“What’s your sign? I’ll read your horoscope” is always a fun side conversation to have with a friend. You begin to ooh la la at your Pisces friend when you read her horoscope from Elle that says, “Feeling stir crazy in a relationship? Plan a romantic vacation a deux, or even learn a foreign language together to prep for an international getaway. Single Pisces could embark on a sizzling affair with someone from another country or culture. As long as you both speak le international language of love, it's all good!" It’s all in good fun until we start making life decisions and blaming our problems on our zodiac signs.
In a bar, I was once asked, “What’s your sign?” which is just a strange question to ask. I replied with “Scorpio.” He was a Cancer, which are supposed to be very compatible with Scorpios, so too bad that didn't go anywhere. I was trying to get into a music festival when I was freshly 21 years old and being accused of a fake ID. They were quizzing me on what was on my ID, and one of them asked me what my astrological sign is. Again, I replied with “Scorpio.” Knowing your sign is just something you know, even if it bears no real meaning in your life.
Let's say you read a description of your sign and it is spot on to your personality. You view a compatibility chart only to discover that you, a Sagittarius, is not a good romantic match with your Virgo ex-boyfriend (that explains a lot?). This is called the Forer effect. The Forer effect is described as “the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that are supposedly tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.” That’s why horoscopes feel like they apply to you and only you.
Shawn Carlson carried out a study that “refutes the astrological hypothesis,” and you can find lists of other scientists who have also done studies that have not been able to validate astrology’s claims. It’s hard to tell when people are just making money off of being able to make predictions based on people’s zodiac signs, or when people deeply believe it’s true. I did listen to a girl in a bar (see a pattern?) talk about how she was in this great relationship for a year and a half. She (a Leo) started to see a few minor traits in her significant other (a Taurus) that she did not like, and their signs weren’t compatible according to the Internet, so she decided to break it off because she knew they weren’t going to work out in the long run because of their incompatible signs. I waited to see if she was joking (she wasn't), nervously chugged the rest of my beer, and ordered both of us a shot.
I’ve heard similar stories in bars, on the Internet, and through friends. If you read your horoscope in the morning and it says your day is going to be stressful, you're going to stress yourself out, Capricorn. You didn’t have a bad breakup because you are a Sagittarius and he is a Virgo; you just didn’t work out. You didn’t get promoted because you are a Libra; you worked your butt off and you deserve it! Whatever your horoscope for the day, month, or year says: don’t stress about it. You are not your horoscope!
