fandomhigh | Logic, Reason and Critical Thinking, Class 2: Period 4, Thursday, September 10

When the students filed into class today, they might notice that each desk had a sheet of paper, face down.

"We're going to start today with a short exercise," Miss Bennet said. "There are personality assessments on each desk; I have placed them randomly around the room. Please turn over the sheet on your desk and read the assessment that you find. Once you have finished reading it, I would like for you to decide upon a number - from 1 to 5 - that evaluates how accurate that assessment is, for you, personally. Once you have done that, you may turn the paper face-down again."

She waited, patiently, as each student read the form:

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

Once it seemed like everyone was finished, she continued.

"I will not ask anyone here to share their personal number. In fact, now I must confess some trickery of my own. There is only one assessment; each desk has a copy of the same paragraph. This paragraph was composed by a psychologist named Dr. Forer, who gave these so-called personality tests to a group of his students. The average accuracy rating, on that scale of one to five, was a 4.26. In other words, most of the students thought it was personal, and specific to him or her. How is that possible?

"There are several factors that contribute. For one, the paragraph sounds specific, but a meticulous re-reading will show how vague the details are. Forer took many of his sentences from a book of horoscopes. For another, we as individuals have a tendency, when confronted with evaluations of this nature, to give more weight to the successes than to the failures. For a third, do note that a great deal of the assessment is complimentary. One can get further appealing to vanity than being brutally frank.

"Many charlatans make use of the Forer effect in order to bolster their claims of clairvoyance, of reading tea-leaves or speaking to the dead. It is useful to be wary of those who would take one's money in order to tell their victims exactly what those individuals long to hear."

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Since he'd been invited, nothing could have stopped Hobbes from coming along to class with Calvin, and Calvin had known better than to try. So there he was, sitting next to Calvin with paper and pen, tail twitching excitedly as he took notes.

For his part Calvin was taking somewhat less diligent notes than last week.

Miss Bennet ... certainly didn't object to anyone bringing a stuffed toy to class, but she hadn't expected it. Perhaps he was feeling vulnerable and had wanted something soothing, emotionally?

She gave Calvin a somewhat sympathetic smile, unsure of whether she should press the issue. It wouldn't do to embarrass him, but perhaps he wanted to talk?

Looking up from his page of mixed notes and doodles, Calvin smiled back. "Hobbes appreciates being able to come along," he said, used to having to convey information from Hobbes to others. "He thinks the assessment didn't capture him at all, but Forer wasn't studying tigers after all."

Miss Bennet looked at the boy, and then the tiger, and then the boy again. And the tiger. Back to the boy. Right, then.

So this was the mysterious Hobbes. Either the boy had serious mental problems, or the stuffed tiger was somehow a conduit for some otherworldly being. This island delighted in the ridiculous. To be perfectly frank, however, she was still leaning towards 'mental problems.'

"Welcome to class, Hobbes," she said, nodding to the ... stuffed tiger. It wouldn't do to be rude. "He's correct, Forer never studied tigers. I daresay that would be impractical, giving personality assessments to ... tigers."

"He's excited to be here," Calvin said. "Like I said last week, he find this kind of stuff interesting."

A pause, then Calvin rolled his eyes. "It's not impractical because our puny human minds are too feeble to comprehend a tiger's true magnificence, Hobbes."

They were ... fighting? That was unexpected. Perhaps the boy was playing out his own psychological break. Perhaps it was an otherworldly ... stuffed ... toy.

Oh, her head hurt.

"One might ask if there have been similar studies in ... tiger society," Miss Bennet suggested. If one was inclined to rationally follow that argument out to its logical conclusion, although Miss Bennet had the feeling that 'logic' had been left by the wayside a few miles back.

Sometimes, Calvin had an even more special relationship with logic than he did with reality.

"Hobbes says that tigers have an innate knowledge of tiger psychology." Calvin's voice was thick with scepticism. "I just hope it's nothing like their innate sense of math."

Someone had been nursing a grudge ever since they'd discovered that basic mathematics didn't actually work like someone else claimed.

"Yes, well, we can all ... hope that that's the case," she said. Carefully. She didn't want to upset the ... possibly deranged boy, or his stuffed tiger. "I hope he's enjoying class."

Logic, Reason and Critical Thinking, Class 2: Period 4, Thursday, September 10

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