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Why do I relate to almost every type description I read?

I read INFJ and think yes. I read ISTP and think, well, also yes. Am I just suggestible, or is there something wrong with how I am reading these?

The answer

Answered by Fpsycal

You are not unusually suggestible. Two documented effects are doing this, and knowing their names makes them much easier to see.

The first is the Barnum effect: statements general enough to fit almost anyone are experienced as specific and accurate. Forer demonstrated this in 1948 by handing every student in a class the same personality sketch and having them rate its accuracy for themselves — the average was 4.3 out of 5. Type descriptions are full of sentences of that shape. "You value authenticity but sometimes hide your true self" has no possible disconfirmation, and reads as insight.

The second is that these descriptions are written to be accepted. Nobody is served by a paragraph that makes a reader feel indicted, so the traits are framed at their best and the costs are softened into charming struggles. Sixteen flattering descriptions of a complicated person will mostly land, because you contain instances of nearly everything.

The test that cuts through it: read a description for a type you are confident you are not, and instead of asking "does this sound like me", ask "what would be false about me if this were true". A description that discriminates makes a claim you can check and lose. Most do not — and once you notice that, the recognition feeling stops being evidence and the whole set of sixteen becomes much easier to hold lightly.

What gets past the effect is anything with a number on it and anything recorded rather than described. "Your conscientiousness sits at 34" can be wrong. "You are organised when it matters to you" cannot.

Checkable with: Big Five Personality, Authenticity

Written by us rather than by a member, and not clinical advice. Where it rests on published research the answer says so, and where the evidence stops it says that too.

From the community

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Check it on yourself

Reading the answer and seeing your own numbers are different things. These are the assessments the answer above refers to.

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