What is Forer Effect? »Its Definition and Meaning

The Forer effect is a term that refers to the observation or study that is performed on a person when he accepts as correct a statement about himself , because It is thought that this results from a reliable source, that is to say that people fall into the heart of personal validation, accepting as theirs all information that may be addressed to any subject .

The name of the creator of the forer effect is the psychologist Bertram R.Forer , who discovered through an experiment, that many people gave as true the personal descriptions that appeared For example, in the personality tests.

Said experiment was carried out in the year 1948 and consisted of taking a sample of students and applying them a personality test and then give them a list of statements as the final result of the evaluation, asking to analyze these results, to verify whether they were true or not.What the students never imagined was that everyone had the same result .Each response was rated on a scale from 0 to 5, where 5 It was the highest score.The experiment showed that the assessment of the class was 4.26, demonstrating with this, that all of them, considered right what he said there and that what was expressed really determined your personality.

Since then this study has been carried out many times and the result is always the same.

When applying this evaluation, it is necessary to keep in mind two important elements: the data or specification that is delivered are fundamental and valuable, intensely realizing the proportion existing between the positive and negative characteristics.The second element is that the individual must believe in the person who is doing the study.

It is very important that people do not get carried away by the calls pseudosciences (for example tarot reading) or the tests that appear in the magazines, where they make you think that the results that appear there They determine the personality of the person who performs it.The best thing for a person who needs advice or help is to go to a professional, that is, a therapist or psychologist who is qualified to do it