The One About Barnum Statements

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:00]:
Let’s try something special with this episode. This part is tailored and customised specifically to you. Just to you and nobody else. I’m going to tell you three things about you, make three statements about you. I want you to consider how accurate I’ve got them. This is based on your listening profile and based on all manner of stuff. So I’m going to say that you enjoy helping others, but you don’t always like asking for help yourself. Am I right? I also get the feeling that you are someone who sometimes avoids confrontation, but you stand your ground when it really matters.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:40]:
And you have experienced many challenges in the past, but they made you stronger and more resilient. How close did I get? And what’s this all about? Find out more in this episode.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:26]:
Hey. Hello. Hello. Welcome back. Welcome back. Dear viewer, dear listener, however you are catching us, welcome back to another episode. I am delighted to have you with me. And my question for you is those statements at the top of the show, the ones which were recorded especially for you, how accurate were they? How close did I get? Do let me know.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:48]:
Do let me know. And also on the subject of letting me know, remember to let us know what you think of think of these episodes, do give us a Like a comment Share. Remember to subscribe on your favourite platform. Leave us a review on your favourite platform. It all helps to spread the word. And what’s the word today? The word today is Barnum, as in Barnum statements. That is what we’re looking at today. And that’s also what that stuff at the very start of the episode was all about.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:02:21]:
Bar statements. They are a technique that’s used by fortune tellers, by astrologers, by clairvoyants. They’re used by dodgy salesmen. They’re also starting to find their way into more modern technology, as we’ll see in a little bit later on in this episode. They’re often used by people who want to manipulate you or to give the impression that they they know a lot more about you than they really do. Barnum statements work really well. Where do they come from? They come from. This sort of stuff has been known about for a long time, particularly as I mentioned, by the aforementioned practitioners who use them to devastating effect to convince other people that they know a lot more about you.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:13]:
Some personality tests also heavily feature these as well. The name Barnum statements comes from Barnum effect, which was that term itself was coined in 1956 by a psychologist, Paul Meal. And he coined the term obviously based on the sorts of. Sorts of nonsense that showman P.T. Barnum came out with. You know, he of “There’s one born every minute”. Barnum was very good at using these sorts of statements as well as many, many other other ways to con his audiences and to put on a great show and countless others do the same have done throughout history and do even right now. Let’s go back to 1948.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:10]:

1948. O there was a classic experiment by a psychologist by the name of Bertram Foyer. Bertram Forer. Bertram for her. Which is why this is. This is sometimes known as the Barnum effect, sometimes known as the Forer effect, occasionally even known as the Barnum Forer effect. Because, hey, why have one name for something? Well, you can have three, right? But yeah, psychologist for he gave. He gave a psychology test to 39 of his psychology students.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:48]:
They were told that they should sit the test and they would then each receive a brief personality description based on their test results. So one week later for our gave each of the students their individualised personality summary. And he asked them to ask each student to rate it on how well it applied. They were asked to give the statements. He gave them 30. He gave each of them about 13 statements and they were asked to rate them on a scale of 0 to 5 where 0 was very poor, 5 was excellent. Rating their accuracy is how well they applied to that particular student. Overall, the students rated the accuracy of the statements.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:38]:
They were all given as 4.3 out of 5. So pretty darn accurate, right? Pretty darn accurate. After the ratings. After the students had handed in their ratings Forer revealed something particularly interesting. They’d all received identical personality descriptions. They were actually descriptions which Forer had assembled from an astrology book that he bought off a newsstand. I’m going to give you those 13 statements here. And obviously you know this is buncombe, you know this is hokum, but for each of these 13 statements, just score each one on a scale of 0 to 5 as to how accurately this relates to you.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:06:29]:
Just have a bit of fun and see where it goes. Statement one. You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. How accurate is that on a scale of 0 to 5? Statement 2. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. Rate that scale of 0 to 5. Statement 3. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:06:59]:
Rate that on a scale of 0 to 5. Statement 4. While you have some personality Weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. How accurate is that? How well does that apply to you? 0 to 5. Statement 5. Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you. Again, score it 0 to 5. 0 being very poor.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:24]:
5 being this is me to a T. Question 6. Disciplined and self controlled. Outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. Again, rated scale of 0 to 5. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. Statement 8. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and you become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:02]:
Statement 9. You pride yourself as an independent thinker and you do not accept other statements without satisfactory proof. Number 10. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. Statement 11. At times you are extroverted, you’re affable, you’re sociable. But at other times you’re introverted, you’re wary, you’re reserved. Statement 12.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:36]:
Some of your aspirations, they tend to be pretty unrealistic. And statement number 13, security is one of your major goals in life. So take a moment to have a look over those. What overall score did you get? What overall score did you get? In total, you’re going to in total, you’re going to get a score out of 65. Take that total score that you got, say 60 or whatever it is. How accurate were all of those? 65 is totally accurate. 0 is completely inaccurate. Remember when Forough did this with his 39 students? They rated overall 4.3 out of 5 accuracy with these statements.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:33]:
All 39 of them received the same statements and yet all 39 of them them felt that overall those statements were pretty darn close to describing who they truly are. Isn’t it interesting? Isn’t it interesting? There are so many of these statements and they are used to devastating effect. They have been historically and they continue to be used and abused by many. Astrologers will use these a lot. Clairvoyance will use these a lot. Fortune tellers will use these a lot. Many personality tests are a great source of these sorts of statements. Unscrupulous salespeople will use these as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:18]:
And remember, it’s not just these 13 statements. There are countless statements. The ones I gave you at the start of the start of the episode. Statements I gave you at the start of the episode. A whole bunch of those statements I could come up with. All of which can kind of apply to anyone and everyone, but we feel they apply directly to us. You often find yourself thinking deeply about Things even with others seem to overlook them. Oh, yeah, that sounds like me.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:47]:
You really know me here. You have a need for people to like and admire you, but you can be critical of yourself at times. Countless statements that we can come up with, Barnum statements, they sound really deep. They sound as though we’re really reaching into the soul of that person. But they apply to pretty much everyone, and that’s a problem. A lot of unscrupulous people are abusing these and have been abusing these over decades, over centuries, to rip us off for our attributed this effect to gullibility. And the effect has been said to confirm what’s known as the Pollyanna principle, where individuals tend to use or accept positive words of feedback more frequently than negative words of feedback. These are some of the factors that are taking place in here.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:48]:
The content of the description important, and also that the ratio of positive to negative traits is important. And the other important factor is that the subject trusts the person giving their feedback. Subsequent studies over time have discovered three key things which really help these Barnum statements to really be accepted by the person they’re being told to. The subject needs to believe that the analysis is personalised, and as such, they apply personal meanings to the statements, which is why it works beautifully with astrologers, with clairvoyants, with personality tests, with salespeople who are trying to butter you up. All of these things because you believe this is personal to you and you apply personal meaning to those statements. And as we’ve seen in other episodes, we have meaning making machines. We’ll look for meanings. We’ll draw conclusions based on the most spurious of data.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:54]:
If we believe this is personalised to us, then we accept, oh, this really is me. Which is why you probably got a lower score when you rated those 13. You probably got a lower score than you would have done if we hadn’t explained what all this was about up front. Because you know, this isn’t personalised to you. And yet you’ve probably still got a reasonably high score. So that’s one factor. Another factor is the subject believes in the authority of the evaluator or the authority of the person who’s, who’s giving these statements. If you trust you believe this person, oh, yeah, no, hey, this person’s really good at telling your fortune.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:34]:
Or this person’s really good at getting deep into your soul and really telling you who you are. The more you believe that, the more you’re going to believe these statements. And also the statements are mostly positive traits, some negative traits, thrown in as well, just to balance it out. But mostly positive statements. Combine all those three and you get a really, really powerful effect, which is powerfully used to exploit victims, especially if it’s presented with an air of confidence. Use flattery, all these sorts of things really, really help. Salespeople will use this when they’re trying to butter you up, trying to build rapport, trying to make it feel as though they really know you. They get you.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:32]:
All those others, they’re just trying to sell your stuff. But know, I really get you. I know you, the real you. And yeah, you know what? I get you. I mean, I know that you have got a strong sense of intuition. Even if you don’t trust it, you’ve got that strong sense of intuition. Person receiving that will be thinking, actually, I do. I do have a strong sense of intuition.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:57]:
You’re right. I don’t always trust in mine. Goodness, you really do get me. They get more hooked on what the person’s saying. Trust them more. Which is why you know that I’m looking out for the best deal for you. And this is the product for you. Suckered them in.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:18]:
