THE BARNUM EFFECT IN LUSCHER COLOR TEST INTERPRETATION

COOPER B. HOLMES, JO ANN BUCHANNAN, DAVID S. DUNGAN AND TERESA REED

Emporia State University

A series of statements from the interpretation section of the Luscher Color

Test were selected randomly and put into paragraph form. College students
read these interpretative statements under several conditions to assess how
accurately the statements described themselves. On a scale from 1 to 9, the
ratings were all 5 or higher, which indicates a Barnum effect from the Luscher
Color Test.

The Luscher Color Test (Luscher & Scott, 1969) presents clients with eight color
patches, which are arranged by the client in order of preference. From the order of
preference, personality traits are inferred. Previous studies have examined the validity
of the Luscher Color Test, but the results are not consistent. Although Luscher and
Scott (1969) present nearly 150 articles supportive of the test, the articles are not readily
available because they are in foreign journals. In the American literature three studies
have indicated support for the validity of the Luscher Color Test (Adels, 1978; French
& Alexander, 1972; Rahn, 1976), while three studies have failed to do so (Braun & Bonta,
1979; Donnelley, 1977; Holmes, Wurtz, Wain, Dungan, & Joseph, 1984). The Holmes
et al. study directly compared MMPI interpretations and Luscher Color Test interpreta-
tions for the same person and concluded that there was essentially no relationship be-
tween the the interpretations. In that article, it was suggested that the Luscher Color
Test may appear valid because many of its interpretive statements are so general that
they would describe almost anyone, a phenomenon known as the Barnum effect. The
present research was designed to assess the possibility of a Barnum effect in Luscher
Color Test interpretation.

METHOD
Subjects
A total of 165 males and 163 females participated in this study. All subjects were
students in an introductory psychology class or a developmental psychology class (a
sophomore-level class). The exact number of subjects per phase is noted below.
Instruments
In order to obtain as fair an interpretation as possible, it was decided not to select
interpretations that were clearly subject to the Barnum effect. Rather, a list of numbers
was obtained from a table of random numbers. These numbers then were used to select
one sentence per page from the interpretation section of the Luscher Color Test book.
That is, the first number determined the number of the sentence on the first page to
be included in the interpretation. The second number determined the number of the
sentence from the second page, and so on. This resulted in a total of 76 randomly selected
sentences. Nine sentences were excluded because they were identical to or highly similar
to other statements. The remaining 67 statements were changed in no way other than
changing the pronoun "he" to "you," even though the language of some of the sentences
were rather stilted (e.g., "You are susceptible to the aesthetic"). These statements then

Requests for reprints should be sent to Cooper B. Holmes, Psychology Department. Emporia State Univer-
sity, Emporia, Kansas 66801.

133
134 Journal of Clinical Psychology, January 1986, Vol. 42, No. 1

were put in paragraph form to make as readable a report as possible. This involved
ordering the individual statements as well as possible to produce coherency and com-
bining sentences whenever it aided the flow of the report. The end result was a 24-sentence
description that, single-spaced, filled about three-fourths of a page. At the bottom of
the page were nine numbers and their corresponding statements, as follows:
1. This is completely inaccurate about me.
2. With rare exception, this is not accurate.
3. This is occasionally correct, but mostly wrong.
4. This is more wrong than right.
5. This is wrong as often as it is right.
6. This is more right than it is wrong.
7. This is occasionally wrong, but mostly right.
8. With rare exception, this is very accurate.
9. This is completely accurate about me.

These statements were used to indicate the subject's impression of how the description
fit him or her.
For another phase of the experiment the description was given to a psychology pro-
fessor who had cousulting experience, with instructions to rewrite it as it would be con-
veyed to a client, i.e., in plain English, avoiding the stilted language. This resulted in
a 10-sentence, three-paragraph description, which filled about one-third of a page. The
same 9 statements described previously were added to the bottom of the description.
These two forms, hereafter referred to as the long form and the short form, were
employed under two different conditions each.

Procedure
For ease of presentation and reading, it will be beneficial to present this study by
phases.
Phase one. Thirty-two male and 40 female introductory psychology students were
given the long form with no instructions other than to read it and circle a number at
the bottom of the page. In other words, these students were not lead to believe that
this was anything personal about them. The forms were completed within a few minutes
of being handed out.
Phase two. Ninety male and 78 female introductory psychology students were given
the short (plain English, counseling interpretation) form, also with no leading instruc-
tions. That is, they simply were asked to read the description and to circle the number
at the bottom of the page.
Phase three. In phases one and two the students completed the form with no sug-
gestion that the description referred personally to them. In this phase of the experiment,
23 male and 23 female students first selected their favorite color from the Luscher Color
Test patches (which had been pasted on one sheet). They were told that their voluntary
cooperation was being elicited in a study of the relationship between color and personality
and that they would get a report back. About 1 week later the short form was given
to all students, who read it and circled the number at the bottom of the page.
Phase four. Twenty males and 23 females picked their favorite color under the same
instructions as the phase three subjects. About a week later they were given the long
form to read and respond to. In other words, the phase three and four subjects believed
 Barnum Effect 135

