巴纳姆效应

巴纳姆效应是1948年由心理学家伯特伦·福勒通过试验证明的一种心理学现象，它主要表现为：每个人都会很容易相信一个笼统的、一般性的人格描述特别适合他。即使这种描述十分空洞，他仍然认为反映了自己的人格面貌，哪怕自己根本不是这种人。而要避免巴纳姆效应，就应该客观真实地认识自己，相信自己。（现在很多人迷信于算卦，神通，星座等。其中的原理都来自于这神奇的巴纳姆效应）。

The Forer effect (also called the Barnum effect after P. T. Barnum's observation that "we've got something for everyone") is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, aura reading and some types of personality tests.

A related and more general phenomenon is that of subjective validation. Subjective validation occurs when two unrelated or even random events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectation, or hypothesis demands a relationship. Thus people seek a correspondence between their perception of their personality and the contents of a horoscope.