I would never fall for nonsense, but that's because I'm a Leo and Leo's tend to be skeptical

Who else read it as astronomy and physics?

The Barnum effect also applies to a plethora of videos on KZfaq with titles such as “10 Signs you’re a genius!” or “Signs you have a rare INJP personality” or “Signs you are creative” etc and the masses fall for it as smooth as butter melts at room temperature.

Just from watching this video I can tell that you are a highly intelligent person that is sometimes too critical of yourself. You will also become romantically rich or whatever in the next few weeks. Please donate €5 to hear more.

"You like to meet interesting people and you can be a lot of fun but you really appreciate your alone time and you don't always feel like being surrounded by people." That kind of BS

I think everyone has fallen victim to the Barnum effect.

I am a rational person, so I don't believe the fortunes in fortune cookies. However, I really like the cookies. They remind me of vanilla wafers. I always read the fortunes, even though I discredit their validity. This, I think, is consistent with my personality as an Aquarius. Also, I'm engaged to my umbrella. Is that normal?

It's why in the past, it was called "sooth saying" Because they will most often tell you what you want to hear not advice you actually need!

"You are breathing" Astrology people:*surprised pikachu face*

You might confuse vague statements that can be true for most people as accurate descriptions of yourself, but with some mental effort you can learn to recognise them and avoid making rash decisions based on them. Trust your loyal friends to point out to you the true qualities you posses, and avoid falling prey to deceptive scams. Your lucky number this week is 17.

Reminds me of a TV advert, many years ago, where a young lady says to a young man "From what I've seen of you at this party, I'd say you are a Sagittarius.""I am. That's amazing. How did you work that out?" "Well it is your birthday party."

I had a live reading with a psychic and she said that I have problems and I’m stuck on the girl I was in my last relationship with. I was confused because I’ve never been in a relationship at the time of doing the reading so I was wondering who she was talking about. She then told me I was very depressed, I was at one of the happier moments in my life at the time. She said I have problems sleeping and that there is something that stand over me “a darkness” while a sleep. I sleep like a baby. I think the darkness she was referring too is the room. Since the lights are off. So I can… you know sleep. Everything was so general, I literally was so upset at myself for wasting my money.

"You need food to stay alive" "You might feel sleepy, If you don't sleep any for 24 hours"

I fell prey to it. When I was 22 I went to a fortune teller. They said I had trouble sleeping and I would live until I was 81 years old. And I would be married late 20’s and start a family in early 30’s. I didn’t get married until 39. Still have no kids. And I never had trouble sleeping I just tried to believe it.

It's weird how many people are gullible

Stars,moon,sun just vibing and performing their universal purpose Astrologers: this must mean something about your birth,career,personality and love life.

I once got a fortune-cookie that said that my passenger-side rear tire was about 15 PSI low. It was oddly specific.

The ad for this video was "Psychic Answers", a website for psychic consulting. I swear KZfaq is taking the piss out of your videos

lol tht BuzzFeed reference though. Cool video! I've always doubted the "results" as they were all so positive and not me.

Someone who believed in Astrology once tried to convince me and told me something about myself based on my sign. I felt very vindicated when I was able to reply, "Absolutely not. If I was the kind of person who sets his mind to something and gets it done, would I still be working at Subway?"

watched that psychic ad at the beginning trying not to laugh

When a girl tells you to check your horoscope before dating.

I think Steven Fry explained it best while he and Dr. House were at a Mentalist show. The guy said that he "picked up on someone with a strong sense of humor." and Hugh just looks up and asks everyone who felt they didn't have a good sense of humor to raise their hand. Half the time it's generic stuff that everyone wants to believe about themselves, and relies on the blindspot people have on asking themselves whether or not the information could also pertain to someone else. A good exercise is to take a horoscope reading and read every single one. You'll notice that one says "You're compassionate, smart, and daring" while another says "You're caring, intelligent, and brave."

I came here because I am a fanatic of astrology and everything resonates but after my classmate got drunk with me and mentioned this, none of those readings resonates anymore. Ahhh I hate intelligent people. That one made me look dumb 😂

Wow this is so interesting! I think I've just found a new great KZfaq channel to binge!

