Developing critical thinking to stop being influenced

You easily inspire confidence in your secure audience despite your detached demeanour. Even though you don't realise it, your intuition helps you read between the lines and adapt fast to any scenario!
Did these words sound familiar? This applies to most folks!

The Barnum effect, also known as the Forer effect, occurs when people believe that vague or general descriptions of their personality are accurate and particular.

This term comes from American psychologist Paul Meehl. The latter observed this impact when studying personality tests in clinical settings.
Numerous experiments examined this confirmation bias.

A famous one was undertaken by psychology professor Bertram Forer, who gave several pupils a personality test with very vague descriptions. This subjective experience helped most of them recognise themselves!

Cognitive biases like the subjective validation effect utilise the human drive to be understood and recognised. Vague statements that seem to pertain to a person may validate their characteristics. Even though the assessments are generic and apply to many people, this may bolster one's trust in their accuracy.
Confirmation bias: This effect can also enhance confirmation bias, the tendency to seek for, understand, and recall information that supports our opinions. When given vague, general information, people tend to notice and retain just the parts that match their self-perception and ignore or forget the rest.

The Barnum effect might induce people to make hasty decisions or base their lives on erroneous information. Financial, professional, and personal decisions may not be founded on objective or accurate assessments.

Astrologers, clairvoyants, mediums are manipulable. Some people misuse this subjective confirmation by convincing others they have extraordinary knowledge or paranormal skills. This causes unneeded and often large spending, false expectations, and emotional abuse.

The Barnum effect, like the placebo effect, is exploited by people and institutions to profit from interpretation by playing on suggestibility, projection, and flattery.
This is especially true for egotistical perverts who desire power at any costs, or for clairvoyants who seek influence without real gifts.

Recognising the Barnum effect is the first step to overcoming this cognitive bias. Systematic thinking deviations can affect judgement, perception, and decision-making.
Illusion of knowing, negativity bias, Dunning-Kruger effect, anchoring bias... All are mental shortcuts or automatic thought patterns that can impair information processing.

Cognitive biases can impair rational, objective decision-making, thus they must be recognised. Be conscious of these cognitive biases and take a step back to think critically about the information you get to reduce them.

Daily information checks are crucial! To avoid auto-suggestion, a Barnum effect effect, diversify your information sources and assess their veracity.

First, research the source's expertise, qualifications, and background. If it comes from an individual, you might ask about his professional experience, training, references, etc. Institutional data can be verified.

You can next investigate the person's personal and/or ideological reasons to better comprehend their perspective. These may be biassed by the person presenting them.

To develop critical thinking, we must examine generalities: we all seek subjective affirmation and overlook contradicting evidence.

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