How many times have the world been told that columns like “your destiny this year” are most often the collective work of the editorial board, fortune-tellers are just good psychologists, and the signs of the Zodiac have so shifted in the sky over several millennia that all ancient calculations need to be corrected for a long time. But people still believe in the mysterious and unsubstantiated.
The failed end of the world once again made me think: why do people believe in all kinds of mysticism - predictions, palmistry, horoscopes? In fact, there is an answer to this question, and it is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance.
In 1948, psychologist and teacher Bertram Forer conducted an experiment on his own students. He gave them a special personality test - ostensibly in order to conduct an in-depth analysis of the character of each based on its results. However, instead of individual results, he gave everyone the same vague text taken from the horoscope. It said:
“You really need other people to love and admire you. You are pretty self-critical. You have many hidden opportunities that you have never used to your advantage. Although you have some personal weaknesses, you are generally able to neutralize them. Disciplined and confident in appearance, you actually tend to worry and feel insecure. At times, you have serious doubts about whether you made the right decision or did the right thing.
You prefer some variety, boundaries and limitations make you unhappy. You are also proud to think independently; you do not take someone else's statements on faith without sufficient evidence. You have learned that being too frank with other people is not very wise. Sometimes you are extroverted, affable and outgoing, sometimes you are introverted, cautious, and reserved. Some of your aspirations are rather unrealistic. One of your main goals in life is stability."
Most of the students agreed that the text describes its character fairly accurately. You can try it on yourself and make sure that many of the statements suit you - simply because the text is as vague as possible. Personality characteristics range from "introverted" to "extroverted", the subject turns out to be "confident in appearance", then "worried and feeling insecure", and as for the need for admiration - who does not experience it deep down?
After the students agreed on the test's astounding accuracy, Forer revealed his deception to them. Presumably, his students have learned forever why you should not believe vague horoscopes.
But Forer didn't stop at joking with the students. He classified principles by which an equally insightful "analysis" can be easily made at home. First, the subject must be convinced that the description is applicable to him or to a specific group of people to which he considers himself (these character traits are inherent in zodiacal Leo, brown-eyed, left-handed, and so on).
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The vagueness of the characteristic, which we have already analyzed, makes it applicable to almost any person, and this leads the subject to think about its fairness: “Yes, I really am an introvert, I am proud of the independence of my judgments, and sometimes I feel uncertainty, which I carefully hide”. It is desirable for the subject to consider the author of the characterization an authoritative figure.
The modern press successfully copes with this role - "once printed in the newspaper …". And the last - the description should mainly contain positive characteristics. Using these five principles, an "accurate astrological forecast" or "characterological portrait" can be made by a person who does not understand anything in astrology or psychology.
This simple truth was again illustrated in an experiment by the American psychologist Ross Stagner in the late 1950s. He gave 68 personnel officers from various firms a psychological questionnaire to fill out, which allows them to compile a detailed psychological description of a person, after which he compiled one fake characteristic common to all, using 13 phrases from different horoscopes. Stagner then asked the subjects to read the characteristics, telling them that they were developed from the data of a psychological test.
After each phrase, the participants in the experiment had to note how, in their opinion, it is correct and how truly reflects their character. Grades of assessments were proposed as follows: amazingly true, true, fairly true, halfway through, rather erroneous and completely incorrect. More than a third of those present considered that their psychological portraits were sketched amazingly correctly, 40% - quite right, and almost no one considered their characterization completely wrong. But these were the heads of the personnel departments, that is, people who seemed to be experienced in assessing personal qualities!
Tellingly, the participants found the most correct positive statements, for example: “You prefer some variety in life, a certain degree of change and start to get bored if you are infringed upon by various restrictions and strict rules”; "While you have some personal flaws, you usually know how to deal with them." On the contrary, the following two statements were recognized as the least true: "There are some problems in your sex life" and "Your hopes are sometimes rather unrealistic."
Similar studies were repeated more than once, and the result was the same - people believed in pleasant vague phrases. In psychology, this is called the Forer effect (after the author of the experiment on students) or the Barnum effect (after the famous American entrepreneur and circus owner Phineas Barnum in the 19th century). This showman and hoaxer liked to repeat that "every minute one simpleton is born on Earth." The motto of the program of his circus and fairgrounds was: "We have something for everyone." Doesn't it sound like horoscopes in vague terms?
The Barnum-Forer effect is formulated as follows: a person is inclined to take at his own expense general, vague, banal statements, mostly positive (but without outright flattery), if he is told that they were obtained as a result of studying some factors that he does not understand and if he is sure, that these statements characterize him personally. It is not difficult to create such confidence - it is enough to highlight a certain sign: date of birth, hair or eye color, and so on. People are flattered by attention to their person, especially if this attention is provided by some "experts" who make up a horoscope or a characteristic for the applied subject.
There are additional factors that contribute to the success of horoscopes and other "predictions of fate." Firstly, it is good for an astrologer to hint that he possesses some special knowledge - for example, the secret of correct fortune-telling is passed on in his family from generation to generation, or he personally communicated with the priests of the disappearing tribe, who passed on their secret to him …
Secondly, providing detailed data. Here the influence of rationalization affects: people are less likely to believe an astrologer, who will begin to make a forecast just by looking at them, but they will take the words of someone who will demand the exact date, time and place of birth with much more seriousness. The person has the illusion that the accuracy of the data provided also affects the accuracy of the forecast.
Moreover, over time, the belief in the correctness of the forecast grows stronger. We forget the most vague statements, but what "came true" lingers in our memory for a long time. In addition, the "ancient prophecy" looks much more impressive than the recent one. This was clearly shown by the excitement around the end of the world-2012, allegedly predicted by the Mayan priests. It is significant that they began to talk about this very ancient prediction only after 2000, when the next ends of the world, scheduled for early dates, were canceled.
Anyone who even occasionally reads newspapers and books is aware that in the last hundred years alone, death has been promised dozens of times. According to clairvoyants, prophets and "contactees" with other planets (as they call themselves), as well as historians and science fiction writers, the population of the Earth should have disappeared long ago. The apocalypse was expected in the 60s, then in the 90s, then, of course, in 2000. When the next prediction fails, people turn their attention to the next date. What makes us vigorously discuss the end of the world, fear and even wait for it? Psychologists believe that behind such a seemingly global theme of the death of the whole world lies all the same - the attitude of each person to his own life.
When the topic of the next doomsday in December 2012 became popular, jokes spread among the people that now, finally, you can safely take out loans and get involved in a mortgage: there will still be no one to pay the bills. According to experts, it is convenient for some people to "cling" to some event in the future, which relieves them of responsibility for what they are doing in the present. For some reason, they cannot afford to live the way they want right now. The supposed end of the world gives them a kind of indulgence: do whatever you want, no one will have time to condemn and stop you.
The theme of the end of the world also has a communicative function. People love to feel part of a group that shares their worries, fears, and beliefs. In real life, finding “friends” is not so easy: adults, successful people have too many differences, roughnesses, for all their opinions. But anxiety in front of a possible "end of everything", like any threat, perfectly unites the team, be it a group of friends, a group of colleagues in the office, or a large family. It's also nice to be aware of your involvement in global events - it makes you feel significant.
True, if the prophecies came true, proudly utter the phrase: "I have found the end of the world" - there would be no one. But it was so nice to dream about it … But another prophecy about the apocalypse turned out to be false, and everyone will have to decide for themselves what to do with their lives, whether to consider themselves extroverts or introverts and how to spend the next year. Although you can turn to an astrologer or read the next predictions about the end of the world. They say the next one is "appointed" for 2021 …
