{"id":4288,"date":"2010-07-06T03:45:27","date_gmt":"2010-07-06T03:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=4288"},"modified":"2010-07-06T03:45:27","modified_gmt":"2010-07-06T03:45:27","slug":"horoscopes-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/horoscopes-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Horoscopes. Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2010\/07\/why-people-fall-for-horoscopes.html\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-4302\" title=\"Sedona Aug 95 (photo AS)\" src=\"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Sedona-Aug-95-photo-AS-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/>Via Andrew Sullivan<\/a>, here\u2019s an interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/youarenotsosmart.com\/2010\/06\/29\/subjective-validation\/\" target=\"_blank\">piece<\/a> on why people fall for horoscopes. The need to find patterns (and thus \u2018meaning\u2019) is nothing new, but I was intrigued by this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The tendency to believe vague statements designed to appeal to just about anyone is called the Forer Effect, and psychologists point to this phenomenon to explain why people fall for pseudoscience like biorhythms, iridology and phrenology or mysticism like astrology, numerology and tarot cards. The Forer Effect is part of larger phenomenon psychologists refer to as subjective validation, which is a fancy way of saying you are far more vulnerable to suggestion when the subject of the conversation is you\u2026Those who claim the powers of divination hijack these natural human tendencies. They know they can depend on you to use subjective validation in the moment and confirmation bias afterward. They expect you will see yourself in a mirror of a thousand faces, and then later on you see only the things which validate that reflection.<br \/>\nThe natural human tendencies to seek order in chaos and believe in generalities both get enhanced when the information supposedly pertains to you, when it is personal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Andrew Sullivan, here\u2019s an interesting piece on why people fall for horoscopes. The need to find patterns (and thus \u2018meaning\u2019) is nothing new, but I was intrigued by this: The tendency to believe vague statements designed to appeal to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/horoscopes-why\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[574],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4288"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4305,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288\/revisions\/4305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}