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A perfect application of the Forer effect: humans have an amazing ability to interpret what can apply to anyone as having special significance for themselves.

A perfect application of the Forer effect: humans have an amazing ability to interpret what can apply to anyone as having special significance for themselves. It's the same reason why horoscopes and fortune cookies work. Stepping back and thinking logically, it's easy to see why their messages might apply to a lot of people. But when you're reading one, you can't help but think, "Ah! It says that I would encounter adversity at work this week, but overcome it! I knew that presentation wasn't the end of the world." And if you're a little lonely or down and need emotional rapport, you can't help but feel a little spark of excitement and connection when that Mechanical Turker claims to like your favorite TV show - especially because the text messages from the fake partner look just like they would from a real one. No matter how deeply we trust our logical conclusions, our emotional response remains the same. We can't help but feel worthier when we're being praised (even by computers - see the Silicon Sycophants study: http://pdf.aminer.org/000/307/350/information_requirements_are_human_computers_only_machines_measur_s_rigorous.pdf http://pdf.aminer.org/000/307/350/information_requirements_a...), hurt when we're being insulted, and connected when we're being connected with.

loceng 12y ago
There's a fine line (maybe not so fine) as to when something becomes manipulation IMHO - though if someone's paying $25 monthly for someone(s) to chat with to feel connected then I suppose they've applied an added bias or value; makes me feel a bit sad if the people aren't doing it just for fun.
- tormeh 12y ago
  People are doing sadder things than this to keep the emotional lights on. At least it's cheaper than prostitutes. You know the saddest first-world thing I've ever heard? A prostitute doing a reddit AMA had a client once that wanted her to sing "happy birthday" for him. It was his birthday and no one else was going to.
  - aerialcombat 12y ago
    I totally agree with this.
  - testboo 12y ago
    Agreed.
  - Roodgorf 12y ago
    > At least it's cheaper than prostitutes. I think there are a few more moral issues with prostitution than its market value.
    - oldmanjay 12y ago
      That's rather broad. There are moral issues with sex slavery, for instance, but prostitution as a concept is fairly amoral unless you mistakenly believe the sexuality of others is something you have a right to judge.
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      You really think there are more moral issues with selling sex than selling lies?
nodata 12y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect
aidos 12y ago
As James Randi (the ultimate Skeptic) demonstrates here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
krat0sprakhar 12y ago
Learnt something new on HN today! Thanks a lot for your comment.
SloopJon 12y ago
> No matter how deeply we trust our logical conclusions, our emotional response remains the same. We can't help but feel worthier when we're being praised (even by computers ...), hurt when we're being insulted, and connected when we're being connected with. I just started playing The Walking Dead. In one scene, after another character saved Clementine from a zombie before I could, the game said, "Clementine remembers that you didn't save her." A very different feeling than failing and having to replay from a checkpoint.
- IgorPartola 12y ago
  Video games have always been very interesting this way to me, and there are some real gems lately that manage to tap into very emotional parts of my brain. Fallout is ripe with ethical dilemmas, almost to the point where I found myself unable to proceed when the choice is not obvious. You know the characters are not real, you are alone playing a single-player game; but you can't help but try to figure out how to help the character. The Fable series is really great this way too. There it's actually the focus and the theme of the game.
  - soylentcola 12y ago
    Only every played the second Fable but I still remember the one choice you need to make near the end and have to pick one of three "fates". Not sure if it's considered a spoiler at this point but there's basically the one option to return a beloved companion to life (after recently being forced to suffer his death in the game). It wasn't necessarily the most logical choice nor is it the "smart" choice if you're treating it solely as a game and trying to get the most points/gold/etc.... ...but when I was offered that choice there was not a single question which one I would pick. It's all just pixels and textures and sound effects but the chance to return a character that had followed you for most of the game hit me way harder than I might have expected. Manipulative,cheap, emotional exploitation? Maybe. No regrets though.
    - IgorPartola 12y ago
      Worse. The first time I played, I picked a different option. There was a bug in the game where you could see the companion on the map, but could never reach him. I spent hours trying to find a way, before starting the game over just to choose differently.
jusben1369 12y ago
When I was young I picked up a book at a friend's house on astrology. I am a Taurus. I mistakenly opened it on another sign thinking I was reading the chapter on what made up a Taurus character. I was reading and nodding my head "wow, this is kind of weird. That is me. I do that. Well, I'm not like that but it's not going to be a 100% fit" After several pages I realized my mistake. And then I realized the Forer effect without knowing what it was or that it had a name.
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  Julia Sweeney on astrology - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjturKoFsg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjturKoFsg (The background is she just found out she was actually born 3 months after her parents told her she was born - they lied to get her to start school a year earlier.)
  - hyp0 12y ago
    Astrology is obviously nonsense, but it seems plausible that the season of birth could have a personality effect: the cold dead of winter, with little fresh food vs spring etc, also from the attitudes of surrounding adults. Of course, different near the equator, and phase-shifted in the southern hemisphere, and... much less pronounced in modern times, with supermarkets, refrigeration, air-conditioning/heating, imported foods, and wider social presence (newspapers, TV, radio, internet, phone) etc.
    - Terr_ 12y ago
      The socially-constructed age-cohort you go into is huge too. Want better grades and performance at sports? Be months older than your classmates.
      - allendoerfer 12y ago
        The reverse is true, too: Want better performance than people of the same age? Have had more training than them. I suspect this applies especially to language or logic related tasks. We will likely never find out, variance seems to be extremely high, while the actual differences are very low.
sharkweek 12y ago
Same thing with the "crossing over" folks who claim to talk to dead relatives right? "You had a family member who passed recently right? Or someone really close to you" "Yes, yes! My aunt passed away earlier this year!" "Ah, yes! And... and... she was sick right? Or in pain close to her death?" "Wow, yes!!" "You were close with her, or you were close with her family right?" ...etc
- Karunamon 12y ago
  That theory kind of breaks down when they get into specifics about military service, clothing, scars, etc. Things that a cold reader wouldn't have any access to.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    Cold reading is certainly not the only kind of fake psychic scam. For example, hot reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading However, a skilled cold reader will in fact get specifics (though they'll also have bad guesses), by making further general guesses based on the information you've already confirmed for them. For example, military service is very common for men in a certain age range, who were drafted to Vietnam. Clothing can be pretty uniform for people who you know to be/can guess to be in a certain demographic. Most people (beyond children) have scars. If your comment was intended to suggest that some people actually can communicate with dead people: dude, no. It's not true. Your emotions are being preyed on for someone else's profit.
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      I'm not going to get into the over-arching point on a board inhabited by subscribers to scientism, but don't you think the jig is is kind of up if you're told someone has a scar through their right eye and they actually didn't, or that someone had a favorite shirt that has a tear in a certain place (that both of those things didn't exist, etc). In other words, a level of specificity that is not so easily dismissed as a scammer interpreting the information they've been given.
abandonliberty 12y ago
Very interesting, but the article mentions they're using amazon turk - "real" people. Probably.
Pinn2 12y ago
Except for you, right? People like to feel better about themselves by declaring defects in everyone else but themselves. Even me.
crpatino 12y ago
> It's the same reason why horoscopes and fortune cookies work. A more charitable interpretation of horoscopes and fortune cookies could be that, given that human behavior and problems falls into recognizable patterns, generic solutions can be offered as a sort of framework or scaffold for the received to fill in their particular details and get started with a more appropriate and personal solution. What else did you expected? from a little something that came inside of a cookie!!!
bad_user 12y ago
This drive to reduce humanity to a set of chemical reactions and evolutionary traits is misplaced, because nothing makes less amazing our ability to love just about anything. And we should celebrate that, instead of being condescending about it, because you know, life would be very boring and unfulfilling without feelings.
- acdha 12y ago
  Understanding how something works does not preclude enjoyment or wonder. Richard Feynman rather famously observed that understanding more of the science can deepen your appreciation: http://zenpencils.com/comic/137-richard-feynman-the-beauty-of-a-flower/ http://zenpencils.com/comic/137-richard-feynman-the-beauty-o...