I think whether true or not people tend to think " i can be like that" rather than " i am"

I fell for them and I regret a lot now. Mediums and fortune tellers love preying on people going through grief. I was in grad school and a professor tried telling me about the effect. I should’ve listened … people grieving want a way to speak to their parents again or a lost loved one. I got to the point of going to mediums so much that I thought they were friends , but in reality they told me things to scare me and get more money. I’m tempted to go back to school to just study this effect more , but I’ll do some research at least on my own.

What is unique about our personality isn’t isolated traits or characteristics but a combination of those. The test certainly misses that. Most would claim to be honest, sensitive, compassionate, because most often they’re! You’ll see more helpful strangers in your life than violent criminals

I wish my family and friends who believe in astrology and other pseudoscience crap would watch this. Great video.

very nice explanation, tnx

Even more people believe that governments and politicians have their best interest at heart.

Some basically people want to believe in something more and they'll fall for anything.

Awesome channel👌

Thanks so much for educating me, now I feel like I finally have a good response to whenver some random dude asks what my star sign is

I always knew that those statements are generic description. But I enjoyed this video as it finally gives me a name to this theory.

Got an advertisement for a "psychic advisor" app before this. 🤦‍♂️

I find the history behind astrology is far more interesting than "what it means". It's ancient, like older than all the current practiced religions ancient and pre-dates writing. What inspired people millennia ago to develop it? And what made people pass it down so strongly? And why, unlike other ancient religions, is it still widely believed today? It's an interesting topic I think is overshadowed by people arguing over if it's real, or why someone believes it.

Good Job!!! :D

Excellent content laden

"The Wisdom of the Enneagram" book, scored as a #5, read the whole chapter on them, thought it was more convincing due to it's darker themes, and having more "specific-but-general" type of statements. But I was skeptical enough to doubt it if it was merely a projection of what I wanted to see.

A Psychic Donna ad played before this video

After the video finished, KZfaq showed me an ad for psychics!

Mbti and jungian typography is probably what gets me most, although I also tend to remain incredibly skeptical of most of my results.

Great vid. Does the Barnum effect play into other areas of life when people are trying to build trust quickly?

Everybody gangsta till astrology tells you how your childhood was

are there transcripts on your website?

I hope I remember these Barnum effect words when a friend ask what my sign is! Getting old and the brain is dying

About 5 years ago a fortune cookie said 'luxurious surroundings will soon be yours'. So much for that. Beyond the barnum effect, add cold and warm reading, if the astrologer/psychic meets you or can find anything about you from, say, your social media activity.

"And now, you know better"

Awesome video

Me: haha zodiac dumb Also me: still hopes that I can turn into a dragon and firebend because I was born in the year of the dragon in the chinese zodiac.

I don't want to believe in astrology. But sometimes I cant help but notice that certain signs are similar

Astrology - make em pay to learn more about how human they are.

I took the test in college, and the same results happened then too.

I saw a meme once that said: “I text bitches at 3:33 or 11:11 so they can think the universe is sending me” 😂

I believe the Barnum Effect is real but it only really fits sun sign horoscopes. If people knew how complex it can get, I don’t think they could correlate it to this. Ultimately, a person just isn’t going to get it if they don’t make an honest effort to learn it for themselves, beyond just sun, moon, and rising signs.

I don't believe in the Barnum effect because the Barnum effect told me I don't believe in it.

Is there a way i can contact you?

Astrology gives people a feeling of certainty and safety. The unknown and uncertain can freak people out. It is easier to believe than to question it and stress about it.

Does the Barnum effect explain the apparent (i.e., perceived) specificity and accuracy of personality descriptions in astrological natal birth charts?

those stats are wrong. theyre taking the percentage of the TOTAL population instead of the percentage of the ppl who actually took the poll.

I did a similar test as picking the star signs description that describes you, I hide the names of the signs and sent them to 3 people at the end of every day over the span of a week. They were almost always correctly, i think it was 17 or 18 correct out of 19 tests.

