Examples[edit]

One test was performed by Michael Gauquelin, a French psychologist. He offered people free horoscopes to anyone that read Ici Paris on the condition that they provided feedback on how accurately the horoscope related to them. He sent out thousands of the same horoscopes to people with various astrological signs. Ninety-four per cent of the readers responded that his readers were "very accurate and insightful."^[6][9]  What the people did not know was that the horoscope was for Dr. Petiot, a convicted serial killer of 63 people. This is clearly another case of subjective validation where subjects focus on the relatable nature of some general analysis that's supposed to be unique to them.^[6]


Another test is the Bertram R. Forer personality test. Forer would give his students a personality test and regardless of his students' answers he would give them all the same personality results and ask them how well the personality result described them on a scale of 0–5, the average score was 4.26. This test has been repeated many times and the average is still around 4.2.^[10][7]