The Fallacy of Personal Validation © POSbase 2005 The study of Forer (1949):Forer (1949): People often believe in horoscopes although astrology does not have any scientific basis (see Carlson, 1985). astrologyCarlson, 1985 One reason is personal validation: People look at statements in their horoscopes and evaluate how much these statements fits their self-image of how they are. Contributor

The Fallacy of Personal Validation © POSbase 2005 However, if statements are very general, or universally valid, such statements always are true for oneself. Emily would not accept that someone has found anything special if she were told that she has two eyes, a nose, and a mouth; this statement is universally valid, but she knows that.

The Fallacy of Personal Validation © POSbase 2005 In contrast, we do not know about the universal validity of inner states, such as thoughts or feelings. If Emily is told „you have a tendency to be critical to yourself“, she thinks that this is true of herself, but she does not know that this is universally true: Almost everybody has a tendency to be critical to herself.

The Fallacy of Personal Validation © POSbase 2005 Other examples of such statements include:  You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.  Disciplined and controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.  At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.  Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.

The Fallacy of Personal Validation © POSbase 2005 Thirty-nine students in Forer‘s study had to complete a personality test that asked for hobbies, reading preferences, secret hopes, etc. One week later, each student got a personality description that contained 13 universally valid statements. All students got the identical personality description!

The Fallacy of Personal Validation © POSbase 2005 Nonetheless, students believed that the personality measure is effective in revealing personality, and they thought that the personality description revealed basic characteristics of their personality. The rating scale ranged from 0 (poor) to 5 (perfect); of 39 students, 16 thought that the description matched perfectly, and 18 gave a rating of 4. No student gave a rating of 0 or 1.

The Fallacy of Personal Validation © POSbase 2005 Practitioners of pseudoscientific methods, such as astrology or graphology, often argue that their clients confirm that personality description mostly fit their self-image of how they are. astrologygraphology This study shows that we can not trust such personal validation. People tend to accept universally valid statements and believe that they are specific to them (also called Barnum effect).