Because I was recently drawn into a controversy over the validity of astrology, I have been thinking a lot about the Barnum Effect, the tendency of people to be fooled into thinking that vague personality descriptions are highly accurate. This effect lies at the heart of many people’s conviction that horoscopes and psychic readings are true. The blog Providentia has a good post explaining the phenomenon.
Here is a video explaining how the Barnum effect is used to create the illusion of mind reading:
peakmemory 
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