Astrology, which investigates how the position of the planets and stars affects a person’s personality at the time of his or her birth, is very popular despite the fact that it is not based on scientific evidence. In Turkey, where it is often complained that serious publications are not sustainable for economic reasons, many astrology books are published every year and sold with high circulation. Almost all newspapers, with exceptions, have fortune-telling columns. People read their daily horoscopes with curiosity and approve personality descriptions based on predictions for the moment. There is nothing wrong with astrology gracing the tabloid pages of newspapers and entertaining people with daily horoscopes. The annual predictions based on the zodiac signs at the beginning of each year add color to life and are forgotten a few minutes after they are read. In social settings, personality interpretations based on astrology entertain and allow enthusiasts to gain attention. However, over time, the claims of astrology have begun to exceed the limits of entertaining and distracting people.
“Do you feel that you still have no direction in your life?”, ‘Are you worried about money?’, ‘Do you feel sadness when you should be the happiest?’, ‘Have you not found what you are looking for in love?’, ‘Are you worried about your future?’, ”Do you believe that others are more fortunate than you?”
If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, it means you need help. “Who” and ‘how’ can help you in this situation? “It is not in our hands to change circumstances, but when you know and understand yourself, you can solve your problems and achieve the success and happiness you deserve. Astrology will help you in this.” What drives people to buy these books, to read their daily horoscopes, to eagerly follow the personality interpretations of their horoscopes, and what strengthens their beliefs to such an extent?
“Let us introduce you”
I realized how strong and widespread the belief in astrology was when I was teaching “personality” in my Introduction to Psychology course at Istanbul University. I was astonished by the number of students in my class who tried to reconcile the theoretical and scientific foundations of personality psychology with their knowledge of astrology. So I asked my students to write down their dates of birth in year, month, day and hour and told them that the following week I would bring them personality statements made by an authorized person. I then selected fifteen statements from a popular astrology book that described various attitudes and personality descriptions from various zodiac signs and wrote fifteen similar statements myself. The following statements are examples taken from this work:
- You are ready to accept any kind of innovation after filtering it through your logic.
- You like to joke and make people laugh among close friends, even if new acquaintances do not easily recognize it.
- Inside you there is both a calm, soft, caring and affectionate child and a fiery, strong person who is ready to overflow at any moment and wants to take control of his or her environment.
- When it comes to your loved ones and when a situation arises that makes you jealous, it’s hard to keep your temper in check.
- You hate sharing the person you love with others and you make this outwardly obvious.
- When you set your mind to something, you take all kinds of difficulties into consideration.
- You don’t shy away from what you know and have tried, but it takes time to start a new subject.
- You have a tendency to criticize yourself.
- You regret your sudden actions because of your emotions.
One week later, I randomly selected ten statements for each student and gave them questions about their validity in a special envelope. The students answered the questions without showing the information about their personality descriptions to their friends. Eighty-nine percent of the students who participated in the study found the randomly selected personality descriptions in the envelope to be suitable for them at rates ranging from 80% to 100%. This research, which I have briefly summarized without elaboration,4 like other research in this field, has revealed that people see “generalized definitions” as a summary of their own personalities.
The psychologist B. R. Forer was the first to demonstrate this in a study he conducted in 1948. People are ready to accept if they are told what they want to hear.
“The powerful psychological processes of hope and uncertainty are the bread and butter of those who read people’s characters and futures. People try to make sense of the seemingly unrelated things they encounter every day. We are so adept at filling in the blanks to make a meaningful scenario out of complex events that we sometimes attribute meaning even to absurdities.”
One of the reasons why people’s belief in astrology has remained strong despite the passage of more than sixty years since Forer’s research with similar results is the nature of the personality descriptions and expressions used by astrology. Since general statements and definitions such as the ones I have given above apply to many people, when applied to individuals, they give rise to the misconception that they are “personalized”.
The most dangerous lie is a lie mixed with truth
The general statements in the definitions of astrology are such that almost everyone can relate to them to some extent. Therefore, accepting part of the statement as valid makes it easier to accept the verbiage that follows. It is difficult to find a person who is not in love with their own zodiac sign. There are psychological tests that yield similar results. An example is the Myers-Briggs test, which is widely used in business life despite the fact that it is not supported by any scientific research. At a human resources meeting, when the speaker asks for people who share a code describing a certain personality type, the hands raised can quickly form a cult out of a shared sense of brotherhood.
The acceptance and prevalence of personality descriptions provided by astrologers and fortune tellers is also influenced by the mystical nature of the procedure. In addition, some fortune tellers skillfully gather clues from a person’s general appearance and reactions. Thus, the surprising accuracy of a small part of the personality description makes a vulnerable person ready to accept the whole assessment.
Research provides no evidence
On August 17, 2023, the Times of India newspaper in London titled an article in this way. The research was taken from a prestigious publication called the Journal of Consciousness Studies. Beginning in 1958 and continuing until 2003, the most rigorous scientific study of astrology was based on the observation of more than two thousand people born within a few minutes of each other. According to astrological approaches, these people should have had similar characteristics. The researchers examined more than a hundred traits such as occupation, anxiety level, marriage, aggressiveness, sociability, intelligence level, artistic inclination, sports ability, math ability, and others that astrologers claim are caused by the planets at the time of birth.
No similarities were found between these so-called “Time Twins”. Geoffrey Dean, an Australian who analyzed the research, stated that astrology has no “acceptable” systematics, that the principles on which it is based are invalid and that it fails many scientific tests. Misconceptions and misconceptions that lead people to false beliefs are called “hidden temptations”. Hidden temptations are statistics and inferential judgments that are the product of the human mind. It is because of these hidden temptations that astrologers and people still believe in astrology despite all the evidence to the contrary.
To understand the hidden temptations, it is necessary to recognize selective perception, one of the basic principles in the structure and functioning of the human mind. Selective perception is when a person picks and chooses positive evidence, focuses on and remembers it, and ignores the negative.
The magic of astrology
Lawrence E. Jerome, author of “Astrology Debunked”, describes the magic in astrology as follows: “Of all the occult sciences, astrology appears to be the most scientific. Astrologers create horoscopes based on the positions of the stars and planets. To do this, the signs of the zodiac and the positions of the planets must be converted from astronomical charts into the astrologer’s horoscope after detailed calculations.
Local time must be converted into Greenwich Mean Time, which in turn must be converted into sidereal time with the help of other charts. “All this helps astrology to look very scientific. Just as the casino magician diverts the attention of the audience with a series of ceremonial gestures, so the astrologer hides his magic behind the horoscope chart.
Astrological magic begins long after the preparation of the horoscope, with the interpretation of the chart. “The magic of astrology is in its interpretations. The magic begins with the determination of planetary ‘influences’, the establishment of mysterious relationships between the signs of the Zodiac and events on the ground. The verbiage of astrology begins, ‘As in the sky, so on the ground…’. Everything that is ‘written’ in the stars is ‘reflected’ here on the ground. Human beings are the ‘microcosmic’ model of the ‘macrocosm’; it continues in its form.”
A comment from previous years; “On January 12, Uranus will enter Aquarius and this entry will be the dawn of a new era.” Look at the certainty in this statement! A comment from our country from the past years; “Do not have plastic surgery while Venus is retrograde. Those who are thinking of getting married this summer might want to take Venus retrograde into account. When the planets go retrograde, they lose their power and lose their naturalness…” I don’t know to what extent it would be meaningful to try to interpret these statements on the basis of logic. Suffice it to remind one of the criteria of scientificity, that no claim that “cannot be contradicted” can be scientific.
Again, let us leave it to L. E. Jeroma: “These are some of the verbiages that have lasted throughout the ages. These rhetoric shone on the mysterious relationships hidden at the heart of astrology, and this dazzling glare obscured the truth. The planets and stars are always ready for duty and horoscopes can be drawn at any time.” Astrophysicist Selçuk Topal said in an interview: “The force exerted on your personality by your midwife when she takes you out of the womb is probably more influential than the position of the stars at the time of your birth.”
Conclusion
Astrology has gone beyond being a subject of interest for some people and has turned into a belief. Beliefs are assumptions whose veracity we do not question and are deeply rooted in human consciousness. For this reason, our beliefs are resistant to all kinds of counter and logical evidence. We cannot expect anyone to change their nationality, religion or favorite team in the face of logical and solid evidence. Astrology has a similar characteristic for those who are committed to this subject. There are many things that happen in life that we cannot fully comprehend the reason for and that we have doubts about. All kinds of doubts that we cannot rationalize are interpreted in favor of astrology. Astrological “experts” succeed in sowing seeds of doubt in people’s minds by talking endlessly and presenting a mass of unrelated information as proof of their views.
(*) This article is taken with minor changes from the book “Hayalini Yorganına Göre Uzat”
Sources
- Baltaş, A., “The share of reality in astrological definitions”, XXIV. National Congress of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences Scientific Studies Book, GATA, Ankara, 1988, p. 13.
- Forer, B. R., The Fallacy of Personal Validation: A Classroom Demostration of Gullibility, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 44: 118-123, 1949.
- More information on this subject can be found in the book The New HR that Adds Value to People and Work; Remzi Kitabevi, 2009.
- Jerome, Lawrence E., Astrology Refuted, G.M. Matbaacılık ve Tic. A.Ş., p. 53, 2009.
