What do you think of fortune telling?

One of my elders had a bad career in his early years. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how hard he pays, it is always difficult to get ahead and he is repeatedly suppressed.

After years of setbacks, he found a legendary very clever fortune teller.

Mr. Xiang Ming said: "The villain is in power, you can't turn over. Life should be, don't entangle. Let you be small, you will be low; If you dare to look up, you will be in trouble. "

The elder asked, "Isn't there a day to turn over?"

Mr. Xiang Ming said, "Let me count. When you are 46 years old, your luck will turn. " . It's just that planes, tanks and artillery can't stop your good luck then. "

After listening to this, the elders suddenly felt suddenly enlightened. "It turns out that there should be such a robbery in life, and I don't have to do unnecessary resistance!" Anyway, just wait for the arrival of 46 ... "

So I should eat and sleep instead of worrying about it every day-guess what? At the age of 46, he really reached the top and made a fortune.

In fact, the core of fortune telling is algorithm. However, most fortune-tellers are like elders who have lost themselves. They are in a state of depression and depression, losing their sense of control over life, their sense of security is also affected, and their psychological dependence is getting higher and higher. Fortune-telling will inevitably assume the role of psychological counselor for thousands of years.

Fortune telling ≠ psychology; Psychology/fortune telling

In fact, fortune telling is only a part of psychology, which is taken out of context and has no scientific basis. It just uses the weakness of human nature for its own benefit.

For example, the fortune teller told his elders that your early career was not smooth, and that was your destiny. How can people fight each other? Why should we struggle to operate? It is better to accept your fate, dispel your inner unwillingness, calmly deal with it, and follow the trend.

Isn't this what psychology often calls "acceptance"?

Psychologically speaking, a fully functional person can recognize and accept the good and bad in life and live in the present without making judgments.

So, why does a person feel anxious?

It is often because negative events in the past (or negative expectations for the future) are too distracting. Fortune-telling turned it into external attribution-"I am a good man, but I am unlucky").

At the same time, "acceptance" does not mean giving up coping, and the purpose of acceptance is change. If you can really accept yourself, the change may happen inadvertently-because you have gradually approached Rogers' "mentally sound person".

Sometimes, it's hard for you to try to accept it yourself and convince yourself with yourself. You have to find a higher level existence to force you to convince yourself to work.

This higher level of existence is "fate" or "spirit".

Then some people may ask, acceptance is acceptance, which can be said to be very calm acceptance, but what happened to this old man when he was 46 years old?

This is a very common concept in psychology-pygmalion effect, also known as self-testifying prophecy, which means that people will unconsciously act according to the known prophecy and eventually make it happen.

The classic experiment of self-testimony prediction may be familiar to everyone:

It was a group of psychologists who ran to the school and said to several teachers: I found that so many children in your school are rare talents! At the same time, you are also good teachers selected by us. Now I hope you can be a strong leader to seize Qiang Bing!

What happened? Sure enough, these students stood out in the later exams.

But what is the truth? These students and teachers are all selected by psychologists with their eyes closed.

Then why is there a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Because people are not completely passive when accepting environmental impact, but will actively respond according to personal expectations and make expectations come true. The firmer the belief, the more subjective initiative can be exerted.

When I firmly believe that I will have a successful career at 46, I will unconsciously pay attention to and strengthen the positive information that meets this expectation, and these positive information will make me more and more optimistic and confident, thus inducing more positive information. In the long run, the virtuous circle, mentality and behavior will become more and more positive-thinking that Laozi is a "person who is about to embark on the peak of his life", then he will not follow the wind and be domineering, and the result will greatly enhance his success.

For example, when people encounter such things as "upper body ghosts" and "animal possession", many ordinary people like to invite "jumping gods" to dance.

These situations are actually hysteria, also called separation and conversion disorder, which is often a mental disorder caused by negative events, psychological conflicts, hints or self-hints in life.

For example, the mother-in-law is not good to her daughter-in-law. Suddenly one day, her daughter-in-law was possessed by her dead mother-in-law, warning her mother-in-law to "stop abusing my daughter, or I will come to you every day". Scared the mother-in-law from bullying the daughter-in-law, and so on.

At this time, the role of jumping is the role of a wild "psychiatrist" (I am really not a black psychiatrist).

People who suffer from hysteria are often those who are not cared about, lack self-confidence and are easily hinted at. Then, with the care of family members and the relief of the great god, the patient was taken care of first; Once again, "disposal practice" strengthened the confidence of patients in curing; Then use "divine power" to give patients psychological hints, and this set of processes comes down, which coincides with psychotherapy. ...

To sum up, the reason why fortune telling is "accurate" is very simple. Only four things appear again and again:

1. "You can't remember what is not allowed, but what is right is repeatedly praised", which is the famous "survivor prejudice".

2. The predicted things are ambiguous or take a long time to come true. In a word, you can't say that he is wrong, that is, he can't be falsified.

For example, "As long as you drink enough water this month, your luck will change." As a result, you drink water desperately, but almost nothing good has happened this month. Great, that means you haven't drunk enough water.

In a word, this sentence can always be in an invincible position, because you never know what "enough" is, and this is "not falsifiable".

There is also a so-called falsifiable result, which is predicted for a long time and cannot be verified in a short time. For example, "You will be successful in my official career in the future", so what is the future? Does 10 count? Does 30 years count? In short, it is nothing. The feng shui master has collected the money and left.

3. Ambiguous words with nothing to say can easily make you feel the key point, which is called "Barnum effect" in academic circles.

4. Encouraging words make you more confident and do better. Attacking your comments makes you easy to degenerate and fail, which is the "pygmalion effect" of the feedback system.

Why does that man always want to tell fortune?

Of course, curiosity comes first.

Secondly, avoid the uncertainty in life.

For many people, "unknown result" is more terrible than "bad result". For example, waiting for the interview results or the diagnosis report of seeing a doctor. Unknown and uncontrollable situations make people restless, and we will hope to get rid of uncertainty as soon as possible.

Then there is a second psychology: to avoid decision fatigue, choose a convenient "fortune telling".

Psychologists point out that in reality, too many choices will also cause a huge ideological burden, which requires people to spend more energy and brain power to calculate and weigh. It won't take long for people to feel the fatigue caused by excessive burden, which is called "decision fatigue".

Finally, the third kind of psychology: people who are afraid of taking responsibility and prefer to give up freedom often say that "freedom" is precious and beautiful, but freedom is also a burden of life.

For example, after graduation, a person gives up looking for a job in this major and goes to a new industry to work hard. If he fails later, he can't blame others. Therefore, freedom means responsibility.

Some people are afraid to make choices about important life issues because they don't want to face possible negative results. So, they gave up their choice and gave it to "fate".

Even if this choice eventually leads to failure, they don't have to blame themselves, because they think it is "fate" and a fact that they can't change.

Compared with possible failure, they are more afraid of facing the weakness and powerlessness after making their own choices.

In fact, the accuracy of fortune telling lies not in the fortune teller, but in the differences in our hearts!