Paper1949
The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A Classroom Demonstration of Gullibility
Bertram R. Forer
Students rated a personality sketch as an accurate personal description even though every student had received the identical, generically-worded sketch, showing how easily vague positive statements are read as uniquely true of oneself - the effect later named after Forer and behind the appeal of horoscopes and many personality-typing systems.