Can you trust horoscopes

The first dimension divides the sun signs into two categories, the positive masculine and the negative feminine signs. Individuals born under the positive signs are believed to be more extroverted, objective, and assertive, whereas the negative signs are associated with the opposite qualities, namely introversion, subjectivity, and being receptive Hamilton, Gemini, along with Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces, represent the mutable sun signs, considered to be flexible and versatile.

In contrast, individuals belonging to the four fixed sun signs are focused and determined, whereas the last category, the four cardinal sun signs are enterprising, promoting change, and making things happen. The third and last dimension is represented by the elements, allocating each sign of the zodiac to one of the four elements: fire, earth, air, and water.

Following the same logic as the previously discussed dimensions, the twelve sun signs are distributed evenly across the four elements, thus with three sun signs in each. Taking the three dimensions together, each sun sign is represented by a unique combination of characteristics, allowing the astrologer to make predictions about essential features of the individual, in addition to determining which sun signs are the most compatible in romantic relationships Orion, Difficulties in evaluating the validity of astrology are intrinsically linked to predictions from horoscopes which are often very vague, making testable hypotheses difficult to formulate.

Indeed, the vagueness of astrological predictions is likely to be a key reason for its persistent popularity among the general public, since individuals have a tendency to embrace unspecific favorable characterizations of themselves as accurate if they believe that they are the result of a systematic procedure and uniquely generated for them. This phenomenon is named the Barnum effect , and its relevance for astrology was first illustrated by Forer who conducted an experiment where he provided students with what they believed to carefully tailored personality evaluations.

The evaluations handed out were, however, identical across all students, consisting of a rather general description of personality traits. More specifically, an individual who reads in their daily horoscope that they will meet with some unfortunate event is likely to pay particular attention to situations that could be perceived as threatening or dangerous, thus, positively reinforcing a confirmation bias.

Similarly, an individual who knows that they are supposed to be short-tempered because of their particular sun sign, will be more likely to remember behavior consistent with this description than someone displaying a similar behavior but whose horoscope says that they are patient.

Clobert, Van Cappellen, Bourdon, and Cohen confirm this through showing that individuals subjected to a positive astrological reading not only interpreted ambiguous events in a more favorable light but also that it positively affected cognitive performance and creativity.

Further support for the hypothesis that observed effects are driven by self-attribution is provided by the fact that effects were the strongest for individuals self-professing to believe in astrology Hamilton, One strand of literature has investigated to what extent individuals are able to accurately predict which out of two astrology readings—one actually made for them and one for another sign—applies to themselves, depending on their birth chart.

Another number of papers have examined a fundamental prediction in astrology, namely that individuals born with the sun in a positive sign are more extroverted.

Analyzing the personality scores of a comparatively large sample of individuals, Mayo, White, and Eysenck clearly found differences in extroversion scores that are consistent with astrological predictions. While a number of subsequent studies confirmed their findings e. As an example, van Rooij shows that aforementioned personality differences can only be observed among individuals with prior knowledge about astrology, a result which mirrors the findings of Eysenck as well as the later studies by Hamilton and Chico and Lorenzo-Seva To our knowledge, only a small number of previous studies have examined the influence of astrology on outcomes relating to matters of love and relationships.

The earliest example is Silverman , who analyzes marriage and divorce records from Michigan in and While being a rather rudimentary test of compatibility, using predictions from two named astrologers, the study fails to find any indications suggesting that the predictions of two independent astrologers are consistent with what is observed in the data.

These findings were challenged by Sachs , using data from Switzerland to examine the relationship between zodiac sign combinations and marriages, divorces as well as a selection of other outcomes.

According to Sachs, among the 13 sun-sign pairs that displayed higher than expected marriage probabilities, 12 belonged to pairings that are deemed astrologically compatible.

Another study, by Blackmore and Seebold found that women who are subjected to positive love advice through their horoscopes were observed with slightly elevated relationship scores, compared to women exposed to neutral advice. Effects were largest for women with greater belief in astrology, consistent with self-attribution.

The SLI contains data from several administrative registers, providing longitudinal socio-demographic, economic, and health-related information on about , unique individuals, continuously observed over the time period The database was originally developed to examine research questions focused on immigrant-native differences in socioeconomic and demographic outcomes and therefore contains an oversampling of the sixteen largest immigrant nationalities living in Sweden during the time period in question.

Despite this oversampling of the foreign born, the nationally representative sample of natives represents by far the largest group in the data. As a result, the dataset is appropriate also for research without an explicit immigrant focus. Since this study examines astrological predictions of relationship compatibility, the primary outcome of interest is divorce of those in marital unions. We restrict our analytical sample to Nordic born index individuals in heterosexual unions with Nordic born spouses.

This provides a study population with a largely similar cultural background and thereby more similar views on marriage and divorce as well as a similar propensity to believe in, and consult, astrology. With the study population additionally restricted to individuals between the ages of 18 and 70, the number of marital unions observed in the data amount to roughly 66, Our analysis also examines the determinants of legal divorce with an additional sample restriction being that all examined unions were observed from the beginning of the marital union , since this is necessary to accurately measure time at risk of dissolution.

