Not the real you! (astrocenter.com)

Member Name: stmatth

Product:	astrocenter.com
Date:	21/08/00 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's free

Disadvantages: It's meaningless

From a technical point of view, this site is well designed. You type in your birthdate, and you get not only your horoscope, but also your Chinese horoscope, your numerology and a few more things.

But, is my horoscope really me? Oh yes, but it is also almost everybody else. Look at statements like:
"Today is not a day to sit back and be passive. If you do so, you might get completely trampled by the steam engine that is headed your way."
Yes, that is true for me. It is probably also true for you, and for some 80% of the population. In other words, it's a completely meaningless statement. Psychologists call descriptions of this type "Barnum descriptions": "Barnum descriptions are highly accurate, trivial, favorable descriptions of all normal people" (from: Layne, C. (1979): The Barnum Effect: rationality versus gullibility? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 47, 219-221).

So, don't take it too serious, don't believe that the description says anything about you. The descriptions that you get from the site are composed of randomly chosen Barnum-statements, carefully written in order to impress and convince you. Don't fall into that trap, we humans have a great ability to deceive ourselves!

If you still don't believe me, try the following: Tell a friend that you are going to get her horoscope, but then you type in some random birthdate instead of her real one, but don't tell her this. If you then ask her how accurate the horoscope is, you will be surprised how many accurate descriptions she will find in the horoscope, even though it's based on the wrong birthdate. This experiment can be great fun on parties!

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