Guest post: Also “unique” about everyone else
Originally a comment by Sastra on Gendered language at the abortion clinic.
James Randi used to do an experiment where college students who had previously given their birth dates were each presented with a paper written by a “master astrologer” describing what the stars said about them, specifically. After they finished their personalized readings, they were each asked to rank how accurate they were on a 10 point (?) scale. There were lots of 8s and 9s, and even some 10s. On the whole, they were all impressed, and gave the astrologer high marks, too. Then they were asked to pass the papers to the student in the next desk.
It was the same reading, of course, with the sentences mixed up so they’d appear to be different if anyone glanced over. What they thought surprisingly unique about them was also “unique” about everyone else.
Enbees strike me as little different than the students who ranked the Super Special Just About You astrology reading a 9 or 10. It’s just that they’re holding tight to that paper because it’s totally, totally THEM.
Especially since a lot of horoscopes follow the format of “you’re usually X, but sometimes not-X.” E.g., “You’re usually calm, but can be fierce when angered. You’re often outgoing, but appreciate the value of solitude.” Everyone who isn’t completely on the extreme of any spectrum can identify with them. (I’d say they’re a subcategory of Barnum statements.)
The self-descriptions of non-binaries strike me the same way. “I usually wear jeans and a T-shirt, but sometimes I feel like wearing a dress. My favorite drink is an apple martini, but once in a while I like whiskey! I enjoy playing Call of Duty and trash-talking with dudes, but then I go take a bubble bath with a romance novel!”
Screechy: “You can be fierce when angered” is kind of “you can be property-of-X when X”. That is, it’s tautological, so the description is even less meaningful.
@Nullius in Verba:
No, I don’t think that example quite works as a tautology, since it’s possible to be meek or quiet when angry — either holding it in, making excuses for the other person, or just having a temperament which doesn’t get particularly upset over things.
But it’s insidious in a different way, since mild-mannered people are likely to interpret their relatively tempered display of pique (“Geez Louise, I sure wish those kids didn’t keep borrowing my tools and not putting them BACK!”) as flying off the handle and making a big fuss. Cold readers are well aware of the psychology behind these can’t-lose Surprising Insights into My Uniqueness.
Randi used the generic ‘personality statement’ from Forer’s original 1948 paper:http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/Forer_The%20fallacy%20of%20personal%20validation_1949.pdf
Forer cobbled together the statement from newspaper astrology columns. His experiment involved giving a class of students a fake ‘personality test’ and giving them the results in class. They evaluated the results without any chance to compare.
I had to do a week-long graduate school class that turned out to be Myers-Briggs based…the instructor, and the whole class, had never heard of Forer.
Sastra: You’re correct for “p is y when x”, but “is” differs from “can be”.
To say that p is y when x would not be tautological. As a material implication, it is falsified by counterexample. In the case that p has never been or cannot be x, the implication is vacuously true. (Example: “If/when triangles have seven sides, Sastra is a duck” is a true statement.) In the case where p has even once been x and not y, the implication is false. To say that p can be y when x, is different. Its truth does not require that p has ever been y when x, only that it be not impossible that y, given p be x. (Example: “She can be loud when she’s happy.”) Possibility is why it matters that y is a property of or commonly associated with x. An unrestricted y could be something incompatible with x and thus falsify the implication. (Example: “She can be male when she’s happy.”)
JtD, thanks for that link to the Forer paper, very interesting.