Ask me anything I'll tell you something I know nothing

I have insanely good luck with fortune cookies. When i was on my second date with my wife, her fortune cookie said "you are sitting across from the love of your life" I owe whoever wrote that a huge thank you.

Once upon a time, before advances in genetics, astrology was a compelling hypothesis: There were lots of couples, usually with lots of children each, but the children were all different, except when they weren't. But even most twins are only fraternal. But all children from single births are only fraternal. Why? It seems reasonable to assume, that there is only ever a very narrow window of opportunity for a child to be born with specific characteristics, so narrow in fact, that only in the minority of twin births children are both born in the same period resulting in their characteristics. Since time was measured astronomically, it would be natural to assume that a science of astrology were possible. At that point, the usual tragedy would have followed. People devoted to genuine scientific thought would have made no progress in this field of study, so that it would have fallen to the usual suspects. To be fair, astrologers to absolute monarchs risked their lives, so they would have done their utmost to be worthy advisers, regardless of how their advice was actually derived. Without making a statement as to whether real psychics exist, most people today advertising themselves as such will at least be motivated to give the best advice they can, if only to get repeat business, so for those who can't handle their own lives it is entirely possible that even consulting a fake psychic will be money well spent. One would wish she same were true from buying a newspaper …

If someone wants to believe in something true or false let them it does not affect you unless you let it

I thought the title said "why people believe in astrology and physics," and I was curious what those two had in common since one is a genuine science and one is a psudo science. But, yeah, psychics makes a ton more sense.

A fortune teller (She had said some secrets that in the deep of my mind which I never tell others, and many of the predictions that she said before had come true now ) who I have been believed so much said that I had lost the chance to pass the test (I want to transfer to another college). Furthermore, she told me that I should not get married in the future, for the reason that I would bring some bad effects to him(I am just 20 years old and never fall in love before, why tell me so cruel prediction ㅠ_ㅠ). After hearing her predictions, I've been felt great depression until now, because I don't look forward to my future, I still feel worried now. I am studying hard for my transferring test now, but I cried for many times when I recalling her predictions. Do I fell victim to the Barnum Effect? The only thing that I can do now is to believe in myself. I get some comfort after watching this video, thanks to Smart by Design. Hope someone to encourage me...

Personality tests are a bit different as we all know you're going to retry it until you get a question you like

How do you rate the comparison of psychological testing to the Barnum Effect / Horoscopes and Fortune Tellers? I took the MMPI many years ago at the VA to have recently learned that my test results were entered into my medical records, by a different name, days before I was administer the actual testing. The VHA defends this anomaly by claiming special psychic, clairvoyant, abilities. It just so happens that I had scored the same as Mr. Johnson; so they say. The VHA thus claims that "Mr. Johnson" was a typing error. But, again, as it turns out there wasn't a Mr. Johnson taking any psychological testing the day of or days before Mr. Johnson's results were entered into my medical records. Mr. Johnson's test results were copy and pasted from a prewritten template. So; if psychological testing is foreseeable enough to predict an outcome before administering the tests then wouldn't those test scores be the norm and thus invalid, if not the norm? If more people than not score "above average" on the validity scale then wouldn't that invalidate the test scoring? Once more, if my test results are predictable enough to be scored prior to administering such tests then shouldn't I have scored within the normal range: of which Mr. Johnson (I) somehow didn't?

Stupid people fall for such stuff. Now I gotta leave as there are hot singles in my area dying to meet me

someone who claim to be a psychic do the said "reading" about me. and he mumble stuffs. i told the person, "thats too generic. even my friend over here feel that way. do you have something more espicific? Something that i dont know yet?" then he goes mad.

honestly even if its fake its nice to get "personalized" advice when u need it. advice is advice and if its helping someone why not?

Some salespersons use it effectively.

