Talking about constellations is a great way to break the silence in conversations and on social media, and the history of constellations goes back a long time. We all know that there is no solid scientific basis for astrology, but many people still follow and read about constellations, checking daily horoscopes. While telling people “I’m a Taurus” won’t excuse your stubbornness, a lot of people still prefer to use zodiac signs to describe their personality. .
How would you react if you learned that the current constellations are no longer accurate, and the thirteenth has appeared? Also, why do we always love to study astrology, and also like to use constellations to define ourselves?
What is astrology?
Humans have been observing the night sky for thousands of years, maybe out of curiosity, maybe to better understand the world, or maybe for nothing, in short, we have no way of knowing why. Specifically. The ancients observed the motions of the sun, stars, and planets and found periodic patterns. Not only did these observations provide an explanation for seasonal and tidal phenomena, moreover the ancients also began to predict the future through the motions of the planets.
Astrology is the study of the movements of the celestial bodies and the correlation between the movements of the celestial bodies and a person’s future personality and behavior. The ancient Greeks believed that the sky was a giant dome covering the Earth and called it “heavenly sphere”. Both the sun and the celestial bodies move along this path, the “ecliptic”. Constellation refers to the area in the sky over which the sun moves at the time of a person’s birth, and is divided into 12 sectors, each corresponding to the 12 months of the year.
Twelve constellations, corresponding to the 12 zodiac signs.
If I ask you what zodiac sign you are, I’m sure you at least know what I’m talking about. You should also know that predicting the future based on the zodiac sign can also be considered quite unscientific. However, we still enjoy studying constellations, predicting personality, future relationships, career development and more. And in fact, from the point of view of science, we can explain this particular preference through two effects.
The Barnum Effect
The Barnum effect refers to the fact that when people see some general description of behavior and personality, they always assume that’s exactly what they’re describing themselves. For example, when you see a sentence like, “sometimes you don’t want to be with people, you just want to be alone”, there are bound to be many people who say “exactly, me too”.
The keyword for the Barnum effect is “sometimes”. This general description might seem to fit your personality, but the truth is, all people have extroverted and introverted moments.
People with outwardly controlling tendencies and self-deprecating habits are often susceptible to the Barnum effect. These people often think that their life is governed by external factors such as luck, fate, environment, which inadvertently create a fertile ground for the development of astrology. .
The Barnum effect is a phenomenon in which individuals appreciate specific descriptions of their personality, but are actually not specific and true to many people.
Priming effect
The priming effect refers to the phenomenon in which a previous stimulus affects the perception of subsequent stimuli. Once you believe that you have a trait, you will continue to strengthen the connection between yourself and this trait.
If articles about astrology, zodiac signs say that you will have a bad day today, then you will most likely be drawn into that lame prediction as soon as you finish reading and think again. What did I do today and what’s wrong with the machine. Every time you encounter a problem during the day, you will feel that the prophecy has been confirmed.
In psychology, “baiting” is the technique of using a stimulus to influence the response of a subsequent stimulus and without conscious intent or guidance.
According to the Confirmation Bias theory in psychology, people are more likely to accept predictions that are consistent with their beliefs. Assuming you consider yourself an honest person, you’ll be more likely to agree with the “you are calm” and “you value honesty” predictions because it confirms your beliefs about the relationship. own points.
In addition, astrologers also carefully observe the facial expressions and body language of guests when making predictions. These nonverbal feedback can help them assess whether guests are satisfied with the prophecies they hear, thereby giving different directions accordingly.
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