Horoscope Or Confirmation Bias? Am I Tricking Myself?

Ok confession, I am a sucker for horoscopes. I love to see how the stars and the universe played a part in me being who I am, how I act and who I love. To me, it was an escape during lockdown and allowed me to learn a lot about myself and why I am the way I am. But I have been wondering recently, am I tricking myself into thinking they’re real? Am I looking to lean on a crutch as to why he won’t call me back? 

Looking into the psychology of why we believe our horoscopes has been a really interesting experience for me. While being a scholarly young woman and doing my research, I stumbled across something called the Barnum Effect, (yes named after Hugh Jackman’s character in The Greatest Showman). 

The basis of this theory is that if someone were to give you a description of yourself and say ‘you can be loud and chatty but sometimes you can be quiet and reserved’ you’d believe that. That’s because while it doesn’t contain exact specifics about you and yourself, it’s a generalised assumption based on normal human ways. We are all sometimes loud and we are all sometimes quiet, it’s the way humans work.

So how does this work when we apply it to our horoscopes? Let’s take little old Gemini Sun, Libra Moon and Cancer Rising me, (roast me I know it’s bad). I read a horoscope the other day that said my love life was on the up, (thank god for that) and my mind immediately went to people who could possibly be the reason for it being on the up. 

I texted them, flirted, you get the gist. I sought out what my horoscope had told me to make it come true. If it didn’t come true I could just say my horoscope was wrong and that would be that without even taking a moment to think about anything else. 

It never occurred to me that the reason it doesn’t seem to be on the up is because maybe the person I wanted it to be about isn’t interested in me. And we could say the same thing for planets being in retrograde, we blame them for us seeking out things to justify the retrograde. 

The more I read about this theory and confirmation bias, the more I began to think my horoscope may just not be true. In all honesty, this has messed with my brain. I genuinely cannot tell if my horoscope is playing with my mind to help me out or if the universe is weaving everything for me to find out along the way. All I know is, I am going to continue to read my horoscopes and hope for the best. They’re part of my routine and if anything, they’re good for the plot.

• Alice Jack
• astrology
• confirmation bias
• horoscope