Presents
The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A Classroom Demonstration of Gullibility
By: Bertram R. Forer Originally published in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology
1949, (44), pp. 118-121
This paper is concerned with some of the methodological errors which can affect estimations of the validity of personality interpretations and measuring instruments. Of prime significance is the nature of the interpretations themselves. Personality evaluations can be, and often are, couched in such general terms that they are meaningless in terms of denotability in behavior. Or they may have "universal validity" and apply to everyone. Bobertag (2) refers to the universally valid personality trait as
Universalscharakteristik
. Possession of two eyes is a characteristic of all vertebrates, hence is of no value as a differentiating factor among vertebrates. The opposing thumb does not distinguish one human being from another. At the psychological level the acceptance of some cultural taboos appears to be universal among human beings who live within social groups. Virtually every psychological trait can be observed in some degree in everyone. For the purpose of characterizing a particular individual, stipulation of those traits which he demonstrates is a meaningless procedure. It is not in the presence or absence of a trait that individuals differ. The uniqueness of the individual, as Allport (1) amply documents, lies in the relative importance of the various personality forces in determining his behavior and in the relative magnitude of these traits in comparison with other persons. Thus the individual is a unique configuration of characteristics each of which can be found in everyone, but in varying degrees. A universally valid statement, then, is one which applies equally well to the majority or the totality of the population. The universally valid statement is true for the individual, but it lacks the quantitative specification and the proper focus which are necessary for differential diagnosis. In a sense
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a universally valid statement is a description of a cultural group rather than a personal psychological datum. A universally valid personality description is of the type most likely to be accepted by a client as a truth about himself, a truth which he considers unique in him. Many, if not most, individuals are able to recognize the characteristics in themselves—when it is not to their disadvantage—while oblivious to their presence in others. An example is the tendency for students to perceive their own problems in textbooks of abnormal psychology. In such cases the individual lacks the quantitative frame of reference necessary for a critical comparison of the printed description and his own self-evaluation. At times confirmation by a client or by some other person familiar with his history is used as a criterion in the validation of diagnostic inferences and procedures (4). Test results may suggest certain problems and characteristic modes of behavior which therapists or the client, himself, can confirm or deny. Testing the correctness of inferences about a client by requesting his evaluation of them may be called "personal validation." When the inferences are universally valid, as they often are, the confirmation is useless. The positive results obtained by personal validation can easily lull a test analyst or a therapist into a false sense of security which bolsters his conviction in the essential Tightness of his philosophy of personality or his diagnostic prowess. Such false validation increases his comfort in using what may have been a dubious instrument. A great danger arises when the confirmation of a prediction is extended uncritically to the instrument or conceptual system or person making the prediction. Such uncritical extensions occur too frequently in the clinical field.
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