Similar to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, it plays off the same cognitive bias. People really are so predictable, that it's somewhat simultaneously sad and comforting. We're all just as susceptible as each other. Of course some less so, but all to certain extents.
(What it said) You are a person prone to bouts of self-examination. This is in sharp contrast to a striking ability you have developed to appear very socially engaged, even the life and soul of the party; but in a way that only convinces others. You are all too aware of it being a façade. This means that you will often be at a gathering and find yourself playing a part. While on the one hand you’ll be talkative and funny, you’ll be detaching yourself to the point where you will find yourself watching everything going on around you and feeling utterly unable to engage. You’ll play conversations back to yourself in your head and wonder what that person really meant when he said such-and-such - conversations that other people wouldn’t give a second thought to. How have you learned to deal with this conflict? Through exercising control. You like to show a calm, self-assured fluid kind of stability (but because this is self-consciously created, it will create bouts of frustrated silliness and a delight in extremes, or at least a delight in being seen to be extreme). You most easily recognise this control in how you are with people around you. You have learned to protect yourself by keeping people at bay. Because in the past you have learned to be disappointed by people (and because there were issues with you adjusting to your sexuality), you instinctively keep people at arms’ length, until you decide they are allowed over that magic line into your group of close friends. However, once across that line, the problem is that an emotional dependency kicks in which leaves you feeling very hurt or rejected if it appears that they have betrayed that status. Because you are prone to self-examination, you will be aware of these traits. However, you are unusually able to examine even that self-examination, which means that you have become concerned about what the real you is. You have become all too aware of façades, of sides of yourself which you present to the world, and you wonder if you have lost touch with the real and spontaneous you. You are very creative, and have tried different avenues to utilize that ability. It may not be that you specifically, say, paint; it may be that your creativity shows itself in more subtle ways, but you will certainly find yourself having vivid and well-formed ideas which others will find hard to grasp. You set high standards for yourself, though, and in many ways are a bit of a perfectionist. The problem is, though, that it means you often don’t get stuff done, because you are frustrated by the idea of mediocrity and are wearied by the idea of starting something afresh. However, once your brain is engaged you’ll find yourself sailing. Very much this will likely lead to you having considered writing a novel or some such, but a fear that you won’t be able to achieve quite what you want stops you from getting on with it. But you have a real vision for things, which others fall short of. Particularly in your academic/college situation, you are currently fighting against restraints upon your desire to express yourself freely. Your relationship with your parents (there is a suggestion that one is no longer around, or at least emotionally absent) is under some strain. You wish to remain fond of them but recent issues are causing frustration - from your side far more than theirs. In fact they seem unaware of your thoughts on the matter. Partly this is because there are ways in which you have been made to feel isolated from certain groups in the past - something of an outsider. Now what is happening is that you are taking that outsider role and defending it to the point of consciously avoiding being part of a group. This will serve you well in your creative and career pursuits. You have an enormous cynicism towards those who prefer to be part of a group or who exhibit any cliquey behaviour, and you always feel a pang of disappointment when you see your ‘close’ friends seeming to follow that route. Deep down it feels like rejection. However, for all that introspection, you have developed a sensational, dry sense of humour that makes connections quickly and wittily and will leave you making jokes that go right over the heads of others. You delight in it so much that you’ll often rehearse jokes or amusing voices to yourself in order to ’spontaneously’ impress others with them. But this is a healthy desire to impress, and although you hate catching yourself at it, it’s nothing to be so worried about. There’s also an odd feeling that you should have been born in a different century. You might be able to make more sense of that than I can. There are some strong monetary shifts taking place at the moment. Both the recent past and what’s in store over the next few months represent quite a change. You have links at the moment with America*, which are quite interesting, and will look to yield worthwhile results. You’re naturally a little disorganized. A look around your living space would show a box of photos, unorganised into albums, out-of-date medicines, broken items not thrown out, and notes to yourself which are significantly out of date. Something related to this is that you lack motivation. Because you’re resourceful and talented enough to be pretty successful when you put your mind to things, this encourages you to procrastinate and put them off. Equally, you’ve given up dreams a little easily when your mind flitted elsewhere. There are in your home signs of an excursion into playing a musical instrument, which you have since abandoned, or are finding yourself less interested in. (This may alternatively relate to poetry and creative writing you’ve briefly tried your hand at and left behind you.) You have a real capacity for deciding that such-and-such a thing (or so-and-so a person) will be the be all and end all of everything and be with you for ever. But you’d rather try and fail, and swing from one extreme to the other, than settle for the little that you see others content with. Conclusion: It’s very interesting doing your reading, as you do present something of a conundrum, which won’t surprise you. You are certainly bright, but unusually open to life’s possibilities - something not normally found among achieving people. I’d say you’d do well to be less self-absorbed, as it tends to distance you a little, and to relinquish some of the control you exercise when you present that stylized version of yourself to others. You could let people in a little more, but I am aware that there is a darkness you feel you should hide (much of this is in the personal/relationship/sexual area, and is related to a neediness which you don’t like). You really have an appealing personality - genuinely. Many thanks for doing this, and for offering something far more substantial than most.
