Why Does That Description Fit You Exactly? It Fits Everybody

Bertram Forer gave a personality test to his students in 1948 and then handed each of them what he described as an individual analysis of their results, asking them to rate how accurately it described them. The average rating was extremely high. Every student had received exactly the same text, which Forer had assembled from a newsstand astrology book and which consisted of statements general enough to apply to nearly anybody, including observations that the person has unused capacities, tends to be critical of themselves and sometimes doubts whether they have made the right decision. The demonstration has been repeated countless times with the same result and is a standard classroom exercise.

The successful statements share identifiable features:

• •Applying to most people, while sounding specific
• •Containing two opposing tendencies, so any reader recognises one
• •Being mildly flattering, since people accept praise more readily
• •Referring to a hidden quality that others fail to see
• •Using hedging words that permit any degree of application
• •Concerning inner experience, which nobody else can check

Acceptance depends heavily on believing the description was produced for the individual, which is where the effect does its work. The same text rated as highly accurate when presented as a personal analysis is rated far lower when presented as a general description applying to people at large, which has been demonstrated directly. Acceptance also rises when the source is presented as authoritative, when the person supplied information beforehand, however irrelevant, and when they paid for it. Those conditions describe exactly the circumstances of a personality questionnaire, a horoscope, a palm reading and a psychic consultation, which is why the effect is the standard explanation for why such readings convince people.

Several other tendencies work alongside it and are easily confused with it, so distinguishing them is useful. Confirmation bias is the tendency to notice the parts of a description that fit and forget the parts that do not, which operates on the same text afterwards. Subjective validation is accepting a claim because it seems personally meaningful rather than because it was tested. The illusion of insight is the sense that something has been revealed when nothing has been. And cold reading is the active technique of eliciting information from somebody and feeding it back as though it had been discovered, which combines the general statements with genuine observation and is considerably more convincing.

The effect is not confined to obviously dubious practices and appears in places with real consequences. Commercial personality questionnaires used in recruitment produce profiles that are frequently general enough to be accepted by anybody, and the acceptance of the profile by the candidate is sometimes taken as evidence that the instrument works. Handwriting analysis is used in hiring in some countries and depends on it entirely. Marketing personalisation exploits it, since a message framed as selected for the recipient is received differently from an identical general message. And any assessment feedback, including genuine and well-validated instruments, is accepted more readily than it should be, which complicates evaluating whether an instrument is any good.

Forer handed identical vague descriptions to students as individual analyses in 1948 and received very high accuracy ratings. The statements apply to nearly everybody, contain opposing tendencies, flatter mildly and concern inner experience nobody can check. Acceptance depends on believing the text was produced individually, and falls sharply when it is presented as general. Recruitment questionnaires and marketing exploit the same mechanism.