Horoscoop.
INTRODUCTION
“There’s a possible direct link between romance and cash matters. Don’t overspend on any dates you might have planned. The right atmosphere will be difficult to generate if you’re quietly calculating and fretting about the cost. Romance doesn’t need to be expensive.”
Does this sound familiar to you? This is a horoscope reading. Now, horoscopes are becoming more and more common. They can be found everywhere, ranging from magazines to the internet. A horoscope is basically a short paragraph which summarises a person’s fortune for a particular period. Horoscopes can tell people various things related to their lives, including welfare, fortune and character traits. Horoscopes may be negative or positive andtheir effect on the reader varies from person to person. There are many different types of horoscopes. For instance, there are weekly ones, daily ones, those that match a pair’s compatibility or those that determine how close a friendship is. However, in this research project, we are going to focus on weekly horoscopes that give advice on a person’s wealth, studies and relationships with others.
We realise that more and more teenagers are believers of horoscopes. However, we wonder that with so many different versions of horoscopes that can be found, do they actually synchronise to tell an accurate fortune of a person or do they contradict each other? We also wonder how a horoscope reading can apply to all the people of a particular star sign. Is this actually possible? Different people also understand and interpret horoscopes differently, so why do horoscopes seem true for most people?
Therefore, from this research project, we aim to find out more about:
1) If most teenagers believe in horoscopes
2) Among those teenagers who believe in horoscopes, whether they believe more in negative or positive ones
3) The accuracy of horoscopes
To aid our research, we have come up with these three hypotheses:
(i) Most teenagers believe in horoscopes
(ii) More teenagers believe in positive horoscopes more than negative ones
(iii) Horoscopes are inaccurate as they are not consistent
The objective of our study is to educate teenagers more about horoscopes and to determine whether it is wise for them to believe in horoscopes.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Horoscopes seem so accurate as the traits and fortunes are so general and cleverly phrased that they could belong to anyone. Most people feel that their horoscope says the truth about them, but looking at the horoscopes of other star signs, you will find that most of them could apply to you too. Also, most horoscopes ensure that they are always correct. They claim that if their description does not sound like the reader, it is because the reader is not true to the horoscope and is not behaving the way they should according to their horoscope.
METHODOLOGY
Part 1: Accuracy of Weekly Horoscope
Weekly Horoscope is a description of a person’s fortune for a particular week. These descriptions usually tell people about many aspects of their lives, such as their wealth, health or luck in relationship etc. They can be negative or positive and; therefore, can have different effects on different people.
Weekly Horoscopes can be found everywhere, ranging from magazines to the internet. In this part, we research on different versions of weekly horoscopes on the internet. Our purpose is to prove that Weekly Horoscope is not accurate by examining 10 different websites about Horoscopes.
On each website, we consider 12 descriptions for 12 Horoscope signs in the week (16/3/09 – 20/3/09) in order to trace the accuracy of the horoscopes in 3 categories: Wealth, Relationship and School/Work. These are the 3 most common aspects that people tend to be concerned about. Analysing each description, we decided whether it says the positive or negative thing about the fortune of that sign and we arrange the data base on percentage. To determine the accuracy of Weekly Horoscope, we add up all the higher percentages of each category be it postivie or negative. Take for example the category of wealth for scorpio. The higher percentage is 60% under positive. The sum of all the higher percentages is then divided by 12 to obtain the final accuracy rate.
Accuracy of Weekly Horoscopes
We used a scale such that below 80% would mean the horoscopes are not accurate (with the starting limit of accuracy is 50%), and a score above 80% would prove that the horoscope is accurate. The accuracy we have derived at for wealth is 67.33% Relationship also achieved and accuracy of 64.66& and as for school/work, it has an accuracy of 67.91%. Thus, we have come to a conclusion that horoscopes are not very accurate, as what they talk about tend to contradict each other. This result matches with our purpose, which is to confirm that Weekly Horoscopes are inaccurate.
Part 2: Survey on how people believe in Horoscopes
The purpose of this survey is to clarify how teenagers regard horoscopes nowadays, whether they believe in the positive or negative horoscopes and why other teenagers do not believe in horoscopes in the first place. Our main way to conduct the survey is to ask teenagers whether they believe in horoscopes or not, why they do not believe and if they believe the positive part more than the negative part. After 2 weeks, the survey was done by 205 students of age 14-16 (upper secondary and junior college) on the internet and obtained the data below:
Table 2. How teenagers believe in Horoscope
Number of teenagers do not believe in horoscopes: 130
Number of teenagers believe in :
-Positive horoscopes 65
-Negative horoscopes: 10
From the survey, we found out that 36.6% of teenagers expressed that they believed in Horoscopes. Even though the number of teenagers believing in horoscopes is less than half of the population surveyed, this is still considered a large number. Among these people who believe in horoscopes, 84.9% stated they believed in positive horoscopes more than negative horoscopes.
How teenagers believe in positive and negative horoscope
To our expectation, more teenagers do not believe in horoscopes (63.4%). Among 63.4% of teenagers who do not believe in horoscopes, 65.4% said it was because they felt horoscopes were not accurate, 3.8% said it was because they disliked what horoscopes said about them and 30.8% expressed other reasons, mostly horoscopes being not logical and due to religious reasons. From the survey, we find out that the majority of teenagers know about the inaccuracy of horoscopes, and thus their tendency is not to believe in them.
Reasons why teenagers believe or don’t believe in Horoscope
Overall, the survey has revealed a current trend of teenagers not to believe in horoscope as they are aware of its inaccuracy. From the result, we also discover that teenagers who believe in horoscope tend to believe in what tell about them positively rather than negatively.
Part 3: Analysis
From the research of weekly horoscopes, we have come to a conclusion that horoscopes are not accurate as we can usually see contradict information from many different sources of horoscope of the same signs. Even though nowadays most teenagers tend to disbelieve in horoscopes due to its inaccuracy, a large number of them still believe in the positive horoscopes, although they are not true at all. This tendency present among teenagers is very negative and can affect them significantly as some may take for granted what horoscopes said to become true, and they will not strive themselves to achieve in life. They like believing in the positive horoscopes, which usually deceive them to be overconfident and passive in life. In contrast, teenagers who believe in negative horoscopes are usually diffident and pessimistic unreasonably, which is a very bad tendency for teenagers as they are in their most ambitious period of life. Therefore, students should be informed about the inaccuracy of horoscopes to consider carefully what to believe.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we have verified that the second and third of the hypotheses are valid. We therefore recommend that teenagers can refer to horoscopes as a means of fun or to guide each day to become a better one, but they should not overly rely on horoscopes and be too affected by it. Although horoscopes may not be accurate, they can be interesting.
Possible areas of error
Horoscopes vary each week, so their accuracy definitely varies weekly too. As our research is only based on a week’s horoscope, the results might not be that accurate.
At the same time, the 200 samples surveyed are not a representative sample of the general public, as opinions of people differ according to background and living enviornment. Thus, our survey cannot be fully accurate but is a good representation of the general idea.
Our views on each category’s positive and negative statements may differ. However, every measure has been taken to ensure that the judgements made in each cateogry is fair and impartial.
Assumptions taken
It has been assumed that our sample has answered the survey honestly and to the best of the best of their ability.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Soulblossom.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/horoscopes
Don’t Blame me- I’m a Gemini! Astrology for teenagers, Reinajames and Mik Reinstein, 1994 Picadilly Press, London