality statements as being uniquely and specifically attributable/applicable to ourselves (Mugglin & Frederickson, 2024). So - for example - this is where we read a horoscope published in a newspaper and manage to make it meaningful to our own lives via mental gymnastics and a forced-fit.

We are so good at buying in to a test, and 'believing' what we are told... rather than taking the sales pitch with a grain - or gob - of salt (Gonthier & Thomassin, 2024). We most often find the Barnum effect appears in those who are invested in the results of astrology, numerology, tarot, and those 'personality' tests which lack scientific rigour (Gonthier & Thomassin, 2024). By rigour, I mean research attributes such as validity, reliability, replicability and generalisability (Maula & Stam, 2020).

We humans are born with credulity: we are programmed to believe. The analogy is clear: the prediction of such personality test instruments is alike to fortune-telling, and there is indeed a "sucker born every minute"- a phrase which, although attributed to P. T. Barnum, cannot be verified as being said by the man himself (Saxton, 1989, p. 335).

Research has found that we "tend to believe in bogus personality profiles", and even worse we are "often unable to distinguish between bogus feedback and [our] actual profile on a test" (Gonthier & Thomassin, 2024, p. 1). As we get older, we tend get more cynical; perhaps because we realise that there is only a 'man behind the curtain' (Baum, 1900), as opposed to some mystical insight into our own nature. Because of our tendency to 'believe' when told something confidently, we must deliberately apply our BS-detector, and consider whether what we were told is actually true, or whether we would like it to be true.

Factual reality is more enduring - and useful to our own development - than enjoyable fakery.

Sam

References:

Baum, L. F. (1900). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. George M. Hill Company.

Gonthier, C., & Thomassin, N. (2024). Getting students interested in psychological measurement by experiencing the Barnum effect. Teaching of Psychology. Advance online publication, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283241240454

Maula, M., & Stam, W. (2020). Enhancing Rigor in Quantitative Entrepreneurship Research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 44(6), 1059-1090. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258719891388

Mugglin, G., & Frederickson, J. (2024). Personality statements and the Barnum Effect [Poster Presentation 49]. Science Research Symposium, Bethel University, Arden Hills, Minnesota, 11 April 2024. https://spark.bethel.edu/science_symposium/spring2024/schedule2024/49/

Saxon, A. H. (1989). P. T. Barnum: the Legend and the Man. Columbia University Press.