The popularity of constellation culture in the youth world

1. The popularity of constellation culture in the youth world By Grace

2. Acknowledgements Here I want to first give my special thanks to Professor Yang, who has been so helpful and considerate to me. He gave me the chance and power to do what I thought I could never work out. Secondly, I want to thank all my classmates, because I found out that I had learned so much from their works. More precisely, I feel they inspired me a lot. Last, as always , I want to say thanks to my Mum and Dad, because their love is the only reason for my improvement.

3. Outline: L1. Abstract 2. Content: 1) Introduction 2) About questionnaire: a. Survey on questionnaire paper b. Results c. Analysis of results 3. Conclusion: ( see more from the academic perspective) 4. Closing Words. 5. References.

4. Abstract Seeing from the sociology and the social psychology aspects, and investigating with questionnaire, this paper tries to answer some questions about the popularity of constellation culture in our college. Such as: How do we get in touch with it? Do we really believe it or not? This paper also intends to investigate the influence of the constellation culture, so it may be of some help to the understanding of our college students’ mentalities.

5. Content: Introduction In recent years, things about constellation have been very popular among our college students, whether in books, magazines, on the internet or somewhere else, you can see there is a special layout or a certain part divided into dealing with things about constellation. It is also apparent that constellation itself can have a relationship with anything—love, friendship, as well as luck and health. Today, it actually has a lot of other usage, no matter in the campus or in the market, I think we can now really call it a kind of culture.

6. About Questionnaire This investigation was given from November, 15th to November, 25th . And it was done by the form of questionnaire with 10 selective questions. I tried my best to avoid some factors which may distort the results, I gave 100 questionnaires randomly to 100 college students age 18 to 25 that study in 5 different campuses (20 per school) and different majors. Also in order to keep the balance of sex, which may influence the results , 50 questionnaire forms were given to girls and 50 to boys.

7. 1.Do you care about constellation?(whenever you’re on the web, reading magazines, do you pay some attention to it? A. yes, I like it very much! 9 % B. It’s OK, sometimes I have interest reading. 53 % C. do not care, and rarely pay attention to it. 37 % D. no, I think it is bad, and never read about it. 11 % 2. Are you clear about your constellation? A. Yes 89% B. No 11 % 3.What do you think is the preliminary use of constellation? A. divine 29 % B. for astrological study 25 % C. for entertainment 7 % D. to make the calendar 27 %E. something else 2 % Results

8. 4. What’s your main purpose when you check information about constellation? A. divine (fortune, love, luck of wealth) 47 % B. for fun 23 % C. analyse person’s character. 26 % D. interesting in astrology. 0 % E. something else4 % 5.If you read about its augur, do you believe in it? A. yes 21% B. no 79 % 6.If you read about its character analysis, do you think it is right? A. yes 14 % B. no 49 % C. Some may be right, some may not 36 %

9. 7. Do you think it is a kind of superstition？ A. yes 23 % B. no 67 % 8. How did you find about it for the first time? A. from web site 31 % B. from comic books 25 % C. from some magazines 19 %D. from friends 14 % E. something else 11 % 9. Where do you usually get the information? A. from web sites 36 % B. from books 38 % C. from friends. 11 %D. something else15 % 10. Do you think constellation culture is quite popular in college? A. yes 62 % B. no 38%

10. Analysis on the results: The influence on us is wide, but not deep. From the question, we could see that most students know something about constellation. Most of them know their own constellations, read something about it,but meanwhile, they just consider it fun, most of them do not really believe when it was used to give some augurs. 1.

11. we get in touch with it mainly by our medium 2. The mass medium offers us many ways to get in touch with it, such as books, magazines, and the Internet. So this may explain the former saying, why the things about constellation is so wide-ranged with our college students. No one intends to study about astrology,so maybe the reason is simply that it is so convenient for us to know something about it..

12. It is not right, but it is OK! Yes, most of us want its augur to see how our fortune will be, but we do not expect it to be true. Just for fun, we think it is little bit interesting, and mysterious. 3.

13. Conclusion: See more from the academic aspects: In order to go deep and see more of this topic,here I want to say something more about it from the academic aspects— the sociology part and the social psychology part.

14. The features of youth decide the popularity of constellation culture. 1. • As we could see that the popularity of constellation culture is in some ways, only confined to the class of youth, so it could also be a kind of youth culture. • Pasonth’s concept for Youth culture, and Japanese psychologist’s view • The features of youth’s mentality. • The uncertainty of youth. • Chinese students’ vexation.

15. 2. We have the need to feel that we are —somehow rational 1) When frustrated, we need comfort, so we’d like to rationalize and legalize our behavior and action. 2) We sometimes want to rationalize our ideals,dreams, which will impossibly happen in reality.

16. Self-suggestion has made some augurs come true. 3. 1) Some concepts related to self-suggestion from the psychological and social psychological aspects. 2) The expectations for the augur told by constellation is also a kind of self-suggestion.

17. The influence of our traditional culture 4. 1) Our Chinese ancestors used to have the tradition to practicing divination. 2) Now, although we do not believe in superstition, we still have some interests in it, especially for the new western type.

18. The psychological influence from the change of society and living environment 5. During these years, as so many big changes are occurring, we are in touch with a lot of new things, as well as love and hate towards some of them, we have been truly influenced by some of them. And actually we have been confused about some of them,

19. Closing words: “星座迷恋”现象在我国大学校园中之所以出现，可能有很大一部分人是追求时髦，但我们应该认识到，星象学在西方可能已经被符号化了，也就是说就像中国人对十二生肖的态度，在最初它是具有迷信意义的，而经过长时间的“民俗化”，到了现代，已经没有人视其为迷信了，而仅仅是把它视为一个象征，一个符号，它不能说明任何更多的问题，就像一个中国人的属相是“蛇”，人们除了可以知道他是哪年出生以外，也不会再知道更多的信息了一样。而从前文的调查结果来看，我国大学生对“星座说”的主体态度是模糊的，把它作为一种娱乐、消遣，而不去判断它到底是不是迷信。所以，我认为中国的大学生可能也已经把它符号化了，而不是笃信，应该说，这种把迷信符号化的过程是与大学生所受的教育程度很高分不开的。社会和学校应该充分地相信大学生的判断力，不要只看到现象就一味地担心，否则，既会影响到大学生个体的正常发展，也会给社会的进步带来不良后果。

20. References: 1.刘少蕾，《自我实现与时尚流行——当代城市青年时尚的社会心理学分析》，《当代青年研究》1996年第5期，P26-29 2.李永波，《商业发展与青年文化》，《青年研究》1997年12期，P12-14，9 3. 〔美〕莫里斯•罗森堡拉尔夫•H•特纳主编，孙非等译，《社会观点的社会心理学手册(1981年版)》，南开大学出版社 ⒋钟科文杜镇远著，《走出无知的迷宫——现代迷信分析》，社会科学文献出版社，2000年1月版 ⒌卢淑华编著，《社会统计学》，北京大学出版社，1995年4月 ⒍杨治良主编，《现代人的心理迷信——偏执心理现象分析》，湖南教育出版社，2000年5月

21. Thanks for watching!