175. Why Is Astrology So Popular?

Why does your horoscope seem so accurate? Is it possible to believe and not believe in something at the same time? And is Mike a classic Gemini?

• SOURCES:• P. T. Barnum, 19th-century American showman and businessman.
• David Brooks, New York Times Opinion columnist.
• Bertram Forer, 20th-century American psychologist.
• Daniel Kahneman, professor emeritus of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University.
• Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Program in Placebo Studies and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School.
• Sten Odenwald, Director of STEM Resource Development at NASA.
• Sydney Page, staff reporter for The Washington Post.
• Jane L. Risen, professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
• RESOURCES:• "Young People Are Flocking to Astrology. But It Comes With Risks," by Sydney Page (The Washington Post, 2023).
• "The Age of Aquarius, All Over Again!" by David Brooks (The New York Times, 2019).
• "Response Expectancy and the Placebo Effect," by Irving Kirsch (International Review of Neurobiology, 2018).
• "Believing What We Do Not Believe: Acquiescence to Superstitious Beliefs and Other Powerful Intuitions," by Jane L. Risen (Psychological Review, 2016).
• Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (2011).
• "Effects of Stress and Tolerance of Ambiguity on Magical Thinking," by Giora Keinan (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1994).
• Changing Expectations: A Key to Effective Psychotherapy, by Irving Kirsch (1990).
• "The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A Classroom Demonstration of Gullibility," by Bertram Forer (The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1949).
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
• EXTRAS:• "What Do Broken-Hearted Knitters, Urinating Goalkeepers, and the C.I.A. Have in Common?" by Freakonomics Radio (2022).
• "Sam Harris: 'Spirituality Is a Loaded Term,'" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).

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