Barnum effect Puns

I have seen people describe their abilities as being able to pick up energies of a person when they are doing a reading. I was wondering what is the difference between reading someone’s energy vs a Barnum statement? If you’re not familiar with a Barnum statement, it’s a description that is used to try to capture most people’s experiences that they connect with. For example, one I saw on social media earlier said something along the lines of “Does anyone else feel like they’re ADHD and a lazy perfectionist who loves their friends but hates people?” What do energies pick up on that is more specific than Barnum effects, and what are the limitations of the energies picked up on? I’m sure it’s different for different readers, so I’m just looking more for a discussion than a concrete answer!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect

The Barnum effect, also known as the Forer effect, is what makes psychics, astrologers and even personality tests seem to be credible. I posted the link for informational purposes, mostly, though I admit I've fallen victim to it to varying degrees over the years. Just thought others might like to read about it.

EDIT: And I posted it to the schizophrenia forum because we schizophrenics have a nasty tendency to assume general things apply to us specifically, moreso than even so-called mentally healthy people.

I wanted to share a cognitive bias I read about today. It is something I have been aware of for sometime, but I did not know it had a specific name until today.

The Barnum-Forer Effect... The observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.

A great deal of paranormal beliefs can be attributed to this, at least in part, such as the value of astrology and natal charts. It is also a tactic used by 'psychics' and 'mediums' in cold reading, which is something I have been advocating awareness for since the days of Sylvia Browne, but I did not know it had a name until today, neat-o!

What are your thoughts on this?

TLDR: On popular request adding TLDR - There is more to personality than just INTJ. Those who go by strict definitions and descriptions should be aware of: (1) Barnum Forer Effect as per which 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 (2) Jung referred to Personality Typing and Labelling as Parlour Games with no benefits (3) Meyers Briggs have made large and unsubstantiated jumps from Jung's Types to MBTI and finally (4) As Jung said use Types only as a compass and not a given

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I loved it when I discovered INTJ. As far as I know, I was the only one who was having shouting matches with my own Boss even risking my career for it. I could not stand authority and I wanted to get to the bottom of all things.

Till I reached the conundrum of Barnum Forer effect. The classic Forer experiment on psychology student forced me at last to examine what it means to be an MBTI. I could go on and claim to be an INTJ or I could investigate what MBTI actually is.

Till this point I had resolutely refused to believe in the so called unscientific papers dissing the MBTI typing. My argument was that - MBTI uses categorisation and people who are not consistent fall somewhere in-between (Not the fault of the scale). (2) And that it is incorrect to compare continuous scale measurements with Typing scales.

This led to another Rabbit Hole in which I decided to check the claimed links of MB's (Meyers & Briggs) with Jung's psychological types. This is when I got the first shock of my lack of understanding and I finally understood NiTe language. At the same time, I cross referenced MB to Jung and how MB came to 16 types when Jung had only categorised 8 types. This is where I realised the Jumps that MB made of using the Psychological Functions which faces the outside world as the classifying criteria (In INTJ - it is Te). In fact MB admit that Jung has not said anything about secondary functions except for a couple of lines.

Intrigued I decided to read Psychological Types itself to understand Jung's original concept. Jung uses two axis - One is the Energy flow axis: whether it is Extroverted (attacking, energy flowing out from subject to object) or Introverted (defensive, withdrawing energy from object to subject). The second axis is Psych

Hi fellow ISFPs and other cool types, so... if you know even just the tiniest speck of personality theory you might have heard about "The Barnum/Forer effect" which basically boils down to "Personality tests suck because all the results are tailored to fit just about everyone" but long story this guy Bertram R. Forer gave a quiz to his students and told them he would give them personality vignettes unique for each, but he just gave them the same thing which said :

1. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
2. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
3. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
4. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
5. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
6. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
7. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
8. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
9. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof.
10. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
11. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
12. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
13. Security is one of your major goals in life.

and presumably the students were like "OMG thats me" because the test was vague and mostly positive, and now some people tend to think all personality theory its just uwu positivey blah blah with no substance, and while this isn't a flawless personality theory, and for some people the personality shoe just doesn't fit (because lets face it we are all different), I just don't think these personality thingies should be thrown out the window , as one internet sage (just a random dude,on fighunter lol but internet sage sounds better) said , that while both cat and horses had pointy ears doesn't mean they are the same animal, because different animals share similar traits, yet they are still different animals, this comparison was made for the four temperaments group, and I think this can apply to other personality groups, such as this,mbti.

In my case I have been confused about what my mbti type was because the tests say im

I think that the effect could be find in types that doesn't share a lot of differences. I mean, I can trick my mind to fit me into the INTP category rather than considering that maybe I could be an INTJ, ENTP, ISTP or INFP... But I think that any effect of this kind would decrease for more distant types... I mean, it is pretty hard to conceive that someone would trick himself into thinking that he is an ESFJ rather than an INTP just because a random test has said so.

So i'm new to 16personalities and find it very helpful in understanding myself better, why i tend to do what i do etc. I was kind of excited about reading about what it was like being an INFP and much of the personality traits i found were quite accurate. So i mentioned my results to my therapist and two friends who majored/minored in one or more combinations of psychology, philosophy and english and who seem to me very intelligent, knowledgeable and whose opinions I value but not always agree with. And they all pretty much dismissed these personality tests. Much of the criticism was how they oversimplified human personalities. I can understand their arguments and their professional and educational backgrounds added authority. But i still find the tests valuable and at least a good starting point to learn more about oneself and that's all that really matters to me. But then i learned about the Barnum or Forer Effect and started having more serious doubts about these tests. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about the accuracy and efficacy of these personality tests.

Many books that seem quite generic with pretty obvious tips. Are they all using the barnum effect to make people relate? But if so how do a lot of these books that seem the same still be sold as much as they are?

So I was thinking... you know (or perhaps did in the past when you were Christian) how Christians interpret verses like Jeremiah 29:11 or Philippians 4:13 to mean something positive about themselves? I wonder if this has something to do with the Barnum effect, which essentially describes the phenomenon of people interpreting vague fortunes and horoscopes as positive predictions of their personality or future success. Perhaps I'm just thinking of confirmation bias?

Curious as to why Christians assume that the Bible HAS to mean something good for them in 2018 as opposed to solely being written for an audience of centuries past.

I'm not sure if here is where I explain what that person is like in my opinion or what I'm like in order for you to realize if I am that person for you, so I guess I'll do both.

Me: depressed, anxious, feeling empty inside, you know the drill. I keep socializing with all these people who want to talk with me but I don't want to talk with them because they don't get me so it feels useless. I like over analyzing things, and my favorite subject to over analyze is myself. Second favorite would have to be movies or like the cinematography of cartoons. Seriously, it can be some powerful stuff! I'm an extrovert through and through, I can't stand not talking to someone and I can't relate to people whose difficulty is to initiate a connection period. I'm a really intense person and I have a strong personality, and I mean that in both a good and bad way.

You: it sounds weird to say but hopefully also depressed, anxious and feeling empty inside? I'd rather you are older to much older than me as I am surrounded by people my age and I can't really seem to relate to them. Hopefully you feel the brunt of this world in some capacity. I guess you are the type of person who likes to read a lot but not just for the sake of bragging about it but like, because critical thinking is a life and you enjoy learning about new things or having your viewpoints challenged. Analytical and critical is a big one, I don't take bullshit and you shouldn't either. If you are the type of person who is struggling to make connections but not with the act of interaction itself, that should be a good enough common point to get us started. If you are the type of person who could go to the museum with me and interpret any painting (especially in context), I will pretty much instantly fly out to meet you.