Psychics, astrologers, graphologists (who claim to be able to determine personality from handwriting), and tarot card readers all benefit greatly from the Barnum effect. The vast majority of their clients are already, to some extent, believers. Thus, even a vague description that could apply to nearly anyone will be seen as highly specific to the individual. The psychic will then be given credit for amazing, perhaps even paranormal, insights.
Some typical stock spiels that have been shown to be effective illustrate just how vague such statements really are. The following two are taken from Hyman (1976–77) and Snyder and Shenkel (1975), respectively.
You appear to be a cheerful, well-balanced person. You may have some alternation of happy and unhappy moods, but they are not extreme now. You have few or no problems with your health. You are sociable and mix well with others. You are adaptable to social situations. You tend to be adventurous. Your interests are wide. You are fairly self-confident and usually think clearly. (Hyman 1976–77, p. 23)
Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary and reserved. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. You pride yourself on being an independent thinker and do not accept others’ opinions without satisfactory proof. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety, and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. Disciplined and controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside.
Your sexual adjustment has presented some problems for you. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a strong need for other people to like you and for them to admire you. (Snyder and Shenkel 1975, p. 53).
When one is forewarned about the vagueness of these spiels, the ploy becomes fairly obvious. Why is the vagueness overlooked when the victim is not forewarned? The answer lies in the active role victims adopt when they consult a psychic. The psychic is likely to say that the readings are symbolic and that clients must try to apply what is said to their own life. Thus, when victims are told, “Your sexual adjustment has presented some problems for you,” they are likely to recall a specific instance of this sort. They then credit the psychic with telling them not the vague statement, but the details of the specific instance.
A good stock spiel will have what are called “double-headed” statements (Dickson and Kelly 1985). For example: “Often extroverted and outgoing, you are sometimes retiring and unsure of yourself in social situations.” The stock spiel is not totally flattering. Flattery in a cold reading should not be overdone. Everyone has some bad points, and if the reader makes vague statements that seem to match some of them, the victim won’t think, “Well, I’m just being flattered.” In other words, putting negative points into the spiel enhances its credibility even further.
By the way, if the description of cold reading reminds you of the very popular practice of “profiling” in criminal cases, you’re not alone. There is surprisingly little actual research on the validity of criminal profiles. But, at least on the surface, it does seem to bear a striking similarity to cold reading. And the faith put in it by some in law enforcement bears a strong resemblance to the fallacy of personal validation—selectively remembering and reporting those parts of the profile that turned out to be correct while ignoring the aspects that were incorrect. In a rare article critical of profiling, Allison, Bennell, and Mokros (2002) have argued that profiling is based on a “naive and outdated understanding of personality” and is “unlikely to be a valid and reliable process” (p. 115).
PSYCHIC PREDICTIONS
Psychics claim to be able to foretell the future, find missing persons, and help the police solve crimes. Their exploits and predictions appear endlessly in supermarket tabloids like the
Nostradamus was certainly a most prolific prophet. His prophecies fill more than 175 pages in Edgar Leoni’s (1961/1982)
Nostradamus has been credited with predicting nearly every major historical event to take place since his death, as well as many minor events (Hoebens 1982–83; Randi 1982–83b, 1993). Among his alleged correct predictions have been the rise of Napoleon, the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler, World Wars I and II, the invention of fighter aircraft, the atomic bomb, and the deaths of John F and Robert Kennedy, to name a few. He is even said to have named Hitler, getting his name correct to within a single letter.
However, these prophecies are only seen to be accurate after the fact. No one has ever used them to make correct predictions about what is going to occur before it happens. Rather, after an event occurs, people go back to Nostradamus’s thousands of predictions and find a passage that seems, now that the event is known, to have foretold its occurrence. For example, after World War II, many people claimed that Nostradamus had foreseen the details of that war. But no one had been able to see such predictions in his writings before the war.
Nostradamus’s prophecies are far from the sharp, clear predictions most people believe them to be. He left a total of one thousand verses, divided into ten “centuries,” each with one hundred verses, as well as some additional predictions. Each of the one thousand verses can contain multiple predictions, so his writing contains literally thousands of “prophecies.” In the best traditions of the “multiple out,” the verses are vague, sometimes to the point of being little more than gibberish. A few examples will give a flavor of these verses:
