Horoscopes don’t provide useful information to help guide my decisions.
Users who add the star sign personality feature are asked:
| Out of interest, how far do you agree with the statement: “Horoscopes provide useful information to help guide my decisions” |
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| Strongly Disagree | Slightly Disagree | No Opinion | Slightly Agree | Strongly Agree |
With the caveat that people who opt-in to the myPersonality star sign feature are not necessarily the same as people who do not, we can have a look at the frequency graph for star sign belief.
1 = strongly disagree, 2 = slightly disagree, 3 = no opinion, 4 = slightly agree, 5 = strongly agree.
As is shown, just 4.6% of respondents believed strongly in the ability of horoscopes to provide information that would be useful to guide a decision, compared to 23.3% of respondents who believed strongly in the opposite. Perhaps surprisingly though, the number of people who leaned towards a negative opinion of the usefulness of horoscope information was almost equal to the number of people who leaned towards a positive opinion (17,359 negatively, 14,791 positively). The biggest difference is that people who leaned negatively tended to have a strong opinion that horoscopes provide no useful information, whereas those who learned postively weren’t so sure, electing for “slightly agree” rather than “strongly agree”.
Method and Results
Only people who have completed the full 100 question Big Five personality measure and who have enabled the star sign feature in myPersonality are included in the table. Thus there were 47,451 people in the analysis. To see the frequency of responses for each star sign belief category, click on the graph to view it full-sized.
I think it’s important to mention that horoscopes — as most people know them from newspapers — are not accurate representations of astrology in general. The reason is that they are based on only one aspect of a person’s astrological chart. Asking people if they find them useful seems to act both as a demonstration of the misunderstandings that people have about astrology and a perpetuation of those misunderstandings. Horoscopes are based on the sun sign — a fraction of a person’s astrological make-up — and nothing more. Using that alone is like trying to “predict” (something astrology isn’t really about either) how someone’s day is going to go based on their hair color.
I mention this in the event you (as many have done) assume that if someone does not find horoscopes useful, they also do not find astrology useful or meaningful. That would be like saying if someone doesn’t agree with Catholicism, then they don’t agree with Christianity. This would be a false conclusion.
- A sometimes ENFP, sometimes INFP, sometimes INTP — depending on who you ask. (I’m in the middle of the E/I and F/T axes.)
i know its silly but i spent a bit of time researching (and even learned how to read personal horoscopes) and the conclusion is – we use wrong dates for the horoscopes.
things move with time, sun for instance is now approximately one constellation behind compared to it’s traditional dates..
check it out.
http://www.livescience.com/widgets/birthday.html
http://www.geocities.com/astrologyzodiacs/realsolarzodiac.htm
I’d do a new study ! But that’s me.. entp.. :}
I presume this has already been thought of but I’d like to raise the point that those who enabled the star sign section of the test, are more likely than not to be those that believe in horoscopes and astrology, therefore the findings are suffering from sample bias. Self reporting measures have a tendency to be innacurate for various reasons, and in this instance it is simply that those who decided to check out this section of the test were likely to believe in “star sign personalities” and wanted to see whether they matched those. Myself, I do not believe that a star sign can predict exactly what every individual will be like. I know two so called Scorpios who are the complete opposites of each other and struggle to get along. I personally added this section of the test as I have been awake all night and was looking for something to do!
We have different facets in our personalities. The sun sign is only the beginning. An astrologer would have to do a horoscope chart to really make someone a believer. But once you learn about your chart, you will be hooked. Astrology is a great tool to learn why we are they way we are. It is tool to work with to realize why we are the way we are. A tool to use to maximize our potential. And a tool to use to realize why we have certain flaws. Eliminates a lot of guilt and stress when we realize we are the way we are suppose to be!!!!!!!!!!!
What Tristan said was on the mark. There is more to the western zodiac besides the sun. For instance: My sun is in late Aries, moon in early to mid Sagittarius and an Ascendant in early Gemini. Most horoscopes that only deal with sun signs I’ve noticed describe the early Aries in contrast to my late Aries.
I’m ENFP with a very high P, a high N, and barely an E and F. (Strangely I too fall between the axis of E/I and F/T at times.)
I don’t really agree or disagree about horoscopes being accurate or not, its just like while walking down the street, passing by a beautiful garden and contemplating on that for a while, appreciating it, smiling whimsically and continuing on my path.But really, My Star Sign Personality (on Facebook) says,”Overall therefore, your star sign has accurately predicted 4 out of 5 traits, which means that you are a true Aquarius!” I am ENFP btw.And my Birth Chart kind of points out somethings, may be coincidence…like I seek love, long for it actually from my mother.And then that I am going to become a doctor/or going to be in a career that has something to do with healing.And yes, I am going to be a doctor anyway, even if I thought of doing something different, I am doing it anyway and I am happy about it actually.Even my dream interpretations say that I am a healer :D I love to heal and help.Its kind of weird.But I am not going to believe in everything they say until they prove to me that they’re not using wrong data.Back it up with proof astrologers! Sometimes, people believe in silly things just like that.
So I am not going to take every sad, bad thing they print in the papers seriously.Just going to focus on the happier ones.
:) good things, good things @Tristan