From the author: Impressed by the hype around the suddenly revealed 13th zodiac sign, the editors of the Buro 24/7 portal asked me to explain why people believe in horoscopes. I am a professional psychologist. I respect the scientific picture of the world, I try to think rationally and critically. Therefore, consciously, I do not believe in horoscopes. But when another picture “rating of killers among zodiac signs” pops up on my Facebook feed, I automatically look for myself and my husband in the rating (“I’m in the middle, my husband is at the end of the list, that’s okay”). A senseless action? Yes. But behind every automatic action there is an unconscious mechanism. And irrational belief in astrology also has its psychological reasons. Reason No. 1: Worldview It's like cassette recorders. If you grew up in an environment where everyone listened to cassette recorders, then no matter how many years have passed, give you a cassette and a ballpoint pen - you will know exactly what to do. Together with cassette recorders, New Age ideas poured into the Soviet open spaces in the 1980s : mysticism, occultism, astrology, esotericism. And if in Western countries these ideas developed freely and evolutionarily, which allowed society to simultaneously develop some “intellectual immunity,” then inside the “Iron Curtain” people were somewhat stunned by this flow. In the 1990s, all popular magazines and newspapers had a section “ Horoscope", the same on radio and TV. So the idea has become integrated into the picture of the world and no longer seems alien. Few people even think about this - why do I believe in horoscopes? What does this give me? What is this belief based on? People simply know: there are men and women, there are different races and nationalities, and then there are Taurus, Sagittarius and Scorpio. To specifically question these ideas requires separate efforts, and few people will do this - there are already enough difficulties in life to shake your picture of the world once again. Reason No. 2: Identity In our psyche there is not only an idea about the structure of the world around us ( worldview), but also a picture of myself: who I am, what are my main, unchangeable qualities, what groups do I belong to. Without this, we would not be able to fully live, act and enter into relationships as “us” (example: people who have experienced amnesia, see “The Bourne Identity”). And no matter how funny it may sound, the information that I am a Capricorn is is also part of my identity, ever since, as a child, I came across the thin book “Zodiac Sign and Character”. And if you know your zodiac sign, then no matter how this knowledge is, at first glance, useless, if someone tells you: “In fact, you are not Libra, you are Taurus” (conditionally) - you will definitely experience discomfort. Because somewhere deep down, if you dig deep, everyone thinks that their “team” is cool and better than the rest. And it’s even nice. Reason No. 3: Social stereotypes The world is very complex. In order to somehow navigate and move in it, you need to understand its structure and laws. But it is impossible to know everything about everything in detail. Therefore, we create an approximate scheme for ourselves from simplified images - stereotypes. Politicians lie, Italians are passionate, blondes are stupid, and lions love to be the center of attention. Horoscopes offer a relatively simple explanatory and predictive scheme: who has what character, who should marry whom, and who should not be friends with whom. If you think that you can predict how a person will behave, how a marriage will turn out, and what will happen tomorrow, this gives you confidence. And even if the explanatory scheme is not proven, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that it is relatively simple. This is the thing about stereotypes - they cannot be accurate, sometimes they are incomplete, erroneous and even outright false. But they make it easier to make decisions when there is a lack of information, so we often hold on to them and prefer simplicity to truth. Reason No. 4: Uncertainty The uncertainty of our future causes anxiety. Certainty, on the contrary, calms. That’s why all types of predictions are so popular, including horoscopes “for tomorrow, for)