Why does learning astrology make people feel more certain about themselves?
If astrology is treated as a system that describes personality, the question of its accuracy has been answered fairly clearly in blind tests, and the answer leans toward failure. But the question of why so many people still feel that studying astrology helps them is a different question, one that belongs to the psychology of function rather than of correctness. The two questions are often mixed together, and that mixing is what makes debates about astrology hard to resolve.
Separating these two layers is not a new invention. In the psychology of religion and the psychology of belief, researchers have long distinguished between the question of whether a belief is true and the question of what the belief does for the person holding it. A belief can be descriptively wrong and still have a clear psychological function: it helps people organize experience, reduces a sense of chaos, and gives them a language for talking about themselves. That is the frame for reading the three studies below.
What does the study of astrology classes say?
The most cited work in this line belongs to Outi Lillqvist and Marjaana Lindeman. Their paper, Belief in Astrology as a Strategy For Self-Verification and Coping With Negative Life-Events, appeared in European Psychologist in 19981. Three different classes were compared: an astrology class, a psychology class and a German class. In all three groups, students rated their certainty about themselves twice, before and after the course.
According to the abstract held in the archive, three dimensions rose only in the astrology group: certainty in self-description, sense of autonomy and sense of luck; the other two groups showed no corresponding change1. The study also recorded that interest in astrology was proportional to the number of personal crises participants had been through1.
知识类别: 史料历史文献. 有文献、年代与出处；旁边的注释编号指向该出处。 五类标签On sample size, the study covered only forty students across three classes, and the design could not rule out all confounds such as learner expectations or pre-existing traits of people who self-select into an astrology class1. The result has not been replicated on an independent sample within the available source, so it reads as a suggestive finding rather than a settled conclusion. The data scope also needs stating plainly: the sample was students in Finland, collected around the mid-1990s, and cannot be projected directly onto astrology learners in Vietnam today.
What is notable about the mechanism is the name the authors themselves gave the phenomenon: self-verification, the process by which people reinforce their self-image through an external source. An astrology class, structurally, is a very favorable environment for this: learners are given a ready-made vocabulary for describing themselves, a community of shared interest, and an explanatory frame for difficult periods of life. Those three elements operate whether or not the system predicts personality correctly.
Does interest in astrology rise during periods of threat?
If studying astrology serves to process crisis, then at the social level we would expect interest in astrology to rise when times become more threatening. This is the hypothesis Stephen M. Sales tested using archival data from the US, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1973 under the title Threat as a factor in authoritarianism: An analysis of archival data2.
Sales compared authoritarianism indicators between periods considered high-threat and low-threat in US history. One of those indicators was the level of interest in astrology reflected in the press2. According to the abstract held in the archive, the authoritarianism indicators, astrology among them, all rose during threat periods2.
知识类别: 史料历史文献. 有文献、年代与出处；旁边的注释编号指向该出处。 五类标签This result needs to be read at its proper scale. It is an archival study, meaning the author counted and compared what had already been printed, rather than measuring individual beliefs directly. Press interest is an indirect indicator, and it is shaped by both editorial taste and the economic conditions of the newspaper industry. The data scope is the United States, with the periods named including the 1930s and the years 1967 to 19702; nothing in the source allows extending the conclusion to other contexts.
The value of this study is that it places astrology in the same group as other cultural phenomena, rather than treating it as a special case. When people feel the world is less controllable, the demand for an ordered explanatory frame rises, and astrology is one of many such frames. The article Do people turn to divination more when they feel insecure? goes deep into the research branch on stress, sense of control and ritual; only the part relevant to astrology is kept here, so it is not repeated.
How does belief in good luck relate to a sense of mental well-being?
Another research branch does not ask about astrology directly but about belief in good luck, which often accompanies interest in astrology. Belief in Good Luck and Psychological Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Optimism and Irrational Beliefs, by Liza Day and John Maltby, published in The Journal of Psychology in 2003, belongs to this branch3.
知识类别: 史料历史文献. 有文献、年代与出处；旁边的注释编号指向该出处。 五类标签According to the abstract held in the archive, this study examined the link between belief in good luck and self-reported mental health, with two mediators identified as optimism and irrational beliefs, and the link ran through them3. The design was cross-sectional correlational, meaning several things were measured at one point in time and then examined for how they moved together, without following participants over time3.
With a cross-sectional correlational design, causal order is not established. At least three readings are compatible with the data: people who are already optimistic find it easier to believe in good luck; people who believe in good luck cultivate a more optimistic outlook; or both are influenced by some third factor. The study itself does not adjudicate among these three readings. What it does show is that the link between belief and a sense of mental well-being is not direct but runs through mediators.
One more point on scope: this is a study of adults in the UK, and mental health here is self-reported, meaning participants rated their own feelings, not a clinical assessment. This article presents behavioral research only and gives no advice on health or self-care.
Where do these three studies differ and how do they complement each other?