As a result, the number of unions examined in the divorce analysis drops to about 46,, with 15, ending in divorce during the follow-up period. Using information on date of birth, we determine the zodiac signs of both the index individual and their spouse, yielding zodiac-sign combinations Footnote 1.

A potential source of criticism of this method is that more detailed information containing the precise place of birth latitude and longitude as well as the precise time of day that the individual was born, is required in order for a more exact horoscope to be read. The majority of horoscopes consumed by the general public in magazines, online, and in newspapers is, however, based solely on the date of birth. Consequently, it would follow that our ability to assess zodiac signs only based on the date of birth does not represent an insurmountable disadvantage, but rather reflects the way these signs are constructed in daily use.

The measurements of relationship compatibility based on zodiac sign combinations that are examined in the analysis are summarized in Table 1. While we are using data on couples in Sweden, the majority of the relationship classifications tested in this article was provided in English, due to the dearth of source material in Swedish.

We do not have any information on whether sample individuals actually believe in astrology, something that we claim should not matter, as astrological theory would suggest that individuals are influenced regardless of whether they have any knowledge of astrology. The relationship compatibility classifications were obtained through accessing alexa.

The information furthermore had to unambiguously define varying degrees of compatibility between zodiac signs, enabling an operationalization for quantitative analysis that did not rely on researcher interpretation.

As evident from the table, the classifications employ different methods to distinguish between relationship compatibility, with all but one 3 , appropriate for a categorical operationalization.

The following column shows the share of possible zodiac sign combinations that are allocated to each respective compatibility category, while the last column shows the visitor volume of each site. Also note that while classifications were provided in English, the final classification, 6, is provided in Swedish. One issue associated with two of the classifications is their lack of symmetry. As an example, while an Aquarius may be indicated as being a great pairing for a Libra, the opposite does not apply.

Unfortunately, the source does comment on whether the asymmetry is accidental or on purpose. Since our objective is to test the astrological predictions as they were provided, the main results classify relationships in accordance with the original source, with results adjusting for this asymmetry provided as a sensitivity analysis. We examine the extent to which unions deemed more favorable appear more frequently than expected by chance.

More specifically, this would be consistent with a higher degree of compatibility among astrologically favorable couples, reflected in an elevated share among the observed marital unions. We approximate the marriage market population through the distribution across zodiac signs of the population of index individuals, and differences in means between the predicted and actual number of marriages are assessed using t tests.

The second part of the analysis is represented by the estimation of Cox proportional hazards models. Here, we examine whether astrologically favorable couples are less likely to divorce. The union represents the unit of analysis at risk of dissolution through a legal divorce from the time of marriage. Time at risk is specified as the number of days elapsed from marriage and unions are followed until legally divorcing or censoring.

Apart from the key independent variables for the article, measuring the zodiac sign combination of the couple, the main models only control for the sex of the index person as well as their nativity. For the sake of being able to compare the size of the associations between zodiac-combinations and the risk of divorce with the influence of other characteristics that are known to be important, such as educational attainment and the age difference between the spouses, we also estimate models including a full set of spousal sociodemographic characteristics.

In addition to already mentioned determinants, the complete models also control for whether the individual and their spouse were native born, the highest observed marriage order of the current union, and whether either spouse has any children under the age of The sample means of the population examined in the multivariate analysis are presented in Table A1, Additional file 1.

We begin the analysis by examining the extent to which astrologically favorable relationships are overrepresented among the 66, unions that are observed in the data, translating to an average of As displayed in Table 2 , the share of index individuals who have a spouse who is a Pisces ranges from a low among the Aquarius of 8.

As an initial test of the validity of the astrological predictions presented earlier, evidence in favor of the examined classifications is obtained if an overrepresentation similar to the Cancer-Pisces characterize zodiac sign combinations that are considered to be astrologically favorable. Table 3 shows the average number of marriages in each zodiac pairing that we would expect to occur as a result of a random process based on the assumption that the zodiac-sign distribution of the marriage market resembles the population of index individual, by categories of astrological compatibility.

Thus, the mean actual number of unions is lower than what chance would predict based on the index population distribution, at odds with the expectation that comparably more favorable zodiac sign combinations would be overrepresented among married couples. Instead, the data reveals a slight overrepresentation of unions belonging to zodiac sign combinations that are considered to be less favorable, according to classification 1.

Similar results can be observed for remaining categorical measurements of relationship compatibility, also presented in Table 3 Footnote 2. Indeed, while differences between the mean number of observed to predicted number of unions in all classifications remain statistically insignificant, the results—if anything—consistently suggest a systematic overrepresentation of unions characterized by comparatively unfavorable zodiac sign combinations. Turning to the second part of the analysis, we focus on the determinants of marriage dissolution, testing whether individuals in astrologically favorable relationships experience a lower risk of divorce, estimated by means of Cox proportional hazards regression.