Amazing! I applied it on myself and it worked, then I applied to everyone I knew, and it worked to an amazing degree, just goes to show how we're all the stars of our own film. "I'm sending this as a special only for you reading" to like a hundred people then mocking them when they're amazed :D
I took a Sociology class in the 1980s. The professor had us do a handwriting analysis; we wrote a sentence or two, and then he collected all of them and gave us the results a week later. He first, had us read them to ourselves in the class. A few students, including myself, were astounded at how accurate the results were. Then the professor asked for volunteers to read their first sentence out loud. Then another person, and another. We ALL had the same, exact three sentences, just in random order. Changed my perspective forever after that.
@@valentinasstraigis4628 I don't remember exactly, however, I copied and pasted this which is similar because it applies to all people. 1) While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. 2) At times you feel very sure of yourself, while at other times you are not as confident. 3) Security is one of your major goals in life.
its not that he wasn't falling for it but more that those statements didnt really describe him because theyre supposed to for most people but he was the different one.
Ah, the Forer effect- the same procedure was done by James Randi- it's a valuable lesson in how basic cold reading can be so convicing. We are, deep down way more similar to each other than we think we are. Of course, seeing Derren do this and seeing the participants reactions when they realised that all the readings was the same was an utter joy. When hearing a "psychic" talk about you or your loved ones "on the other side"- you are the one doing all the work trying to make sense of the torrent of things being said- some general and some more specific (guess work hoping for a hit) but, if you believe, you will only remember the hits and not the misses, you will also make vague statements make sense to you or miss the linguistic tricks being used.
This man openly shows us the tricks used by people claiming psychic ability and people are so desperate to believe in life after death that they then say Darren Brown is a psychic .
Psychics and cold readings have nothing to do with belief in an afterlife. You’re conflating belief in psychic power with faith in life after death. You’re doing this because you’re an atheist troll who feels compelled to dump your atheism like a turd into any and every comment thread on RU-vid that you can, seeking validation. Go away.
@sadi muntakim no one could possibility know that unless a census was done asking everyone on earth. That is someone's estimation. There are a lot more practical thinkers than 20% a lot more. In the history of mankind no one has ever returned or left a message to prove it, life after death is superstition, we know the heart ,brain and every organ shuts down and decomposes . enjoy your life because its all you have.
you nailed it. "Psychics" use the knowledge that people willfully choose to believe that there is life after death. It's what has allowed them to be successful. Now, it's not the people's fault for this cuz since they were kids, they've been completely brainwashed about religion. I would blame the religions for this more than the gullible people.
It is not really a matter of being unique, it is just that there is a very high probability that at one point of our lives we feel that way. These are common thoughts and feelings, its not surprising most people can relate. It is like saying "you like eating chicken" many people would agree with it, doesn't mean the people are not unique
This is why I realised star signs are BS. I would read my star sign and think "that is me!" then I read all the other star signs and think that is also me!
