Why People Believe in Horoscopes and Fortune-Tellers

in #psychology7 years ago

“There's a sucker born every minute.”
― P.T. Barnum

Introduction

Did you read today’s horoscope? What do the stars have in mind for you? What about your fortune teller?

Hopefully these questions made you laugh or at least smile a bit, rather than truly answering them and thinking about them.

I’ve never been a fan of horoscopes, fortune-tellers, psychics and all other con people there are. Sadly, today these people are a part of a massive industry which benefits from others who blindly trust them and rely upon their ‘visions’ about their future.

On the other hand, if you are amongst these people, or you know someone close to you who is, I think you would find this article beneficial.

“The Forer Effect”

In psychology the tendency of people to rate sets of subjective statements as highly accurate for their unique personality, even though they could apply to many other people is known as “The Forer Effect”.

It is named after the psychologist Bertram R. Forer who discovered this phenomenon in his classic experiment. He gave to his 39 undergraduate psychology students a Diagnostic Personality Test. After a week he gave to everyone what was told to them to be a unique description of their personality. In reality their “unique descriptions” were all the same. Then he asked his students to rate how accurate their “individual” personality descriptions on a scale of 0 to 5 are. The results have shown that the average rating was 4.3. Not only Forer ignored their answers, but the description he gave to his students was taken out of a newsstand astrology book which had absolutely nothing in common with them.

Here’s how he ‘described’ his students:

You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure 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 pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others” statements without satisfactory proof. You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. Security is one of your major goals in life.

Did that paragraph described your personality? Probably this description could be applied to any person there is and that’s not a surprise given the fact that all the statements inside it are related to positive traits and abilities most people would like to obtain and relate to.

For people who believe in these kind of things there are two factors which make “The Forer Effect” reality to them – the source and the content.

The source

In a later study Snyder and Larson discovered that people were more inclined to accept Forer’s descriptions of themselves if they were presented uniquely for them, rather than revealing their true nature - to be true for most people.
Another study conducted by Snyder and Shenkel in which they hired a ‘fake astrologist’ to create horoscopes with Forer’s descriptions to three groups of students, suggests that the more details a subject gives about themselves to ‘the source’ the more likely they would rate their predictions accurate.

The content

Admit it. Everybody likes to hear superlatives about themselves. One of the aspects in the content is based on positive, praising ‘facts’ about the person. Note that in every horoscope reading there is not a single truly negative statement. Even when there’s a sentence related to a negative trait of the person it’s represented as a positive thing and is related to some solution of a problem or crisis.

The other aspect is related to the general application of these ‘facts’. A common excuse here would be that a description is supposed to “fit” a human personality and there should be no surprises in the fact that there might be a place for uncertainty.

Fortune-Tellers And Magicians

While horoscopes and fake personality tests cover the non-verbal communication, cold reading is the term referred to the application of Forer’s descriptions on a verbal level.

Cold reading is practiced by ‘psychics’, fortune-tellers and all sorts of other magicians who claim they have a ‘higher knowledge’ about you and your life. In reality, they apply the same principles we discussed so far. While in horoscopes the description is already done, thus cannot be changed and manipulated, in cold reading ‘the game’ is on another level. The whole process of cold reading is based on the interaction between the actors. The psychic would always be careful about your non-verbal communication. Depending on the sings they ‘capture’, the reading ‘changes’. This means that if the subject is not aware of their behavior, the reading would seem more and more related to them, closing the psychic’s ‘trap’.

Why understanding the “Forer Effect” is important

Blindly believing in subjective opinions for your life of people who make a fortune out of it could be harmful for your future (no pun intented).

A study by Johns Hopkins University and the University of South Carolina found that people who believe in astrology tend to be more impulsive than the ones who don’t. The subjects were given pessimistic horoscopes, and then were asked to choose between going to a party or cleaning their house. People who believed in astrology went to the party, while the others preferred to stay focused and chose to clean the house.

For those who believed in star signs, trying to resist the unfavorable horoscope required mental resources and so left them open to temptation.
Participants who believed in a fixed fate did not exert any mental energy on the subject, so were able to stay focused on the day ahead.
The findings could be a boost to advertisers - who the authors said should promote indulgences like chocolate and ice cream on horoscope pages with slogans like 'life is what you make of it!'

Conclusion

Being rational and critical about new information and it’s sources reliability has never harmed somebody. I hope this short article on the Forer’s effect was beneficial to you and hopefully has provoked some questions and thoughts about this issue. If it did, please share them with me in the comment section !

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Sources:

[1] Barnum Effect: Influence of Social Desirability, Base Rate and Personalization

[2] THE 'BARNUM EFFECT' IN PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

[3] Forer Effect

[4] FROM CHANGING BUSINESS: BAD HOROSCOPE CAN TRIGGER SELF-INDULGENCE

Pictures:

Pixa Bay

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ah... well, you know... I think in the world where you and I live, no one really believes in horoscopes or fortune tellers. When it comes to important life choices, certainly not at all.

But you know what makes my happiness a little spoiled sometimes? That in this of facts... let me tell you...obsessed world the language of symbolism threatens to lose itself. Except at the movies, of course. It is full of symbolism and mysticism and that is something you can't claim to be anything more than useful when you're back in the serious business.

