Decision Mechanics

Insight. Applied.

  • Services
    • Decision analysis
    • Big data analysis
    • Software development
  • Articles
  • Blog
  • Privacy
  • Hire us

The Forer effect

June 3, 2022 By editor

Psychologist Bertram Forer gave 39 of his students a personality test. Each was given a personalised profile based on their answers.

Except they were all given the same profile…taken from an astrology book.

When asked to assess how well it described them, on a 0-5 scale, the students reported an average of 4.3.

Wikipedia describes the Forer effect as

…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. 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.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook

Filed Under: Behavioral economics, Decision science Tagged With: Barnum effect, personality tests

Search

Subscribe to blog via e-mail

Subscribe via RSS

Recent posts

  • Data Wrangler
  • The Trolley Problem
  • Counting votes using Excel
  • Accuracy vs precision
  • It’s not because we have insufficient data…

Copyright © 2025 · Decision Mechanics Limited · info@decisionmechanics.com