Lots of people make lots of use of Barnum statements. I’ve seen mystics, medium, psychics, I’ve seen them use them a lot in their shows. Use a few Barnum statements, gain the trust of the person, get the person going, oh, wow, yeah, you really get me. They become much more malleable, much more easily manipulated, much easier to then pump them for information which you then relay back to them. As I said, a lot of unscrupulous salespeople use these sorts of things as a quick way of establishing rapport, a quick way of establishing, hey, I’m not like the others. I, I really get you. I know you, you can trust me because I know that. And interesting I mentioned earlier, modern technology is also guilty of using this, and that is in particular, I’m referring to certain types of generative AI.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:22]:
ChatGPT in particular, other forms of generative AI are also available. There’s a plethora of all these things out there, but I don’t know if you noticed pretty recently on social media there was a sudden fad of people saying, hey, I asked ChatGPT to tell me, based on our interactions, to tell me what it knows about me. Oh, wow, look, here’s what it said. Wow, this is really, really accurate. And encouraging each other to also ask ChatGPT to tell it what it knows about them. And they then gush about how accurate is this stuff has vomited across, particularly across Facebook. And it’s problematic and it’s dangerous and manipulative. You see, when you ask generative AI to tell you what it knows about you, some of the stuff it’s simply repeating or paraphrasing back to you the sorts of questions you’ve asked it, the sorts of things you’ve researched, use it to research the sorts of things you’ve had it help you come up with ideas around bundles, all that up, paraphrases, all that makes some very easy extrapolations, at which point people go, oh my word, it really knows me.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:43]:
Wow. And then throw in a whole bunch of Barnum statements, wow, wow. And people suddenly go, oh, my word, this is really amazing. I mean, you ask ChatGPT to give you a hundred Barnum statements, it will blast out 100 Barnum statements, no problem. Then read through those. You can very easily convince yourself it has just described you to a T with a hundred statements. Why is this dangerous? It’s dangerous because when people share these things, that’s not dangerous, but when they are encouraging others to believe, to do it themselves and go, wow, tell me how amazingly accurate it is about you. Tell me how well it describes you.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:41]:
We are then getting those people, are then encouraging these others inadvertently to have even deeper faith in believing, unquestionably, whatever the generative AI comes out with. And let’s face it, you ask it something, you ask it about you, and it comes out with all these amazing statements, wow, it really knows me. And if it knows me that well, wow, that means everything it says must be, must be accurate. And you then start falling into that trap of accepting everything that the generative AI says as gospel. It’s the complete truth, no need to question it. Because hey, if it, if it’s that accurate about you, it must be that accurate about everything. It ain’t that I care about you either, but it’s fooled you into thinking you are. It is.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:35]:
You then place misplaced vast amounts of trust. It’s the same whether it’s the charlatans telling your fortune, whether it’s the rogue salesman trying to pump you for all you can get for that sale, or whether it’s the generative AI trying to make you believe everything it says. They are manipulating you. And this is manipulation that has gone on for centuries. It’s just being used in newer and newer ways, newer and newer forms, but it’s the same old stuff. The same old stuff. There’s one born every minute, right? Don’t be fooled by Barnum statements. Don’t be fooled by these quack personality tests or the funfair faith healer who uses these statements to really hook you in.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:37]:
And don’t be fooled by generative AI when it seems to imply it knows everything about you, which it doesn’t. It’s, let’s face it, is, after all, basically just auto. Autocomplete on steroids anyway. It’s making all this stuff up, and yet we believe it. Whenever anyone tells you any statements about yourself, look for the evidence. Look for the. Look for the proof behind it. Consider is this real? Or could this, could this apply to anyone? I mean, it’s like a few years ago and someone who was utterly convinced about horoscopes.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:20]:
So I read them there, read them their horoscope. So I read them their character analysis from a horoscope from. From a book. They were going, oh, that is me to it. That is me absolutely to a T. You sure it doesn’t get in? No, it’s completely me. That’s interesting because I read the description for a completely different sign. Oh, well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:45]:
Ah, yeah, but they’d taken all this gump, these Barnum statements as proof that it was highly accurate. Be wary, be aware, be on your toes, particularly if there’s money involved or if they’re flattering you. Think carefully about it. Think carefully about these things. That’s what I wanted to share with you today about Barnum statements, the Barnum effect, the foreign effect, and about how we have been ripped off with it and manipulated with it throughout the millennia and how we continue to be today and even newer technologies are using it as well. Be on your guard. Consider these statements. They feel true.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:46]:
Could they apply to anyone? Is there any accuracy to them? What’s the basis for this and what are they trying to sell me as they’re using these? Are they after my money? So that’s it for now. I’ll catch you in another episode very soon. And until then, just remember, I’ll leave you this thought. There are moments when you feel like you are holding back your full potential, but you know it’s there. Ah, wait, hang on. That’s another Barnum statement. Could apply to anyone. But it feels so accurate, right? Oh, what insights.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:23]:
Take care, look after yourself and I’ll catch you in another episode very soon. Bye for now.