Models in Table 4 display the hazard ratios from Cox proportional hazards models of the association between the degree of relationship compatibility predicted by the websites used and the risk of divorce. The first classification, in Model 1, distinguishes between two categories of matches, with the reference category representing less compatible couples. In accordance with this expectation, the point estimate indeed suggests that the more compatible couples experience a lower risk of divorce.

The point estimate is also not statistically significantly different from the reference category. Given the statistical power of the data used, the observed effect must be considered to be a null effect, and we must reject that these predictions exert any real influence on the outcome.

The point estimates are not statistically significantly different from each other, and the magnitudes also fail to consistently indicate that increased compatibility is associated with a lower divorce risk. Classification 3 is the only one that is operationalized as a continuous variable. Here, the compatibility score ranges from , with a higher score indicating a greater relationship compatibility.

The results are presented in model 3, with the hazard ratio indicating the change in divorce risk associated with a one-unit increase in compatibility. This model fails to provide any support to the hypothesis that couples with zodiac sign combinations that reflect a higher degree of compatibility are less likely to divorce, since the hazard ratio of 1. Returning to a categorical specification of relationship compatibility, model 4 tests classification 4, distinguishing between three different degrees of compatibility.

Consequently, the absence of a pattern between the categories that are consistent with the expectations, coupled with a lack of statistical significance, results in the refusal of yet another astrological prediction. We arrive at a similar conclusion from the test of classification 5, in model 5.

The most compatible couples do experience a divorce risk that is almost five percent lower than the reference category, in addition to being statistically significant. However, as the hazard ratio for the least compatible group also is less than for the reference category, the most and least compatible categories become statistically indistinguishable from each other, thus refuting this classification as well.

Lastly, model 6 tests the only classification presented in Swedish, namely classification 6. The reference category is represented by relationships that are assigned three hearts, i. Again, while the most compatible couple category is associated with a slightly lower probability of divorce compared to the reference category, it is not statistically significant.

Additionally, all categories yield lower divorce probabilities than the reference, with the only category showing a statistically significant lower probability being judged as less compatible than the reference category. Our results do not provide evidence in support of any of the classifications evaluated in this article. With few exceptions, point estimates have been small in size, something which is further emphasized when compared to associations between standard sociodemographic determinants and divorce, presented in Table A2, Additional file 1.

The results have yielded a consistent story, albeit one that fails to find any support for the examined astrological predictions about relationship compatibility, either in terms of marriages or divorces. Before turning to the conclusions, some caveats and our attempts to address them must be mentioned.

One could argue that results would have been different if we were able to rely on a more comprehensive reading. Given the comparatively low degree of general belief in astrology in Sweden, the context should be close to ideal for the examination of a phenomenon of proposed universal validity such as astrology. Despite this, a second potential threat to the reliability of our results could be that couples in astrologically favorable unions and with knowledge of astrology are more willing to enter into as well as remain in a marital union.

For the marriage analysis, the influence of such a bias is ambiguous. On the one hand, it may serve to increase the number of observed favorable marital unions, as individuals in relationships that they know to be astrologically favorable also may be more likely to enter into a marital union. On the other hand, the number of unfavorable marital unions may also become inflated due to their greater dissolution propensity, and thus greater remarriage probability among those affected.

For the analysis of divorce, the outlined process would bias the results toward a lower risk of divorce for the astrologically favorable relationship categories, thus, further reinforcing the validity of our results.

As noted earlier, two of the examined classifications are not symmetrical, as, e. For the main analysis, we opted not to make any adjustments for these asymmetries, as our aim was to test astrological predictions as they are provided to the general public. Table A3, Additional file 1 , however, displays results after making adjustments in order to achieve symmetry, with qualitatively identical results. It should be noted that the coefficient illustrating the experience of couples who according to the adjusted classification 1 are the most astrologically favorable now is associated with a risk of divorce that is 4.

This result should, however, be interpreted in light of the entire set of analyses performed in this article, along with its comparatively marginal association with the outcome, thus, more likely representing an outlier rather than as being part of a consistent body of evidence suggesting astrological compatibility being an important determinant of divorce.

A final sensitivity check pertains to the adjustment of the sample to exclude cusp births. Cusp births refer to individuals born a few days before or after the transition from one zodiac sign to the next, and are sometimes believed to be influenced by both signs. Thus, an individual born on August 24, and thus technically a Virgo but right after the transition from Leo ending August 23 , may display characteristics of both signs. Taking Leo as an example, the period for this sign ranges from July 23 to August 22, but we only include individuals born from July 28 and until August These results Additional file 1 , Table A4 are virtually identical to those of the main analysis, suggesting that the somewhat less precisely defined characteristics of the sample when including cusp births are not driving the lack of results supporting relationship predictions founded in astrology.

To our knowledge, this is the first study, which uses large-scale longitudinal administrative register data with precise information on dates of birth and marriage and divorce allowing for a thorough examination of the issue at hand. As a result, trivial effect sizes and the lack of statistical significance cannot be the result of a lack of statistical power. While by no means representing a comprehensive account of the astrological advice that is being offered online, the classifications tested were found through standard search methods from both high and low traffic websites.

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