Cold Reading

PSYCHICS

Tens of millions of Americans and billions worldwide believe in strange mental powers that the scientific process has been unable to confirm. According to a Gallup poll, 41 percent of American adults believe in ESP, 31 percent believe in telepathy, and 21 percent believe that some people can communicate with the dead.28 They embrace these claims despite the failure of everyone who has ever tried to prove any of it. Apparently, people are sufficiently impressed by the work of professional psychics (mind readers with knowledge of the future) and mediums (live people who talk with dead people). But there are very simple explanations for how psychics and mediums are able to impress so many people. For example, a cold reading can exploit natural human biases and lead some people to believe that there is something supernatural going on when there is not. I was so intrigued by this that I decided to give it a try.

Although I had read enough about cold readings to know how they work, I was still hesitant. The method requires you to use educated guesses about a person for you to convince her that you are peering into her mind. At the very least, it takes a lot of nerve to sit face-to-face with someone and pretend to read his or her mind. It’s useful to know many trends and traits that are common to various people, genders, religions, nationalities, ages, and so on. It also helps to be able to think fast and make immediate adjustments based on real-time reactions and feedback from the subject. Researching cold readings is one thing. Actually doing one, however, is something entirely different. But I wanted to at least try, so I plunged in.

My first “client” is a woman in her midthirties. She’s bright, attractive, and, most importantly, tells me she thinks there is something to psychic powers. She is predisposed to believe me. That’s about 80 percent of the battle won right there because prior beliefs and expectations are known to be powerful influences on how we interpret our experiences. My confidence soars.

She stares, waiting for me to start. I speak slowly and pause a lot, hoping this makes me seem sure of myself. I spend a few moments blabbing about nothing, mostly empty words about me “feeling” her thoughts and how I need her to relax and open up to me. I begin the actual cold reading by peppering her with several rapid-fire statements and questions. While doing this, I pay close attention to her eyes, facial expressions, and body language. I look for any reaction to each thing I say. I notice she is not wearing a wedding ring. Sure enough, she lights up with heightened interest when I blurt out something about frustration with her love life. She’s in her thirties, and I guessed that marriage might be on her mind. Her reaction indicates to me that I should zero in on this subject, so I pretend to know all about boyfriends who have disappointed her in the past, as if that makes her unique. Once I feel I’ve gone as far as I can with made-up predictions and crude generalizations that would fit many women, I move on to money. I tell her she’s not greedy but could use a little more. Then I add in something about just wanting to be a good person and lead a happy life. Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about my performance. But is she buying it? Does she think I’m reading her mind and can see the future? Maybe. I’m not sure. I keep going. I try to ask questions and make statements that have a good chance of feeling personal and relevant to her based on her gender, age, nationality, religion, and so on. I mix in a few flattering comments. It’s surprising how many clues one can pick up when “reading the mind” of a person sitting two feet in front of you. She smiles when I say something that hits and she appears neutral or uncomfortable when I clearly miss the mark. It’s as easy as that. I end by giving her a cliché-filled pep talk: Your future is bright; try your best; never give up.

When I finish, she thanks me but leaves abruptly. That’s it; show’s over. I’m left deflated and disappointed. I conclude that I somehow blew it. Maybe cold readings are a lot more difficult than I thought. Somewhere Sylvia Browne and a million spirits are laughing at me.

But I see the woman a couple of days later and she approaches me.

“How did you do that the other day?” she asks. “It was amazing. How long have you been a psychic? You knew so much about me.”

Wow. Clearly I did better than I thought. She was completely convinced. Of course, I quickly explained to her that I did not have any special mind-reading powers and that I was attempting a cold reading just to see if I could do it. I apologized and said I would have explained it that day but didn’t think she believed me so it wasn’t necessary. The woman was a bit unsettled at first, but as I told her more about how it works and explained confirmation bias, she seemed grateful for the knowledge. The lesson I took away from that experience is that it doesn’t take much to convince someone. If I could do this well on my first try, it’s no wonder that some people who spend years perfecting this routine are able to convince many people and get rich.