Dude yes which is exactly why I’m here. Like I can see the correlation between the signs and us but I think to myself aren’t these qualities we can all chose to posses or work on regardless ?i choose to become a better person
4 years too late but here is is You are a person prone to bouts of self-examination. This is in sharp contrast to a striking ability you have developed to appear very socially engaged, even the life and soul of the party; but in a way that only convinces others. You are all too aware of it being a façade. This means that you will often be at a gathering and find yourself playing a part. While on the one hand you’ll be talkative and funny, you’ll be detaching yourself to the point where you will find yourself watching everything going on around you and feeling utterly unable to engage. You’ll play conversations back to yourself in your head and wonder what that person really meant when he said such-and-such - conversations that other people wouldn’t give a second thought to. How have you learned to deal with this conflict? Through exercising control. You like to show a calm, self-assured fluid kind of stability (but because this is self-consciously created, it will create bouts of frustrated silliness and a delight in extremes, or at least a delight in being seen to be extreme). You most easily recognise this control in how you are with people around you. You have learned to protect yourself by keeping people at bay. Because in the past you have learned to be disappointed by people (and because there were issues with you adjusting to your sexuality), you instinctively keep people at arms’ length, until you decide they are allowed over that magic line into your group of close friends. However, once across that line, the problem is that an emotional dependency kicks in which leaves you feeling very hurt or rejected if it appears that they have betrayed that status. Because you are prone to self-examination, you will be aware of these traits. However, you are unusually able to examine even that self-examination, which means that you have become concerned about what the real you is. You have become all too aware of façades, of sides of yourself which you present to the world, and you wonder if you have lost touch with the real and spontaneous you. You are very creative, and have tried different avenues to utilize that ability. It may not be that you specifically, say, paint; it may be that your creativity shows itself in more subtle ways, but you will certainly find yourself having vivid and well-formed ideas which others will find hard to grasp. You set high standards for yourself, though, and in many ways are a bit of a perfectionist. The problem is, though, that it means you often don’t get stuff done, because you are frustrated by the idea of mediocrity and are wearied by the idea of starting something afresh. However, once your brain is engaged you’ll find yourself sailing. Very much this will likely lead to you having considered writing a novel or some such, but a fear that you won’t be able to achieve quite what you want stops you from getting on with it. But you have a real vision for things, which others fall short of. Particularly in your academic/college situation, you are currently fighting against restraints upon your desire to express yourself freely. Your relationship with your parents (there is a suggestion that one is no longer around, or at least emotionally absent) is under some strain. You wish to remain fond of them but recent issues are causing frustration - from your side far more than theirs. In fact they seem unaware of your thoughts on the matter. Partly this is because there are ways in which you have been made to feel isolated from certain groups in the past - something of an outsider. Now what is happening is that you are taking that outsider role and defending it to the point of consciously avoiding being part of a group. This will serve you well in your creative and career pursuits. You have an enormous cynicism towards those who prefer to be part of a group or who exhibit any cliquey behaviour, and you always feel a pang of disappointment when you see your ‘close’ friends seeming to follow that route. Deep down it feels like rejection. However, for all that introspection, you have developed a sensational, dry sense of humour that makes connections quickly and wittily and will leave you making jokes that go right over the heads of others. You delight in it so much that you’ll often rehearse jokes or amusing voices to yourself in order to ’spontaneously’ impress others with them. But this is a healthy desire to impress, and although you hate catching yourself at it, it’s nothing to be so worried about. There’s also an odd feeling that you should have been born in a different century. You might be able to make more sense of that than I can. There are some strong monetary shifts taking place at the moment. Both the recent past and what’s in store over the next few months represent quite a change. You have links at the moment with America*, which are quite interesting, and will look to yield worthwhile results. You’re naturally a little disorganized. A look around your living space would show a box of photos, unorganised into albums, out-of-date medicines, broken items not thrown out, and notes to yourself which are significantly out of date. Something related to this is that you lack motivation. Because you’re resourceful and talented enough to be pretty successful when you put your mind to things, this encourages you to procrastinate and put them off. Equally, you’ve given up dreams a little easily when your mind flitted elsewhere. There are in your home signs of an excursion into playing a musical instrument, which you have since abandoned, or are finding yourself less interested in. (This may alternatively relate to poetry and creative writing you’ve briefly tried your hand at and left behind you.) You have a real capacity for deciding that such-and-such a thing (or so-and-so a person) will be the be all and end all of everything and be with you for ever. But you’d rather try and fail, and swing from one extreme to the other, than settle for the little that you see others content with. Conclusion: It’s very interesting doing your reading, as you do present something of a conundrum, which won’t surprise you. You are certainly bright, but unusually open to life’s possibilities - something not normally found among achieving people. I’d say you’d do well to be less self-absorbed, as it tends to distance you a little, and to relinquish some of the control you exercise when you present that stylized version of yourself to others. You could let people in a little more, but I am aware that there is a darkness you feel you should hide (much of this is in the personal/relationship/sexual area, and is related to a neediness which you don’t like). You really have an appealing personality - genuinely. Many thanks for doing this, and for offering something far more substantial than most.
