PSYC 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Bertram Forer, Paul E. Meehl, American Psychologist

• School: UBC
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 102
• Professor: Benjamin Cheung, Simon Lolliot

Document Summary

Psyc 102 lecture 23 biological and cognitive psychology. 1948, psychologist bertram forer gave a personality test to his students. He then gave his students what he said was a unique personality analysis that was based on the test"s results and asked them to rate their analysis on how well it applied to themselves. On average, students in forer"s study rated its accuracy as 4. 26: forer had assembled these from a newsstand astrology book. In another study examining the forer effect, students took the mmpi personality assessment and researchers evaluated their responses. The researchers wrote accurate evaluations of the students" personalities, but gave the students both the accurate assessment and a fake assessment using vague generalities. Students were then asked to choose which personality assessment they believe was their own, actual assessment. More than half of the students (59%) chose the fake assessment as opposed to the real one. The forer effect is also known as the "barnum effect".