Your Guide To Cold Reading

The Forer effect (also called personal validation fallacy or 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. The Forer effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, and some types of personality tests, that mainstream scientists have labeled pseudoscientific.

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

In 1948, psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave a personality test to his students. Afterward, he told his students they were each receiving a unique personality analysis that was based on the test's results and to rate their analysis on a scale of 0 (very poor) to 5 (excellent) on how well it applied to themselves. In reality, each received the same analysis:

" You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. "

On average, the rating was 4.26, but only after the ratings were turned in was it revealed that each student had received identical copies.

Forer had assembled this text from horoscopes.

Later studies have found that subjects give higher accuracy ratings if the following are true:

The subject believes that the analysis applies only to them
The subject believes in the authority of the evaluator
The analysis lists mainly positive traits

Cold reading is a series of techniques used by mentalists, fortune tellers, psychics, and mediums to determine details about another person in order to convince them that the reader knows much more about a subject than he or she actually does. Even without prior knowledge of a person, a practiced cold reader can still quickly obtain a great deal of information about the subject by carefully analyzing the person's body language, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race or ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. Cold readers commonly employ high probability guesses about the subject, quickly picking up on signals from their subjects as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not, and then emphasizing and reinforcing any chance connections the subjects acknowledge while quickly moving on from missed guesses.

Kenton Knepper in Completely Cold states that every human experience falls into a very few basic categories- the idea that all things in life revolve around health, wealth, or relationships.

He further specifies that each category has an inner category and an outer category. Every person's experiences in life fall into inner health (ex. mental health), outer health (ex. body health), inner wealth (ex. knowledge), outer wealth (ex. money), inner relationships (ex. spirituality), and outer relationships (ex. family, friends).

Kenton Knepper goes on to say that each category is related to every other category. Try to think of an issue, problem, or experience in your life. Now think how it relates to one, a few, or all the categories. Think about more things in life- do they fall into health, wealth, or realtionships?

Remember when you are cold reading someone to make statements that involve, in some way, experiences with health, wealth, or relationships.

Barnum statements" (named after P.T. Barnum, the American showman) are statements that seem personal, yet apply to many people. And while seemingly specific, such statements are often open-ended or give the reader the maximum amount of "wiggle room" in a reading. They are designed to elicit identifying responses from people.

The statements can then be developed into longer and more sophisticated paragraphs and seem to reveal great amounts of detail about a person. The effect relies in part on the eagerness of people to fill in details and make connections between what is said and some aspect of their own lives (often searching their entire life's history to find some connection, or reinterpreting the statement in any number of different possible ways so as to make it apply to themselves).

A talented and charismatic reader can sometimes even bully a subject into admitting a connection, demanding over and over that they acknowledge a particular statement as having some relevance and maintaining that they just aren't thinking hard enough, or are repressing some important memory.

Statements of this type might include:

"I sense that you are sometimes insecure, especially with people you don't know very well."

"You have a box of old unsorted photographs in your house."

"You had an accident when you were a child involving water."

"You're having problems with a friend or relative."

"Your father passed on due to problems in his chest or abdomen."

Regarding the last statement, if the subject is old enough, his or her father is quite likely to be dead, and this statement would easily apply to a number of conditions such as heart disease, pneumonia, diabetes, most forms of cancer, and in fact to a great majority of causes of death.

The rainbow ruse is a crafted statement which simultaneously awards the subject with a specific personality trait, as well as the opposite of that trait. With such a phrase, a cold reader can "cover all possibilities" and appear to have made an accurate deduction in the mind of the subject, despite the fact that a rainbow ruse statement is vague and contradictory.

This technique is used since personality traits are not quantifiable, and also because nearly everybody has experienced both sides of a particular emotion at some time in their lives.

Statements of this type might include:

"Most of the time you are positive and cheerful, but there has been a time in the past where you were very upset."

"You are a very kind and considerate person, but when somebody does something to break your trust, you feel deep-seated anger."

"I would say that you are mostly shy and quiet, but when the mood strikes you, you can easily become the center of attention."

A cold reader can choose from a variety of personality traits, think of its opposite, and then bind the two together in a phrase, vaguely linked by factors such as mood, time, or potential.

Use words like "probably", "can", "usually", "sometimes", "likely", "often", "tends to", "possibly", "at times" etc. rather than absolute terms.

Three things to consider:

1. Get them to say "Yes" as many times as possible.

2. Turn their "Maybe" responses into "Yes" responses.

3. Turn their "No" responses into "Maybe" responses.

Kenton Knepper notes in his book Wonder Words Volume 1 that, "The word 'and' links two things together, so that both ideas tend to be considered as one legitimate thing."

Use the word "and" to delve more deeply and more specifically into a reading when your subject gives you positive "Yes" responses that you are on the right track.

Kenton Knepper notes in his book Woner Words Volume 2 that, "The word 'but' tends to cancel out or reduce whatever is said before this word. And whatever is said after the word 'but' tends to be considered as fact."

Use the word "but" when your subject gives you a negative "Maybe" or "No" response. It is used to cover your errors and clarify your reading into a new direction.