The fallacy of personal validation: a classroom demonstration of gullibility
Forer gave a diagnostic questionnaire to 39 students in his introductory psychology class and a week later gave each of them an identical personality description made of vague, general statements. The students rated its accuracy from 0 to 5; the mean was 4.3, nobody rated it below 2 and five rated it below 4.
Forer gave a diagnostic questionnaire to 39 students in his introductory psychology class and a week later gave each of them an identical personality description made of vague, general statements. The students rated its accuracy from 0 to 5; the mean was 4.3, nobody rated it below 2 and five rated it below 4.
Written from the secondary report: the 1985 review's account of the study, read 2026-11-03; DOI confirmed on Crossref.
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doi:10.1037/h0059240 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0059240. Findings reported as described in Dickson & Kelly (1985).