The three sources do not measure the same thing. The table below summarizes the data scope and the result each study offers, following exactly what the archive abstracts record. Cells the source does not address are left blank.
| Study | Data scope | Design | Main result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lillqvist and Lindeman (1998)1 | Students in astrology, psychology and German classes; small sample | Before-and-after comparison across three groups | The astrology group grew in certainty of self-description, sense of autonomy and sense of luck; interest in astrology correlated with number of personal crises |
| Sales (1973)2 | Archival data from the US, covering the 1930s and 1967 to 1970 | Analysis of archival data, comparing threat and low-threat periods | Authoritarianism indicators, including press interest in astrology, rose during threat periods |
| Day and Maltby (2003)3 | Adults, study conducted in the UK | Cross-sectional correlation | Belief in good luck related to self-reported mental health, running through optimism and irrational beliefs |
Read down the columns and the three studies align on one point: they all suggest that astrology and nearby beliefs are tied to how people process a sense of uncertainty. But they differ in unit of analysis. Lillqvist and Lindeman look at individuals within a short course. Sales looks at a society across decades. Day and Maltby look at links between psychological traits at one point in time. These three levels do not replace each other, and they do not add up to evidence stronger than the sum of their parts.
Where do psychological function and predictive accuracy differ?
This is the easiest place to go wrong. A reader sees Lillqvist and Lindeman recording that astrology students grew more confident about themselves, then concludes that astrology predicts personality correctly. That conclusion does not follow from the data. Another reader sees that blind tests do not support reading personality from a chart, then concludes that studying astrology has no effect at all. That conclusion does not follow either.
Two propositions need separating and keeping separate:
- Does astrology predict human personality correctly? This is a question about accuracy, and the answer rests on evidence from blind tests, not on the experience of learners.
- What psychological function does studying and using astrology serve? This is a question about function, and the answer rests on studies such as the three above.
知识类别: 证据不足证据不足. 有人提出，但尚无足够的出处或研究可以确认。 五类标签Another reading, often advanced by people inside astrology, is that blind tests fail to capture school-specific interpretation, so their failure says nothing about astrology as it is actually practiced. This reading lacks sufficient independent data to conclude within the available source, and mainstream psychology researchers see it differently: they treat blind-test results as direct evidence about predictive ability, and school-based explanations as something to be tested further rather than exempted from testing.
Effects produced by belief should be named correctly
There is a kind of effect that is real but is not evidence that the system predicts correctly. When a person believes something, that belief changes their behavior, and behavior changes outcomes. For example, someone who believes this is a period to slow down may actually slow down, sleep more, take on fewer tasks, and then feel better. The outcome is real. But the cause is changed behavior, not a chart that predicted correctly.
The same logic applies to a sense of certainty about oneself. When a person is given a vocabulary for describing themselves, and that vocabulary is shared by a community, they gain a means for telling the story of who they are. The rise in certainty may come from having a language and a community, not from that vocabulary describing them accurately in any objective sense. In other words, the effect is real, and the inference that astrology therefore predicts correctly is a leap the data does not support.
Where evidence is missing, say so plainly
All three sources in this article sit at evidence level B: results have not been replicated on an independent sample within the available material, and each study has its own limits of design or data scope123. Lillqvist and Lindeman had a small sample and did not rule out all confounds1. Sales used an indirect press indicator and was limited to the US2. Day and Maltby used a cross-sectional correlational design that cannot establish causal order3.
知识类别: 证据不足证据不足. 有人提出，但尚无足够的出处或研究可以确认。 五类标签No study in this material has been conducted on Vietnamese people. Any inference about astrology learners in Vietnam is currently only an extrapolation from samples in Finland, the US and the UK, and that extrapolation needs to be tested with local data before it is used as a basis for anything.
How should these results be read correctly?
The tightest conclusion the three sources allow: studying astrology may serve a self-affirmation function, and interest in astrology may rise when people go through personal crises or live through periods of threat. These are level B findings, small samples or indirect indicators, and untested on Vietnamese people.
知识类别: 流派流派解读. 某一流派或某部典籍的理解；其他流派可能理解不同。 五类标签On the astrology side itself, schools define differently what a chart can do: some treat a chart as a map of tendencies rather than a verdict, others emphasize event prediction more. A system's own texts only show what that system says, not that what it says is true.
知识类别: 民间观念民间观念. 人们相信、禁忌或口耳相传之事，作为信仰记录，而非已核实的事实。 五类标签In popular practice, many people still treat checking their zodiac sign as a way to understand themselves and those around them, and for them its value lies in helping daily relationships rather than in being scientifically correct. That is a practical reason why the question of what zodiac signs are for does not coincide with the question of whether zodiac signs are true.
The most honest reading keeps both questions at once, without letting one crowd out the other. Astrology learners may genuinely gain something in terms of self-understanding; that does not turn astrology into a validated personality measurement tool, and it does not make the value of their experience any less real.
