People tend to accept vague personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves.
Forer ran the classroom demonstration in 1948 and published it in 1949: students rated a personality profile for accuracy at an average of 4.26 out of 5, and every student had received the identical text, assembled from a newsstand astrology column. Meehl coined the label in 1956.
In practice
- An employee reads the personality profile from an assessment day and finds it uncannily accurate. Everyone in the cohort received the same four paragraphs.
- A horoscope column describing someone who "values honesty but keeps some things private" applies to nearly everyone who reads it.
- Standing
- 1956 is the date the label was coined; Forer demonstrated the effect in 1948.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- A century and a half of measuring the mind