the report to be a personal one. It was expected that this condition would increase the
Barnum effect.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Again, the following presentation will be grouped according to phase.
Phase One (long form, no color selection)
Males obtained a mean rating of 5.22 {SD = 1.85), which indicates that "This is
wrong as often as it is right." Females obtained a rating of 6.10 {SD = 1.84): "This
is more right than it is wrong." The male-female difference was significant, /(70) = 4.63,
p <.O1.
Phase Two (short form, no color selection)
Males obtained a mean rating of 5.04 {SD = 2.02): "This is wrong as often as it
is right." Females obtained a mean of 5.27 {SD = 1.95): "This is wrong as often as
it is right." The male-female difference was significant, r(166) = 2.44, p <.O5.
Phase Three (short form following color selection)
In this phase males obtained a mean of 6.96 (SD = 1.59): "This is occasionally
wrong, but mostly right." Females obtained a mean of 6.32 {SD = 2.26): "This is more
right than it is wrong." The male-female difference was not significant.
Phase Four (long form following color selection)
Males rated the description at 5.95 {SD = 1.86), while females rated it at 6.00
{SD = 2.40): "This is more right than it is wrong" for both groups. The male-female
difference was not significant.
In comparing the color-selection to no color-selection groups, the males' mean was
significantly higher when color selection was used (i.e., the report was "personal"), /(50)
= 2.52, p <.O5, for the long form. For the short form, the males' mean was also
significantly higher for the color selection condition, /(111) = 12.00, p <.0l. For females
the difference between ratings on the long form was not significant, but the difference
between color/no color was significant in favor of the color condition, /(98) = 3.66,
p <.O1.
These results are interpreted as supporting the belief that the Luscher Color Test
appears effective because of the Barnum effect. When one recalls that the descriptions
presented to the subjects were obtained purely at random, it is remarkable that the lowest
mean rating was 5.04 ("This is wrong as often as it is right"), while the highest rating
was 6.96 ("This is occasionally wrong, but mostly right"). None of the mean ratings
fell in the lower half of the 1-9 scale. One certainly would expect a randomly selected
series of statements to describe only occasionally so many subjects, but this was clearly
not the case. We do not place any great significance on the male-female differences noted
earlier, simply because the means are so close that interpretive statements probably are
not warranted.
We urge caution in the use of the Luscher Color Test because these results indicate
a very-strong likelihood that the results would fit almost anyone.

REFERENCES
ADELS, J.(1978). An assessment of Luscher's Eight Color Test as a screening instrument for emotional disturb-
ance in school children. Dissertation Abstracts International. 39 2-B. 967-968, (University Microfilms
No. 7813769).
136 Journal of Clinical Psychology, January 1986, Vol. 42, No. 1

BRAUN, C , & BONTA, J. (1979). Cross cultural validity, reliability and stimulus characteristics of the Luscher
Color Test. Journal of Personality Assessment, 43: 459-460.
DONNELLEY, F . (1977). The Luscher Color Test: A validity study. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 44, 17-18.
FRENCH, C , & ALEXANDER, B . (1972). The Luscher Color Test: An investigation of validity and underlying
assumptions. Joumal of Personality Assessment. 36, 361-365.
HOLMES, C , WURTZ, P., WALN, R . , DUNGAN, D . , & JOSEPH, C . (1984). Relationship between the Luscher
Color Test and the MMPI. Joumal of Clinical Psychology. 40. 126-129.
LUSCHER, M . , A SCOTT, I. (1969). The Luscher Color Test. New York: Random House.
RAHN, R. (1976). Luscher color theory: Civilians and criminals. Art Psychotherapy, 3. 145-155.

CLINICAL JUDGMENTS OF DEPRESSION

DOUGLAS N. JACKSON, RICHARD N. MACLENNAN, STEPHEN W. P. ERDLE
University of Western Ontario

RONALD R. HOLDEN
Queen's University

RICHARD N. LALONDE AND GLENN R. THOMPSON

University of Western Ontario

In an effort to reevaluate Gough's (1954) classic study of common misconcep-

tions about neuroticism, an investigation was undertaken of the degree to
which judges could simulate the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI) responses
of a clinically depressed patient group. Judgments were recorded of the prob-
ability of responding to each of 240 BPI items by a total of 56 university
student judges. Judges were assigned randomly to one of two information
conditions, one that had only the label "clinical depression" and another
that had, in addition, a more extensive definition. Judgmental profiles of
depressed patients indicated very high reliabilities (.99) across information
conditions, a high association with actual profiles of" clinically depressed pa-
tients, and differentiation from other psychiatric patients and normal con-
trols. Results were interpreted as supporting the accuracy of judgments of
psychopathology, particularly when certain preconditions are met, name-
ly, the use of a meaningful construct of psychopathology and the predic-
tion of behavior relevant to that construct.

The accuracy of clinical judgments of psychopathology remains one of the most

controversial issues in clinical psychology, to judge from the prolonged debate that has
arisen from the publication of Meehl's (1954) classic monograph on clinical and actuarial
prediction three decades ago. But skepticism about the accuracy of clinical judgment
preceeded that debate, and, indeed, formed a cornerstone of the rationale for the em-
pirical item selection strategy that underlies the construction of the MMPI (Meehl, 1945).
Knowledge of personality and psychopathology was considered by Meehl in 1945 to
be inadequate to account for the MMPI item responses of particular criterion groups.

This work was supported by Research Grant 410-80-0576 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada and by grant 895-84/864 M.E.G. from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation.
Requests for reprints should be directed to Douglas N. Jackson, Department of Psychology, The University
of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2.