If you believe you have astrological skill, you can also put yourself to the test by taking the same challenge that we used in the study! We're making this challenge permanently available so that anyone can test their own abilities at any time. At the same link, we also offer a practice test (based on matching celebrities and events to an appropriate chart), which is less scientifically rigorous but can be used to practice before taking the official test. Additionally, we've released the anonymized data from our study, so that anyone who wishes to can analyze the data for themselves.
so some folks did a study to test out the idea that astrology works if you use the whole chart instead of just sun signs or whatever. based on their data it very much does not, & also i'm obsesssed with the cheerfulness with which they say "try it yourself bitch!"
"what, like they won't hire you if you're a virgo?" well it turns out that in china, the answer is yes:
Some Chinese job postings state that Virgo candidates are not wanted, and some Chinese people avoid Virgos on dating apps.
and i've heard that similar stories have taken place in india. the US doesn't have hard data, and i doubt it's as frequent here as abroad, but astrology itself has only been getting more popular in the last decade, and i do not think that is a good thing! i know there can be a tendency to shrug this stuff off as "harmless fun," but i cannot help but feel that it's getting less harmless the longer it goes unchallenged.
A lot of people find housing through Facebook groups like "queer housing philly" where people search for roommates to fill in open rooms on a group lease, and it is extremely common for these ads to ask for or make explicit exclusions based on astrological sign, or to self-identify astrological sign as part of defining what makes a possible compatible roommate. Americans definitely are making housing decisions based on astrological sign. I think the main thing lacking here is that there isn't really a universally reviled astrological sign so much as people are deciding that because they are X they can't live with Y