The 'Barnum Effect' in Personality Assessment: A Review of the Literature
D. H. Dickson, I. W. Kelly. Psychological Reports 57(2), 1985, 367-382.
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Read in full. The standard review of the effect and, more usefully, of its moderators: a profile labelled as prepared "for you" is accepted more readily than the same profile labelled generic, and favourable statements are accepted more readily than unfavourable ones. Those two findings explain more than the base effect does. Candid about its own limits, which is why it is cited rather than a livelier secondary account: most component studies used university students only, and several individual findings are weak or non-significant trends across replications. Do not present this literature as more settled than the review itself does.
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- The Barnum Effect
- For the two moderators that matter more than the base effect, and the review's own caveats.