That's the pattern recognition in our brain trying to make things "make sense". It's how we learn everything we do. It is also very flawed and creates stuff like racism. Another reason why the scientific process is so important to try to eliminate the biases and wrong conclusion we come to once we notice a pattern somewhere.
yeah this is an exercise done in intro to psych and psychometric appraisal courses all over the world probably thousands of times a year, Barnum statements.
Immediately before he grabbed their envelopes, I was thinking to myself how did he get those reading? I knew he did some kind of cold reading on them, but how did he get the readings to the read person? The answer was he was being broadly specific
Barnum statements, kinda vague statements that, on the surface, seems very specific but will apply to near everyone. It can be stuff like "You tend to be self-critical" or "You don't feel like you've achieved as much as you've hoped", which will apply to most people.
What I would focus on here is, not the fact that all of the "readings" were the same. But on the fact that within that "reading were things written "about me" that made me feel, not just validated, but also inspired to take the next productive step in my life. If you can be inspired by a movie character overcoming to achieve his/her dreams, you can take inspiration from a fake cold reading that nevertheless built you up and pointed you in a useful direction.
@@msfasa Thank you for your pointlessly contradictory response. Why don’t you start your own thread with that. I’m sure many people would love to share their own preciously personal, equally unproductive thoughts.
@@terrifictomm "Children, pay no attention to the fact our house is on fire, but instead we should focus on how it warms us on this chilly winter night."
@@msfasa Sooooooo… you decided not to start your own thread, but come back and again post a completely irrelevant comment bearing no relationship to anything I said. Doing a cold reading of your personality here, based on this comment right now, I’d say you have deep emotional issues you are struggling to resolve and you hope posting random thoughts arising from the comments of strangers on RU-vid will magically resolve some or all of those issues. I’m right, aren’t I?
Wow, completely off subject I know, but the woman at 2.45 is simply stunning,, its not very often I feel I have to mention something, especially if it's about a woman's beauty,, but, goodness me,, on this occasion,, I couldn't help myself, and as usual derren brown is incredibly breathtaking smart,!!
I've had loads of medium readings and all have been so incredibly generic and vague. Why? Because there's absolutely nothing to see on my Facebook page so they can't hot read me. My readings have pretty much gone: Oh your grandad is here, Who is the male who died of a heart attack or heart issues? I'm sure we all know a few. Who is the lady who died of cancer? Again we all know a few. Who had the miscarriage? Again miscarriages are so incredibly common that we all know a few. You've kept some of their clothes, You sleep with something of theirs. You're getting memorial bears or jewellery made. Whose getting the tattoo in memory? Are you thinking about moving? I'm seeing keys, maybe new house or car. There's been disagreements in the family. You've got a ring / necklace of your mams/ a watch of your dad's. You've been thinking about a trip or holiday . You should go. Are you decorating? Making home improvements? Has someone recently been for an eye test or blood tests? Throw in some common names like Margaret, Lynn, David, Anthony/Tony I'm sure I would have had much better "readings" if my Facebook was full of information though.