loceng 12y ago

There's a fine line (maybe not so fine) as to when something becomes manipulation IMHO - though if someone's paying $25 monthly for someone(s) to chat with to feel connected then I suppose they've applied an added bias or value; makes me feel a bit sad if the people aren't doing it just for fun.

tormeh 12y ago
People are doing sadder things than this to keep the emotional lights on. At least it's cheaper than prostitutes. You know the saddest first-world thing I've ever heard? A prostitute doing a reddit AMA had a client once that wanted her to sing "happy birthday" for him. It was his birthday and no one else was going to.
- aerialcombat 12y ago
  I totally agree with this.
- testboo 12y ago
  Agreed.
- Roodgorf 12y ago
  > At least it's cheaper than prostitutes. I think there are a few more moral issues with prostitution than its market value.
  - oldmanjay 12y ago
    That's rather broad. There are moral issues with sex slavery, for instance, but prostitution as a concept is fairly amoral unless you mistakenly believe the sexuality of others is something you have a right to judge.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    You really think there are more moral issues with selling sex than selling lies?

nodata 12y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect

aidos 12y ago

As James Randi (the ultimate Skeptic) demonstrates here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

krat0sprakhar 12y ago

Learnt something new on HN today! Thanks a lot for your comment.

SloopJon 12y ago

> No matter how deeply we trust our logical conclusions, our emotional response remains the same. We can't help but feel worthier when we're being praised (even by computers ...), hurt when we're being insulted, and connected when we're being connected with. I just started playing The Walking Dead. In one scene, after another character saved Clementine from a zombie before I could, the game said, "Clementine remembers that you didn't save her." A very different feeling than failing and having to replay from a checkpoint.

