Barnum Effect: Can We Truly Trust Fortune Teller Readings?

Have you ever gotten your fortune told by someone, and felt that the readings of the fortune teller were extremely accurate to you? Or perhaps you have read your horoscope reading for a day and thought that it fits you exactly? These are all cases of the Barnum effect in play! In this article, we will explore what exactly this effect is about and how this effect occurs. We will also explore the impacts of this effect on our decision-making and how being aware of it happening can help to improve our decision-making process. 

What is the Barnum Effect?

The Barnum effect, or also known as the Forer effect or sometimes the Barnum-Forer effect (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019), refers to the phenomenon where people believe that vague or general descriptions apply to them when they actually can be applied to everyone else. For instance, perhaps a tarot card reading mentioned that you would experience something good that day, and indeed, something good happened to you! That’s the Barnum effect in action. ‘Something good’ can happen to anyone and is not specific to you, yet the reading felt like it was specific to you. 

The Barnum effect is said to have come from the psychologist Paul E. Meehi relating the term to the showman P.T. Barnum, where the latter would manipulate people by giving vague descriptions of people’s ‘personalities’, tricking people into believing that the showman could actually know what they are like (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019). 

Some real life examples of the Barnum effect in action can include: 

• Tarot readings 

• Horoscope readings 

• Personality tests 

• Fortune cookie slips 

In truth, anything where it supposedly reveals something that is related to you, but the sentence is actually a general statement, can actually be the Barnum effect in action! 

Why does this effect occur? 

According to Resnick (2023), there are three reasons why people would fall into this ‘illusion’. The first - and biggest - reason would be because of our want for connection. House, Landis & Umberson (1988, as cited in Resnick, 2023) mentioned how “when we’re isolated and disconnected, we don’t thrive”. Have you ever heard of the sentence, ‘humans are social creatures’? Even if some of us may not agree we need other human connections, our brains are actually wired to seek out some form of connection, which leads to us finding links in a fortune reading to our lives. 

The second reason would be our want for life to have meaning. Ratush (n.d., as cited in Resnick, 2023) said that “[t]he search for meaning, at its core, is what it means to be human”. Events that do not have meaning do not feel personal. Hence, by giving these sentences meaning, we can relate to them more easily and buy into what the reading is telling us. 

The third reason is that our brains naturally resist overthinking. As a result of us not wanting to overthink, the meaning and connection that we get from reading such general statements would be the result of what we felt when reading those statements (Ratush, n.d., as cited in Resnick, 2023) 

In addition, the effect is more pronounced when the sentences are positive. According to Pilat and Sekoul (2021), “people like to be complimented, and will more likely accept positive feedback about themselves as accurate, even if it is general and vague”. As such, this will cause people to fall into the Barnum effect more easily if a sentence is referencing something that is good about themselves, as compared to a sentence that is pointing out flaws. 

Is the Barnum Effect… Bad? 

The existence of this effect shows how gullible we can be (citation needed), especially in the face of positive sentences. Generally, it is harmless in most cases such as when doing fun personality tests. However, the danger comes when we believe a statement to be true and allow our decisions to be influenced by that statement. For example, a person may seek out fortune readings to know whether they should be in a certain line of work or determine whether they should marry the person they are currently in a relationship with. When we allow such things to influence what decisions we would make, this can cause us to make decisions that we would not have made had we rationally weighed the pros and cons of our decisions (Pilat and Sekoul, 2021). 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, the Barnum effect is a phenomenon where people believe something to be true of themselves when the statement is actually just a general one that can be applied to anyone. It is generally harmless, but can prove to be dangerous if we are not aware of its effect on us when it comes to being influenced to make decisions. As such, we need to be aware of any hidden messaging seen in advertisements that feels targeted to us but can actually be targeting anyone. 

Works Cited 

Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Barnum effect. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect. [Accessed on 30 Oct. 2025]

Resnick, A. (2023). Are You a Victim of the Barnum Effect? Understanding the Psychology of Generalizations. [online] Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/barnum-effect-7561323. [Accessed on 30 Oct. 2025]

Pilat, D. and Sekoul, K. (2021). Barnum effect [online] The Decision Lab. Available at: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/barnum-effect. [Accessed on 30 Oct. 2025]