Page 193 - The Social Animal

Social Cognition 175

tempting to predict the future using the position of the stars. Why
do people believe in astrology? The stock-in-trade of the newspaper
horoscope is the Barnum statement—named after the showman P.
T. Barnum, who once noted, “There is a sucker born every minute.”
A Barnum statement is a personality description vague enough to be
true of almost anyone. For example, suppose I were to study your as-
trological chart and tell you: “You are quite reserved in unfamiliar so-
cial situations. You view life with a mixture of optimism and
pessimism. You have an open mind but can take a firm stand when
the situation calls for it.” Would you think me a particularly talented
reader of the stars? A moment’s reflection will tell you that this de-
scription fits almost everyone. But, because of our tendency to think
egocentrically, most of us will feel that the Barnum statement is a
bull’s-eye description of us; most of us do not stop to think that al-
most everyone else feels the same way. Thus, the newspaper horo-
scope is an appealing item for a great many people. Moreover, as
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research has demonstrated, even people skeptical of astrology can
be swayed if the Barnum statement is both believable and positive.
Skeptics who were given a phony astrological description of them-
selves that was generally true of most people (the Barnum statement)
and was worded in a way so that it was very flattering came to re-
duce their skepticism and increase their confidence in astrology.
In another experiment designed to test the believability of Bar-
num statements, Richard Petty and Timothy Brock 100 gave subjects
a phony personality test and then administered bogus personality
feedback and results. Half the subjects received a positively written
Barnum statement describing them as “open-minded” (i.e., you can
see many sides of an issue), whereas the other half received a posi-
tively written statement describing them as “closed-minded” (i.e.,
once you make up your mind, you take a firm stand). Although the
personality feedback was bogus, almost all of the subjects believed it
to be a very good description of their personality.What is more, Petty
and Brock found that subjects’ “new-found personality” influenced
their subsequent behavior. Specifically, “open-minded” and “closed-
minded” subjects were asked to list their thoughts on two controver-
sial issues. Those subjects who had randomly received a Barnum
statement describing them as open-minded listed thoughts on both
sides of the issue, whereas those who had received a closed-minded
personality statement tended to list arguments on only one side of