Whenever I pick up a newspaper, I’m drawn to the horoscopes page. It’s just a bit of fun, I tell myself, justifying this harmless pastime while I read how the sun is bursting through Taurus and my fifth house of lust and self-expression. How spookily accurate!
Deep down, my intellectual, sophisticated and sometimes even logical side tells me there is no such thing as fate, that my destiny is completely in my hands, and that my future is as likely to be written in the stars as it is to appear on a banner attached to the tail of an airplane. Simply put, it’s all a pile of nonsensical, grown-up fairy tales that apparently applies to the millions of people born on the same day or period of time.
Yet why am I, like so many others, so seduced by my horoscope? Why do I feel an entirely irrational surge of optimism when I read that Saturn is back in my sign, which should make me gutsier and more successful in the third quarter of 2016? Is it because I’m female, as we are statistically proven to believe more in this junk?
There is, seasoned psychologists tell us, a reason for this. This temptation (and human tendency) to apply vague, general and favorable statements as representative of ourselves or of our personal situations is called the Barnum effect. The term was coined after American circus performer, businessman and infamous hoaxer P.T Barnum’s famous line: “We’ve got something for everyone.”
For example, your daily prediction may say, “If you are going through some changes in your life right now, surround yourself with people and things that make you feel happy.” If you read that and instinctively breathed a sigh of relief because you’re in desperate need for a boozy dinner with friends after a very long month of late nights and a nagging boss at work, then you'll probably WeChat them immediately and make reservations, but only because your horoscope confirmed your bias.
Simply put, the vagueness of these predictions amplify subconscious desires and encourage you to consider them without questioning, which makes them great for discovering what you actually want and calming your anxieties. Genius, isn’t it?
Even more genius is what is connected to the Barnum effect: our locus of control. This term is a common one psychologists use for people that are dealing with challenges or issues in their daily lives. If you believe you can control the outcome and influence your situation, you have an internal locus of control. If you think you have no control over the situation and that your fate is entirely out of your hands, you have an external locus of control.
Let’s illustrate this in layman terms. You know you are up for a promotion and to clinch it, all you need to do for the next month is put in 70-hour weeks and schmooze till your eyeballs fall out – that is, you have an internal locus of control. But if you’re looking for love or marriage… well, you get the point. It’s all in the stars.
I am completely aware that I should probably close the window on my horoscope addiction forever. After all, we all know it’s a complete racket. But it’s hard to break a habit. Especially when astrology.com says I’m a cautious, button-down stiff who doesn’t like change.
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