Psychology : A secret they don't want you to know

Hello Steemians !

Everybody knows someone in his family or friends, who is a true believer of astrology. Maybe you do. Many people have those kinds of beliefs.

Astrology, fortune telling, card reading : how can these people guess the name of relative or talk to your dead grand dad ? More generally, why do people believe into something ?

As a psychology student in highschool, I feel the need to share this with you, as you can spread the word around you.

Cold reading

What is "Cold Reading" ? We all know these words from Mentalist's episodes, or any other source. But what is it really ?

CR is observing reactions of the person in front of you to get informations from him. You can see a lot of informations, just by looking to his style, hair, sex, religion, his ethnic group, his education level, the way he talk and his origins.

From then, the reader will open conversation with very imprecise questions to analyse how does the subject react. The purpose is to get the subject to give information that he would normally not give.

For example I would say :

"I see a heart problem, maybe someone in your family, you dad, your mother, your uncle..."

When I say heart problem, it can be a heart disease, or just a hard breakup. It's not precise and it has more chance to be effective.

You can overflow information like this to your subject, and he will recognize himself in what you say, so he will tell you :

"Yes it's my mother, she has insert anything"

From then you just got the information. Now you have to adapt your questions, so you can continue to gain his trust by overflowing him with questions and getting information and so on.

In a real context, a fortune teller would say to you :

"I can see a woman you're not related to. Someone who was there when you were young. You had feelings for her, but you never really acted"

I think pretty much EVERYBODY who read that sentence can relate to.

Cold reading is a great tool for commercials, psychologists, doctor, politicians, hypnotists, scammers, astrologer, sects...

Barnum effect

So when you use cold reading, you actually make someone agree with an imprecise information thinking it is specially designed for him.
This effect is called the "Barnum effect", or "Forer effect", or "Subjective validation effect". It is a subjective bias wich will make someone agree with a vague description of him.

For example, Bertram Forer, a psychologist constructed a description from differents horoscopes in 1948 :

"You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
Disciplined and self-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.
You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof.
You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
Security is one of your major goals in life."

But even if there's documentation about this, freely accessible, and even on tv sometimes, people are still convinced with astral energy and astrology, and many many subjects like this.

How is this possible ?

How do we believe in something

There is 3 factors to make someone believe in anything.

1 - The information must come from a legitimate authority, or a trusted source (newspaper, family, some high ranked astrology site for example)

Let's say I'm the founder of a fictive website Pray For The Pasta, with around 50,000 people following my daily posts. I have legitimity.

2 - The information must be specifically tailored for the subject

I would ask for a new user to pass the Pasta Test to see in what pasta he will be reborn. This pasta test would ask basic questions, like age, date of birth, etc, so nothing really personnal. Then it will answer to the user a description linked to the month of birth for example. And based on the day of birth i'll give him a specific class (for him it will be spaghetti). So that way, the subject will feel like the information is conceived for him specifically.

3 - The subject must recognize himself in this information

Using barnum effect, the user will recognize himself in what you are saying to him. He will even think you understand him well because of the description you gave him. So he will give full credit to what you will say to him after that test.

Knowing all of this, I hope you guys will be more aware of those mechanisms and that you will share this information with your friends and family, I think it is very important, mostly nowadays.

What's your thought about this ? Did you know about these concepts ? If you have questions, I will be pleased to answer you.

You can also upvote my post if you liked it and share it with your community if you want to.

Don't forget to follow me @kurakira to learn more ;)