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Have you ever glanced over at the horoscope column in a newspaper or magazine just for "fun" or out of curiosity?

Do you even deliberately look for it each day? Do you really believe that half a billion people in the world are going to have the same day/week/month? (Because your horoscope isn't exactly personalized - it applies to a twelfth of the world's population). Horoscope writers use a lot of tricks to make you believe what they've said. A famous experiment was carried out in 1948, by the psychologist Bertram R. Forer. He gave his students a personality test, then gave them all exactly the same "results" (which he'd assembled from horoscopes): 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. The students were asked to rate the personality profile's accuracy from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most accurate rating. Guess what? The average rating was 4.26 -- despite the fact that every single student had received exactly the same rating. This has been dubbed the Forer effect, and it's been borne out by study after study ever since 1948. You might be reading this and thinking "but, my horoscope has come true on several occasions!" Well, I'm afraid that's just an example of subjective validation - which means you pick up on co-incidences and assign them an incorrect meaning. This particularly happens when it's something that has personal meaning to you: when you want it to be more than a coincidence.

Think of it this way. Have you ever had that experience when the phone rings, you think "it'll be John" and it is? Spooky, huh? But what about all the times when you think "it'll be John" ... and it isn't. You probably forget all about those. Even if you're a horo-sceptic like me, imagine for a moment that you do believe every word of a horoscope or personality profile. You could end up hugely limiting yourself because of it. For example, if your horoscope warns of money problems ahead, you might get anxious, or even use it as an excuse to spend unnecessarily, thinking that hard times are inevitable. Or maybe you are really looking for guidance.

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