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Paranormal Beliefs and the Barnum Effect

Jerome Tobacyk , Gary Milford , Thomas Springer & Zofia Tobacyk
Published online: 10 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Jerome Tobacyk , Gary Milford , Thomas Springer & Zofia Tobacyk (1988) Paranormal
Beliefs and the Barnum Effect, Journal of Personality Assessment, 52:4, 737-739, DOI: 10.1207/
s15327752jpa5204_13

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5204_13

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 JOURNALOF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT, 1988, 52(4), 737-739
Copyright 1988, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

BRIEF REPORT

Paranormal Beliefs and the Barnum

Effect
Downloaded by [Central Michigan University] at 12:29 10 December 2014

Jerome Tobacyk, Gary Milford, Thomas Springer,

and Zofia Tobacyk
Louisiana Tech

The acceptance phenomenon (i.e., the general tendency for persons to accept
almost any bogus ~ e r s o n a l ifeedback;
t~ Layne, 1979) may be related to certain
paranormal beliefs (Alcock, 1981; Hyman, 1981). Paranormal beliefs are beliefs
in phenomena that, if authentic, violate basic limiting principles of science
(Broad, 1953; Tobacyk & Milford, 1983).
One specific illustration of the acceptance phenomenon is the "Barnum
effect," which refers to acceptance of bogus personality feedback consisting of
relatively trivial statements with a high base rate (Layne, 1979;Snyder, Shenkel,
& Lowery, 1977). The Barnum effect has been implicated in personal validation
and in "cold reading," both of which are used routinely by many astrologers,
clairvoyants, faith healers, fortune tellers, graphologists, mediums, Tarot Card
readers, and others (Hyman, 1981). It was hypothesized that paranormal beliefs
emphasizing divinatory procedures that produce personalized feedback (i.e.,
precognition, spiritualism, superstition, and witchcraft) are associated with
greater susceptibility to the Barnum effect.

METHOD

One hundred twenty-eight college students (68 men, 60 women; M age = 19.2
years, SD = 1.8) completed assessment instruments including the Paranormal
Belief Scale (Tobacyk & Milford, 1983), which _assessesbelief in each of seven
paranormal dimensions. Personalized bogus personality feedback was generated
 738 TOBACYK, MILFORD, SPRINGER, TOBACYK

individually for each respondent by varying the order of the same set of 13
Barnum statements taken from Forer's (1949) study on personal validation.
Respondents individually received and rated the accuracy of these interpreta-
tions on 5-point scales.

RESULTS

Seventy-six percent of the respondents (97 of 128) rated the accuracy of their
personality descriptions as either "good" or "excellent," showing a robust
Barnum effect. Further, as reported by most other investigators (Forer, 1949;
Marks & Kamman, 1980; Snyder, 1974; Snyder, Larsen, & Bloom, 1976;
Downloaded by [Central Michigan University] at 12:29 10 December 2014

Snyder & Shenkel, 1975; Sundberg, 1955), there were no significant sex
differences in accuracy ratings of the personality descriptions.
Only belief in spiritualism showed a predicted significant direct correlation
with greater ratings of the accuracy of the personality descriptions (r = .19, p <
.03). Spiritualism often includes using mediumistic procedures to acquire per-
sonally relevant information for clients. Indeed, the participants' beliefs and
expectations during a mediumistic seance, as well as the setting, provide a
combination of personal and situational variables that appear especially condu-
cive to cold reading and personal validation (Brandon, 1983; Hyman, 1981).
However, this small magnitude correlation accounts for only about 4% of the
shared variance. Further, because this is the only significant correlation among
seven, these findings must be tempered by the possibility of incremental Type I
Error.
Generally, paranormal beliefs, as measured by the Paranormal Belief Scale,
are not significantlyrelated to endorsement of the accuracy of bogus personality
feedback. However, this study may not provide a valid test of the relationship
between paranormal beliefs and the Barnum effect. We suggest an extension of
this study that will (a) provide respondents with information that is more
directly relevant to their personal belief systems, (b)employ a rating scale with a
wider response latitude, and (c) use less powerful Barnum effect manipulations.
Such changes might result in a wider range of scores on the dependent measure
and provide a more valid test of the relationships between ~aranormalbeliefs
and the Barnum effect.

REFERENCES

Alcock, J. (1981). Parapsychology: Science or magic? New York: Pergamon.

Brandon, R. (1983). The spiritualists. Buffalo: Prometheus.
Broad, C. D. (1953). The relevance of psychical research to philosophy. In J. Ludwig (Ed.), Philosophy
and parapsychology (pp. 43-63). Buffalo: Prometheus.
 PARANORMAL BELIEFS 739

Forer, B. R. (1949). The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstration of gullibility.

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 44, 118-123.
Hyman, R. (1981). Cold reading: How to convince strangers that you know all about them. In K.
Frazier (Ed.), Paranormal borderlands of science (pp. 79-96). Buffalo: Prometheus.
Layne, C. (1979). The Barnum Effect: Rationality versus gullibility?Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, 47, 219-221.
Marks, D., & Kamman, R. (1980). The psychology oj the psychic. Buffalo: Prometheus.
Synder, C. R. (1974). Acceptance of personality interpretations as a function of assessment
procedures, Journal of Consulhng and Clinical Psychology, 42, 150.
Snyder, C . R., Larsen, D., &Bloom, L. J. (1976). Acceptance of personality interpretations prior to
and after receiving dmgnostic feedback supposedly based on psychological, graphological, and
astrological assessment procedures. Journal of Clmical Psychology, 32, 258-265.
Snyder, C . R., & Shenkel, R. J. (1975, March). Astrologers, handwriting analysts, and sometimes
psychologists use the P.T. Barnum effect. Psychology Today, pp. 52-54.
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Snyder, C. R., Shenkel, R. J., & Lowery, C. R. (1977). Acceptance of personality interpretations:
The "Barnum effect" and beyond. Journal of Consulting and Clznical Psychology, 45, 104-1 14.
Sundberg, N. D. (1955). The acceptability of "fake" versus "bona fide" personality test interpreta-
tions. Journal ofAbnonna1 and Social Psychology, 50, 145-147.
Tobacyk, J. I., & Milford, G. (1983). Belief in paranormal phenomena: Assessment instrument
development and implications for personality functioning. Journal of Personahty and Social
Psychology, 44, 1029-1037.

Jerome Tobacyk
Louisiana Tech
Box 10048
Ruston, LA 71272

Received March 10, 1987

Revised October 13, 1987