I love reading about my astrological sign. Even if I know it’s improbable bullshit, I still get a pathetic satisfaction knowing I am “such a Cancer.” It’s that same feeling I got after my friends and I poured over the quizzes in Seventeen magazine. Magic! I answered mostly Bs and now I know I am the ‘tough friend with a heart of gold.’
I’ve never been a fan of daily horoscopes; rather, my crack is attributing the vague personality traits of a Cancer female to myself. The only time I was spooked by a daily horoscope was from the Seattle Weekly. The writer predicted that I would give someone a $10 bill but get change for a $20. I laughed at the chances. Later that day it happened when I went to the corner store for cigarettes. Coincidence made me a believer for 24 hours.
In 1948, psychologist Bertram Forer decided to do an experiment on his classroom. One day, he told his class that he had created individual personality outlines for each student. He instructed his subjects to go over the test and rate the paper’s accuracy. Of course, the outlines were identical, but each student rated the outline as an excellent description of themselves. Many psychologists have repeated similar experiments to the same results. We all want to be defined. We all want to be understood.
Horoscope writers rely on this phenomenon. Monthly predictions are uplifting and positive, and generally repeated on a loop year after year, but we’re too busy searching for meaning in the last page of the local weekly to notice. After thumbing through a newspaper filled with depressing information about the world, that last page of crosswords, horoscope and gossip serves as an adult fairytale. Disneyland on the last page. It’s a way to escape. But astrology ultimately fails because it cannot be tested. How do you prove that it does or does not work? As Dr. Gad Saad of Concordia University said, “How do we falsify the concept of destiny?”
In 2005, a Gallup poll revealed that 33 per cent of Canadian women believe in astrology, compared with 16 per cent of Canadian men. I’m willing to bet big that most of the women surveyed lied and said they don’t believe in astrology. This may be true, they are not sure if they believe in it, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they are intrigued by it. More interestingly, a 2014 study cited in the Independent noted that 58 per cent of 18-to-24-year-old millennials obsessively read their horoscopes and believe that “astrology is scientific.”
Daisy Buchanan of Glamour chalked up women’s belief in astrology to sexism.
“Men live in a world they have made, and so most of the time, their efforts yield results and they’re made to feel in charge of their lives,” she wrote. “We [women] are often in situations where we work hard and don’t get what we deserve. When we’re looking for a system that helps us to make sense of an unfair universe, why wouldn’t we look to the stars?”. Dr. Saad believes that women are drawn into their astrological predictions because of the “locus of control.” This psychological concept defines how much power one has over what happens in their own life. Some of us have an “external locus,” believing that we have little control over what happens to us, while others have a controlled “internal locus.” Dr. Saad admits that his research has shown women to be much more external. This is why Elle has horoscopes and Playboy has full nudity.
Psychotherapist Dr. Mike Leary thinks it has more to do with Mother Nature.
“Men can believe they are in control of things more than women,” he wrote in the comments section of the Gallop survey. “Women know, once a month, no matter what, their body hormones wreak havoc with their rational selves and are very aware, things can change. In general, women are closer to their feeling selves and look for something to help get a sense of control over their world. It doesn’t help that men tend to be arrogant enough to insist women follow their rules by threatening, bullying, or humiliating them if they don’t.”
I don’t know whether to blame Mother Nature, sexism, psychology or the need to belong. All I know is that as a Cancer, I’m eternally emotional and moody, so my moon is always in your anus. If you believe in astrology, what do you get from your faith? And if you think it’s bullshit, prove to me why.