This was a stunning realization for me. I had stumbled through a performance that was mediocre at best, but it turned out to be more than good enough. How did I do so well? She believed in psychics to some degree beforehand so was predisposed to accept my act. She also was a human with a human brain. This means, of course, as we saw in chapter 2, that she was vulnerable to confirmation bias. Like all victims of cold readings, she probably clung to and remembered everything I said about her that was correct or close enough because it reinforced her belief in psychics. But she probably missed or soon forgot everything I said that was clearly wrong because my errors did not confirm her bias. Then her memory probably helped me out by exaggerating how good I was every time she recalled our session.

It’s important to understand confirmation bias and be alert to it all the time because it can trip up people not only during a psychic reading but in the context of many other extraordinary claims as well. When we selectively embrace input that matches a conclusion we have already made, virtually anything can seem real and reasonable, regardless of how fake and unreasonable it is. It’s like throwing a thousand darts in the dark and then turning on the lights to find that you hit the bull’s-eye ten times. Hitting a target ten times in the dark might seem very impressive, but only if you ignore, forget, or never see those 990 darts that missed. When a psychic says a hundred things, we can’t allow ourselves to take note only of the correct things and forget all about the incorrect things he says. And we can’t give credit for vague statements and questions. We need to keep score in order to determine if there is anything to this or if it’s just a bunch of semieducated guesses designed to fool people. And don’t forget sample size. We can’t restrict ourselves to considering only one or two individual readings when assessing a psychic. If a psychic does hundreds of readings, for example, it is to be expected that at least a few might go exceptionally well and appear to be eerily accurate. However, placed in proper context with all the readings that go poorly, it’s not impressive.

I have a friend who was good enough at psychic readings to make money at it. He wasn’t a cold-hearted con artist, nor was he doing it as a noble experiment toward a better understanding of the human mind. He was self-deluded, fully convinced that he possessed special powers. But even as the cash rolled in and clients raved about his abilities, he began to have doubts. He noticed that he got credit for making guesses about people, things anyone could come up with. Eventually, he stopped believing not only in his own psychic powers but in all supernatural and paranormal claims. Today he is a good skeptic and big fan of the scientific process. He stressed to me how easy it was to fool people, including himself.

Operating much like psychics, mediums claim to carry on two-way conversations with dead people. Many psychics are mediums as well, which makes sense because it’s the same game. They blast out a bunch of guesses, questions, and platitudes about a dead person and then watch to see what gets a reaction from the surviving spouse, family member, or friend. He’s here with us now and he tells me to tell you that he loves you and is proud of you for doing your best in life. He also said he likes that you keep a photo of him. He says keep working hard and believe in yourself. A good skeptic sees right through this. For some grieving people, however, it can be irresistible. It’s understandable to want to communicate or connect with someone who is gone, but that desire should not override the ability we all possess to think our way through things like this. No one should allow himself or herself to be emotionally exploited and toyed with, even if it does feel good for a fleeting moment.

The bottom line with psychics and mediums is that their claims can be tested. There is a way to confirm once and for all if people can peer into the mind of a stranger, living or dead, and know intimate details about his past, present, and future. If psychics are interested, science can confirm their abilities to the world. All they have to do is submit to the process. It is telling that very few do. If psychics and mediums are not sufficiently motivated by the prospect of scientific confirmation for the sake of truth, one might think that money would do the trick. The James Randi Educational Foundation has a standing one-million-dollar prize available to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal/supernatural ability under the conditions of a credible scientific test that she or he can design. But for reasons one can easily imagine, today’s best-known psychics and mediums don’t even try. They declare that they can read minds and glean knowledge from dead people but then leave a million dollars on the table.

Hopefully you will be too good a skeptic to fall for the games psychics and mediums play. But you are bound to know someone who believes. Tell that person about me. Tell her the story about the guy who, on his first try, was able to fumble and stumble his way through a short cold reading and convince a smart adult that he was a mind reader. If that guy can do it, anyone can, so keep your guard up.