IgorPartola 12y ago
Video games have always been very interesting this way to me, and there are some real gems lately that manage to tap into very emotional parts of my brain. Fallout is ripe with ethical dilemmas, almost to the point where I found myself unable to proceed when the choice is not obvious. You know the characters are not real, you are alone playing a single-player game; but you can't help but try to figure out how to help the character. The Fable series is really great this way too. There it's actually the focus and the theme of the game.
- soylentcola 12y ago
  Only every played the second Fable but I still remember the one choice you need to make near the end and have to pick one of three "fates". Not sure if it's considered a spoiler at this point but there's basically the one option to return a beloved companion to life (after recently being forced to suffer his death in the game). It wasn't necessarily the most logical choice nor is it the "smart" choice if you're treating it solely as a game and trying to get the most points/gold/etc.... ...but when I was offered that choice there was not a single question which one I would pick. It's all just pixels and textures and sound effects but the chance to return a character that had followed you for most of the game hit me way harder than I might have expected. Manipulative,cheap, emotional exploitation? Maybe. No regrets though.
  - IgorPartola 12y ago
    Worse. The first time I played, I picked a different option. There was a bug in the game where you could see the companion on the map, but could never reach him. I spent hours trying to find a way, before starting the game over just to choose differently.

jusben1369 12y ago

When I was young I picked up a book at a friend's house on astrology. I am a Taurus. I mistakenly opened it on another sign thinking I was reading the chapter on what made up a Taurus character. I was reading and nodding my head "wow, this is kind of weird. That is me. I do that. Well, I'm not like that but it's not going to be a 100% fit" After several pages I realized my mistake. And then I realized the Forer effect without knowing what it was or that it had a name.

UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
Julia Sweeney on astrology - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjturKoFsg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjturKoFsg (The background is she just found out she was actually born 3 months after her parents told her she was born - they lied to get her to start school a year earlier.)
- hyp0 12y ago
  Astrology is obviously nonsense, but it seems plausible that the season of birth could have a personality effect: the cold dead of winter, with little fresh food vs spring etc, also from the attitudes of surrounding adults. Of course, different near the equator, and phase-shifted in the southern hemisphere, and... much less pronounced in modern times, with supermarkets, refrigeration, air-conditioning/heating, imported foods, and wider social presence (newspapers, TV, radio, internet, phone) etc.
  - Terr_ 12y ago
    The socially-constructed age-cohort you go into is huge too. Want better grades and performance at sports? Be months older than your classmates.
    - allendoerfer 12y ago
      The reverse is true, too: Want better performance than people of the same age? Have had more training than them. I suspect this applies especially to language or logic related tasks. We will likely never find out, variance seems to be extremely high, while the actual differences are very low.

sharkweek 12y ago

Same thing with the "crossing over" folks who claim to talk to dead relatives right? "You had a family member who passed recently right? Or someone really close to you" "Yes, yes! My aunt passed away earlier this year!" "Ah, yes! And... and... she was sick right? Or in pain close to her death?" "Wow, yes!!" "You were close with her, or you were close with her family right?" ...etc

Karunamon 12y ago
That theory kind of breaks down when they get into specifics about military service, clothing, scars, etc. Things that a cold reader wouldn't have any access to.
- aetherson 12y ago
  Cold reading is certainly not the only kind of fake psychic scam. For example, hot reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading However, a skilled cold reader will in fact get specifics (though they'll also have bad guesses), by making further general guesses based on the information you've already confirmed for them. For example, military service is very common for men in a certain age range, who were drafted to Vietnam. Clothing can be pretty uniform for people who you know to be/can guess to be in a certain demographic. Most people (beyond children) have scars. If your comment was intended to suggest that some people actually can communicate with dead people: dude, no. It's not true. Your emotions are being preyed on for someone else's profit.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    I'm not going to get into the over-arching point on a board inhabited by subscribers to scientism, but don't you think the jig is is kind of up if you're told someone has a scar through their right eye and they actually didn't, or that someone had a favorite shirt that has a tear in a certain place (that both of those things didn't exist, etc). In other words, a level of specificity that is not so easily dismissed as a scammer interpreting the information they've been given.

abandonliberty 12y ago

Very interesting, but the article mentions they're using amazon turk - "real" people. Probably.

Pinn2 12y ago

Except for you, right? People like to feel better about themselves by declaring defects in everyone else but themselves. Even me.

crpatino 12y ago

> It's the same reason why horoscopes and fortune cookies work. A more charitable interpretation of horoscopes and fortune cookies could be that, given that human behavior and problems falls into recognizable patterns, generic solutions can be offered as a sort of framework or scaffold for the received to fill in their particular details and get started with a more appropriate and personal solution. What else did you expected? from a little something that came inside of a cookie!!!

bad_user 12y ago

This drive to reduce humanity to a set of chemical reactions and evolutionary traits is misplaced, because nothing makes less amazing our ability to love just about anything. And we should celebrate that, instead of being condescending about it, because you know, life would be very boring and unfulfilling without feelings.

acdha 12y ago
Understanding how something works does not preclude enjoyment or wonder. Richard Feynman rather famously observed that understanding more of the science can deepen your appreciation: http://zenpencils.com/comic/137-richard-feynman-the-beauty-of-a-flower/ http://zenpencils.com/comic/137-richard-feynman-the-beauty-o...