If it is a cold reading, why were they all the same? What you did was aggregate data about humanity and put it in an essay that you hope has enough that's resonant that people buy it. That's good research and creative writing.... it's not cold reading.
Love Derren but this is not cold reading - thats just misdirection or the real explanation which is ........Barnum statements , yes named after PT Barnum. They are statements which the vast amount of people would like to think about themselves but if someone puts it in print it will seem miraculous. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect
lexagon I thought warm or hot reading was when you know things about the subjects before hand. Cold reading is when you try to say a lot of general things that apply to a lot of people (possibly letting the subjects fill in the blanks). Now it seems to me here, that he is using a lot of general stuff, because every text was exactly identical. It applied to everyone. Have I misunderstood the definitions?
Artemisss1 You're pretty close, except that warm reading and hot reading are two different things. Hot reading is using information that has been acquired beforehand. Warm reading is using the Forer effect / Barnum statements, which is precisely what happens here. Cold reading is more dynamic, you might start from very general things but the reading progresses to more personal stuff through the interaction of the reader and the person being read. Since this video has no interaction, just blanket statements, it's best described as warm reading.
From the definition of Cold Reading on wikipedia, this is in fact cold reading as he didn't know anything about the people prior to his analysis. It is also warm reading, as warm reading is a subset of cold reading.
softmangos Nope, these are pure Barnum statements, which usually apply equally to everyone. Cold reading is about tailoring your read based on the individual, i.e. telling someone in their 60s that they've recently lost a parent figure, which is statistically quite likely. Barnum statements are warm reading, which require no actual contact between the reader and the "readee". Essentially the latter is the same as horoscopes. Look up "Forer effect" on Wikipedia. Edit: quoting Wikipedia's article on cold reading: "warm reading refers to the judicious use of Barnum effect statements."
@@PlanetRockJesus oh the irony is sooooooo thick here. You said "Shows how gullible and silly people are" but as a christian you accept the following: a man can live in a fish for 3 days without oxygen, that donkeys and bushes can talk, that a 600 year old man with no boat building experience can build a massive vessel without modern tools, and 2 of each animal from all over the world gather to cohabit for 6 months without eating each other or even access to their regular diet and where the incest between the only family were able to repopulate the world and quickly enough that 40,000 slaves could build the tower of BABLE/pyramids. That a woman made out of a rib of a man , himself made out of dust, can have a lucid conversation with a serpent who has neither vocal cords nor ears to hear the replies. That dragons, unicorns, angels, 7 headed beast exist and that a girl was impregnated by a. creator of the Universe via a spirit , rather than a young girl told a lie? Resurrections, walking on water, turning water into wine, staffs turning into snakes, 100 exploding pigs etc etc etc Yeah they all seem totally legit. BTW God killed babies across the world still in their mothers womb who hadn't even heard "the word" let alone disobey it so do regale us, what had the babies done to deserve being casually drowned by God?
Darren is doing “God’s” work, by enlightening people to the fallacies in our thinking. The number of us who join cults, certain religions, or play the lotto are also great indicators.
@@Johhny_B you obviously are not aware of the things he does live which are so far in advance than having some pre written barnum statements in envelopes. He didnt a drawn hand, have any personal items put in the envelope etc etc thats all fluff. Have you actually seen him in the flesh do a show?
@@Johhny_B I dont believe anyone can do psychic readings of the dead and the people that claim to are taking money from the vulnerable - I dont have the words to explain what I think about them.
ForeverYoung2790 - what about the stuff the one girl was saying about how it said she had started a novel and not finished it? It was specific but it said that in everyone's reading... And the people to whom it applies will think "wow it's so accurate" and the people to whom it doesn't apply will ignore it. That's how "psychics" trick you. You focus on what they say that is accurate and disregard and ignore the things they get wrong.