"there are still endless mysteries we dont understand about the universe, but astrology is dumb just cause"

What this proves is how susceptible people are to the Barnum effect and it's use in commercial astrology and fake psychics. However, this does not actually disprove real astrology and real psychics. I won't speak on psychics as it's not my area of expertise, but I have 10 years experience with astrology after being a hardcore skeptic of it for my whole life previous to 10 years ago, and still to this day it astonishes me and challenges the skeptic in me. The problem is that most people think they know what astrology is, as I did, without having spent any genuine time and effort in trying to understand what it is. Trying to disprove astrology without knowing anything about it in depth, is akin to trying to disprove the results of a medical study published by a peer-reviewed journal without having any training or education in medicine. It's just not possible because you cannot speak on the subject in the first place. If you don't know what you're trying to disprove, how can you disprove it? Any real astrologer will tell you that Sun sign astrology and magazine horoscopes are complete BS and real astrologers are exhausted with the publics obsession with these watered-down tropes. Astrology is actually extremely complex and takes a long time to understand. I wish more people would take some time to try to understand it before judging it. Unfortunately, to try to understand it you need to be willing to take it seriously in the first place, and study it like you would any other discipline or art form. Most are unwilling, so we get this watered-down debunking BS in tandem with the watered-down astrology BS.

One day in San Francisco I was walking through 24th and Mission and I was approached by a fortune teller and she said your heart tells you something and your mind told you something else and you don't know which one to listen to and then she told me she would give me a reading I told her I had no money and she told me to come back when I did I never did of course because I am too smart for this kind of trick I knew it was a scam

Ouch so this is how it all started with me

i read the title as physics and not psychics and i was like "what's wrong with physics?"

Very well done! A succinct, logical presentation. Unfortunately, it won't change my Aunt Millie's mind (she's 89 yo and credits her horoscope with her longevity). The Barnum Effect could also speak to the flat earth beliefs.

I read it as Astronomy!

This is how the Enneagram seems to work.

I wish all the people who keep falling for the Enneagram would realize it's just as arbitrary as the zodiac descriptions.

It happens in culture too. That’s why stereotyping traits can be counter productive, however I’m sure it has its usefulness somewhere… as conjecture maybe.

2 of my close friends struggle to understand this concept so they always try to force conversations about pro sports being rigged, how all numbers form some pattern, and other claims of mysticism

I read physics and was extremely confused

Just now i got an ad that said "THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS. NO HASARDS." Damn bro stop it

We as people to tend to be superstitious, believing in God has resilience understanding our shortfalls.

Why SOME people etc

"BUZZQUIZ" I'm fucking dead. Lol.

oooof you know im swaying to believe this but im learning tarot reading, read my friends cards a few days ago and got one that mentioned someone wasn't sure about the relationship, and one that he would be doing rougery type stuff, at least thats how i read the cards, anyways, next day were playing ninja storm 2 and he's all frustrated because he called a girl cute through fb and she told his GF. weird ass experience, and its not the first. idk i believe the barnum effect is real, because one of his cards was about his past, mentioned he was a happy kid but had to mature fast, made sense, hes the oldest, went to jail at an early age and such so he grew up quick. things like that i see as a barnum, because it can apply to everyone. but idk guys, tarot reading has had too many coincidences for me to disregard as a psychology effect, i wont deny that its not true, like the whole pendulum thing or the quija board moving because our muscle are doing this reflex thingy. interesting vid.

But how does they tell about events happened in our past.

Horoscopes have been debunked because of the Goss twins. One is cool and the other...not so much... ...you decide?

I clicked Bc I thought it said astronomy and physics

Weeks before my daughter was born, I had a chinese fortune cookie, which said: You should enjoy the small freedom.

I came here after watching a comic bashing Astrology, but here they are. This is how much kasamba.com trusts people, they just put out an ad for "Psychic for you" before a psychic bashing scientific result. I am pretty sure they would've got some hits tho.

The funniest part to me is 2:20... basically it is a statement people would self identify with, but if it were actually true, they wouldn't be as inclined to believe the BS assessment they were handed. It reminds me a lot of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Skip to 1:07 to get to the Barnum Effect definition.

We did this in psychology once and everyone fell for it...

People like to make inaccurate assumptions about my personality and then I say wait you're wrong and then forget I only say that cause I'm a Taurus and we're stubborn as a bull.