Actually, ... I think the (probable) fact that we are leaving out symbolism in our daily encounters is that it got all sucked up from the film- and advertisement industry. One could already speak of abuse:)

sighing

I mean, let's have some fun with horoscopes. Even if I don't read them. But to the fortune-teller I have to say something else: It takes some ability to read the body language and if a woman dressed with cloth and jewelry would say something directly to the head, I would be very well entertained. I would like to pay her my compliments for an extraordinarily good telling!

;-)

I actually enjoy the purpose of symbols and symbolism in our lives. Of course here I refer to the intentional cause of a certain symbol being created or placed somewhere, not mistaking coincidence for faith.
As for the horoscopes I am sure that none of the people believe in this kind of 'mumbo-jumbo', but it was interesting to research about this phenomenon anyway.
I would like to join you whenever you find that woman! Curious to see if there is such as well.
Once again you confirm the similarities in our way of thinking. Thank you for your meaningful comment!

You are welcome. I like all of your posts. Sometimes I miss it when you make a new post. I don't know, I am getting kind of exhausted because the pace doesn't seem right. Actually, I would like to engage more on single articles for quite some time, having interesting exchanges in a polite and non-aggressive way. Taking in philosophical and ethical topics into the sciences.

You published so many interesting articles yet I don't find the time to go through them and give them the deserved attention. ...

I would like you to read my youngest article, by the way, to see what you think.

... I am asking myself if not some of the STEM writers can form a group and consider ethical questions into their profession. But then I think ... Maybe I would open Pandoras box...

Thank you for your kind words - I know you mean them.
Whenever you find time and strength to engage, please do :)

You published so many interesting articles yet I don't find the time to go through them and give them the deserved attention. ...

Recently, my articles do not perform well, so your comment means a lot. Hopefully one day I would reach people who would take their time to read and comment like you do.

Thank you for your invitation, be assured that I would stop by and read it.

... I am asking myself if not some of the STEM writers can form a group and consider ethical questions into their profession. But then I think ... Maybe I would open Pandoras box...

Hmm.. please tell me more about this idea?

:) Yes, I saw that performing was low. And so I thought, I will make a comment and show you that it's about the content, not the money.

As I am tired now, I will come back later to you. Good night for now.

I don't know what you mean by

it's about the content, not the money.

If I would want to "make money" I think we both know how that could easily happen with abuse of the system and low quality content.

The truth for my case is that lately I've been so busy, that I even rarely managed to reply to some comments. My inactivity in Steemit frustrated me, so I was looking for some topics which would not be so time-consuming to write and discuss. The result, as it is, was expected.

Thank you for your support !

HaHa!! :-) People are more attracted to higher voted articles and more likely to comment on them. Taking this as a phenomenon I noticed this on my blog, too. I am always thinking of my content as "quality" - only differ in the given range and for who.

I would like to object that this article was of less quality because for me it is of high quality. I cannot withdraw your writings from the character I perceive behind them. As I placed you in my mind and heart as someone sensible and wise this accompanies me when I read what you write.

To show it's about the content, not the money I had in mind other visitors to your blog (seeing that although it is not voted high interest is there) and this article in particular.

Does that make sense to you?

I understood how fortune tellers and horoscopes were worked, Did not know the term Forer effect tho :)
The one thing about the positioning of stars having an influence over moods lucky numbers things you should and should not do, would it not also be reasonable there to assume that distance proximity to a source has a bearing on the influential effect one thing can have on another. Take then into account the movement of the galaxies these stars are within. The majority of galaxy are moving away from each other with increasing and faster growing distance, that if the stars had any effect on the lives of people, the influence decreases each day as the distance grows. I say this to show there is always more then what is said to you,

When you take this to a higher level, or larger community of people. the same thing is done through media outlets. A persons line of thought can be manipulated to a degree by the information shown. Depending on the media shown, which side of a situation is pushed.
While the fortune teller and horoscope writer are wanting you to part with money, The media control is used to persuade your opinions. There is no investigative journalism done, it is democratic or republican, The truth is never told. The room for neutrality is diminished.

I may have went a bit off topic there. But! people need to think through the things they hear and read, and not accept everything at face value. Opinions are great to be expressed, unless the opinion is discussed and agreed upon on a large scale of the population, it remains opinion and not fact.

This is what I like most about Steemit, the ability for a wider range of audience to have and voice their opinion on any topic.

When you take this to a higher level, or larger community of people. the same thing is done through media outlets. A persons line of thought can be manipulated to a degree by the information shown. Depending on the media shown, which side of a situation is pushed.

Absolutely agree with you on that ! It's absolutely on topic.

I am glad that this article provoked some thoughts ! Thank you for sharing them with me!

this is a good post, sorry for missing it :) (I am trying to vote but it won't work, steemit is so laggish today)

Not sure if troll or sincere :DD
Thanks anyway :P

no, it's 100 % sincere. Apparently it has expired and we can no longer vote it :(

I can't help but believe in horoscopes and descriptions of people by zodiac signs. This is too true. I met a Libra man for a whole year and I dreamed that it would lead us to something more, but at some point he said that he wanted to end our relationship. I read an article about will libra man come back and now I'm crying because I love him, but I understand that he will never give me a chance to be with him.