Subjective Validation

Subjective validation, also called the personal validation effect, is a cognitive bias in which a person judges a statement or piece of information to be correct because it holds personal meaning or significance for them, even causing two genuinely unrelated events to be perceived as connected because the person's own beliefs demand that connection. The psychologists David F. Marks and Richard Kammann introduced the term in their 1980 book The Psychology of the Psychic, and the bias is closely related to the Forer effect, already live on this atlas as the Barnum Effect, and is considered an important element of cold reading and a major reason for the widespread acceptance of paranormal beliefs; a vague, generally applicable horoscope statement is a common example, since a reader supplies the personal meaning that makes it feel specifically true of themselves.