Editing Cold reading (section)

=== The Forer effect (Barnum statements) ===
The [[Forer effect]] relies in part on the eagerness of people to fill in details and make connections between what is said and some aspect of their own lives, often searching their entire life's history to find some connection, or reinterpreting statements in a number of different possible ways so as to make it apply to themselves.

"[[Barnum statements]]", named after [[P. T. Barnum]], the American showman, are statements that seem personal, yet apply to many people.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/haP7Ys9ocTk Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930082417/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP7Ys9ocTk Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP7Ys9ocTk|title=Derren Brown Astrology|last=777Skeptic|date=15 August 2007 |via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref> And while seemingly specific, such statements are often open-ended or give the reader the maximum amount of "wiggle room" in a reading. They are designed to elicit identifying responses from people. The statements can then be developed into longer and more sophisticated paragraphs and seem to reveal great amounts of detail about a person. A talented and charismatic reader can sometimes even bully a subject into admitting a connection, demanding over and over that they acknowledge a particular statement as having some relevance and maintaining that they are just not thinking hard enough, or are repressing some important memory.

Statements of this type might include:
* "I sense that you are sometimes insecure, especially with people you don't know very well."
* "You have a box of old unsorted photographs in your house."
* "You had an accident when you were a child involving water."
* "You're having problems with a friend or relative."
* "Your father passed on due to problems in his chest or abdomen."

Regarding the last statement, if the subject is old enough, their father is quite likely to have died, and this statement would easily apply to a large number of medical conditions including [[heart disease]], [[pneumonia]], [[diabetes]], [[emphysema]], [[cirrhosis of the liver]], [[kidney failure]], most types of [[cancer]], as well as any cause of death in which [[cardiac arrest]] precedes death, or damage to the [[brainstem]] responsible for cardiopulmonary function.

==== Warm reading ====

Warm reading is a performance tool used by professional [[mentalists]] and psychic [[confidence trick|scam artists]].<ref>Huston, Peter. (2002). ''More Scams from the Great Beyond!: How to Make Even More Money Off the Creationism, Evolution, Environmentalism, Fringe Politics, Weird Science, the Occult, and Other Strange Beliefs''. Paladin Press. {{ISBN|1-58160-354-1}}</ref> While hot reading is the use of foreknowledge and cold reading works on reacting to the subject's responses, warm reading refers to the judicious use of [[Barnum effect]] statements.

When these psychological tricks are used properly, the statements give the impression that the mentalist, or psychic scam artist, is intuitively perceptive and psychically gifted. In reality, the statements fit nearly all of humanity, regardless of gender, personal opinions, age, epoch, culture, or nationality.

[[Michael Shermer]] gives the example of jewelry worn by those in mourning. Most people in this situation will be wearing or carrying an item of jewelry with some connection to the person they have lost, but if asked directly in the context of a psychic reading whether they have such an item, the client may be shocked and assume that the reader learned the information directly from the deceased loved one.<ref>{{cite journal | url=http://chem.tufts.edu/science/Shermer/E-Skeptic/JohnEdwardExposed.html | title=Deconstructing The Dead | journal=Scientific American | volume=285 | issue=2 | pages=29 | date=2001 | access-date=19 May 2016 | author=Shermer, Michael| bibcode=2001SciAm.285b..29S | doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0801-29 }}</ref> [[Robert Todd Carroll]] notes in ''[[The Skeptic's Dictionary]]'' that some would consider this to be cold reading.<ref>Robert Todd Carroll. [http://skepdic.com/warmreading.html "Warm Reading"]. The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved 2014-02-10.</ref>