Despite the fact that there is zero science to back it up, astrology is a billion dollar industry worldwide. In India, especially, there is a huge market for this pseudoscience — now, more so, with the advent of digital technology.

“The practice of astrology took a major step toward achieving credibility today when, as predicted, everyone born under the sign of Scorpio was run over by an egg truck,” a newspaper cartoon from 1983 reads, mocking the supremely generalized, non-specific predictions made by astrologers.

Then, despite years and layers of criticism, why do people continue to believe in this pseudoscience? According to psychologists, there are several reasons.

Human beings constantly seek narratives to help weave their past, present, and future together through their goals and expectations — and that’s where astrology comes in. “[Astrology] provides [people] a very clear frame for that explanation,” Monisha Pasupathi, a developmental psychologist at the University of Utah, told The Atlantic. Also, astrology helps create and validate the concept of self for some, and there are thousands of websites on the internet, which cater to just that through their listicles on personality traits attributable to different sun signs. Moreover, for some others, astrology also imparts a sense of belonging. “It allows you to see yourself as part of the world: “Here’s where I fit in, oh, I’m Pisces,’” Margaret Hamilton, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, told Smithsonian Magazine in 2016.

Studies also show that people often turn to astrology in response to stress and anxiety. “Under conditions of high stress, the individual is prepared to use astrology as a coping device even though under low-stress conditions he does not believe in it,” Graham Tyson, Professor of Psychology at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, said. In fact, the first astrology column to be commissioned for a newspaper was during the Great Depression in August, 1930. Again, during the 2008 financial crisis, people sought out astrologers to foretell their future. “All of those structures that people had relied upon… started to fall apart. That’s how a lot of people get into it. They’re, like, ‘What’s going on in my life? Nothing makes sense’,” astrologer Rebecca Gordon told The New Yorker, reminiscing 2008.