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).