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"Crystal has just 64 personality types, and humans rarely fit so neatly into any given box. But when I sent a dozen or so friends and family members their Crystal profiles, most of them were creeped out by how accurate they were"

That's not a good confirmation. Astrologers have been creeping people out by arbitrarily assigning them to one of just twelve personality types for centuries, so this seems hardly surprising. The Forer Effect is named after a study where people were all given the same 'personality profile' and yet they rated it as accurate.




Best proof of this I ever saw was when they did a test with 20 students.

Each of them got their own personal horoscope made and was asked to read it.

Then they where asked how accurate it was 75% thought they were very accurate.

Then they were asked to switch their personal horoscope with the person next to them only to realize they had all been given the same horoscope.



"X is a creative influencer..."

"Y ... appreciates open, casual conversations."

These read like dopey profile statements people write about themselves on Twitter.


Agreed. What might have been more informative would be to have instead sent them each other's profiles (or all the same profile) and see if they rated them as accurately when applied to themselves.


Not to step on jameshart's toes, but isn't that exactly the business model of astrology, using astronomical positions as a poor pseudorandom number generator to shuffle the profiles? They seem to do pretty well at convincing people not indoctrinated to make fun of them.




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