How The Real World Psychology Page Will Work

Each topic featured will begin a trigger i.e. something that will hopefully elicit a response along the lines of "Well I never", "I didn't see that coming" "Now there's food for thought" etc.

The psychology behind the topic will then be outlined along with resources that can be accessed for anybody who wants to find out more e.g., full text psychology journal articles.

If you are studying psychology, you might want to think about choosing a real world psychology topic as the basis for a psychology project, dissertation or thesis.

Whether you study psychology or not, I'd love to hear what you think about the topics and issues under review. Sharing your thoughts couldn't be easier, simply fill out the Real World Psychology form below.

Real World Psychology: How Gullible Are You?

"Do you think astrologists, palm readers and the like can really tell everything about you, that your personality can be read from your birth date, hand or from sensing vibrations?"

Before reading on, Click Here to watch a YouTube video featuring the internationally acclaimed psychological illusionist Derren Brown.

What this video shows is the ease with which people can be misled by a general personality description. It should also be noted that the video clearly shows that people are still being misled by a general personality description, because this finding has a long documented history within peer reviewed psychological literature.

This finding which is often referred to as the Barnum Effect named after the celebrated American showman P.T Barnum's famous remark that "we've got something for everyone". It is also known (more correctly in my humble opinion) as the Forer effect, in recognition of Bertram R. Forer's classic research paper that was first published in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1949.

The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A Classroom Demonstration of Gullibility

This brilliant social experiment By Bertram R. Forer is a perfect example of real world psychology.

Forer decided to conduct the experiment after meeting a graphologist at a nightclub who offered to provide a personality reading based on a sample of his handwriting. As Forer notes:

Recently the writer was accosted by a night-club graphologist who wished to "read" his handwriting. The writer declined and offered to administer a Rorschach to the graphologist. An amiable discussion ensued, during which the graphologist ventured proof of the scientific basis of his work in that his clients affirmed the correctness of his interpretations. The writer suggested that a psychologist could make a blindfold reading and attain the same degree of verification.

In essence what Forer's famous study discovered was that things do not need to be accurate to be perceived as accurate. A realization, which for those in know as the Derren Brown video shows can be exploited very effectively.

Click Here To Read The Bertram R. Forer Journal Article in Full.

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