Astrology: Wrong but still predictive?

[AJ Bentley]

The idea that the stars and planets affect peoples lives in the classical sense is plain lunacy of course.

However, bear with me a moment - Is it completely insane to suggest that the time of year that someone was born might have an effect on their overall nature and outlook on life?

I'm a Capricorn - we're famous for being miserable, introverted sods. In my case, I was born during one of the foulest, coldest, darkest and longest winters of the last century. So it's hardly surprising, is it?

I would love to see a serious comparison study of zodiac sign against personality type. I bet there's a genuine correlation.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I would love to see a serious comparison study of zodiac sign against personality type. I bet there's a genuine correlation.

Have you tried to find any?

 

[cronxeh]

I notice the correlation in personalities, for sure. Often in a group of friends I can tell what 'sign' someone is just by listening to them talk, their facial features, their personality and things that interest them. Is it laughable to assume someone's personality based on the arrangements of stars in the sky? Perhaps. But at the same time, I can't explain why I am inexplicably attracted to someone until I find out their sign, and sure enough, god dangit all to hell its another Aquarius

 

[Noxide]

lol.

 

[mgb_phys]

There is a strong correlation between time of year you are born and sporting ability - but it is due to school admission policy not the stars.

Be born in the correct month and you get to be the oldest in the class, so you are biggest and strongest and do best in sports - so you get picked for teams and encouraged.
Which month depends on how your school system works.

 

[HeLiXe]

I'm a Capricorn - we're famous for being miserable, introverted sods. In my case, I was born during one of the foulest, coldest, darkest and longest winters of the last century. So it's hardly surprising, is it?

I would love to see a serious comparison study of zodiac sign against personality type. I bet there's a genuine correlation.

I think this is a psychological question in reference to the climatic influence on personality/behavior. Coincidentally this week in my psych class we are covering social psychology. We were examining the influences of human aggression. The environment does influence behavior...one example is that higher temperatures increases the frequency of agression, hostile thoughts and feelings of hostility. We are also studying developmental psychology this week and I'm not really sure how much of our personality is formed in early infancy, or what sort of effect the climate would have on an infant's mental state and development -- but it would be interesting to find out! I think this would really appeal to the nature vs. nurture question.

I just wanted to note that I 100% despise astrology and zodiac and planets moving into houses and all of that jazz, but I find the psychological aspect of your query very interesting. I might ask my professor what she thinks :tongue2:

 

[Gokul43201]

However, bear with me a moment - Is it completely insane to suggest that the time of year that someone was born might have an effect on their overall nature and outlook on life?

I'm a Capricorn - we're famous for being miserable, introverted sods. In my case, I was born during one of the foulest, coldest, darkest and longest winters of the last century. So it's hardly surprising, is it?

If this were the case, then one would expect personality traits - as predicted by Zodiac signs - undergo a continuous transition through the months. After all, January's weather is most like December's and February's and very little like June's or July's (unless you live near the Equator). So is a Capricorn's personality predicted to be very similar to that of a Sagittarius and very dissimilar to that of say, a Cancer (and so on)?

Also, January's weather in N America/Europe is not at all like January's weather in S America/Australia - but your Zodiac sign does not depend on the hemisphere you are born in. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that if there is some observed predictive power to Zodiac (I would be very surprised if there was), it can not be related to weather.

 

[ZapperZ]

The idea that the stars and planets affect peoples lives in the classical sense is plain lunacy of course.

However, bear with me a moment - Is it completely insane to suggest that the time of year that someone was born might have an effect on their overall nature and outlook on life?

When you "suggest" something, it HAS to be based on either empirical correlation or a plausible underlying mechanism to justify the cause-and-effect.

The rest of your opening post contains neither. I can make a number of "suggestions" regarding this topic as well, without providing any kind of justification. So what makes your suggestion any better than mine? Simply based on tastes?

Zz.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Well, as ridiculous as astrology already is, the icing on the cake is the zodiac signs have changed. Your real sign is the next one over from the one you think it is. That's why I think it's hilarious that people get tattoos of the wrong zodiac sign.

I'm a Capricorn - we're famous for being miserable, introverted sods. In my case, I was born during one of the foulest, coldest, darkest and longest winters of the last century. So it's hardly surprising, is it?

It's not winter everywhere at the same time. The southern hemisphere is getting summer during that time. Or do the capricorns in the southern hemisphere not count?

 

[Office_Shredder]

If you're born during the winter, that doesn't mean you live in a perpetual state of winter. Is the two extra months of winter that I've lived in compared to someone born in the spring really supposed to be the deciding factor in my personality?

The fact that personality can clearly be molded by your environment means that your personality isn't even formed during your first couple months of life

 

[leroyjenkens]

If you're born during the winter, that doesn't mean you live in a perpetual state of winter. Is the two extra months of winter that I've lived in compared to someone born in the spring really supposed to be the deciding factor in my personality?

The fact that personality can clearly be molded by your environment means that your personality isn't even formed during your first couple months of life

Another problem is you don't suddenly become alive the moment you're born. You were alive 9 months prior to your birth. Why would the stars affect you when you're born, but not before you're born? Is the uterus an impenetrable shield against the effects of the stars? Those effects can pass through concrete and steel, which the hospital is made of, but it can't pass through a thin layer of flesh? And if it can't pass through a uterus, how does it pass through my head to get into my brain to change my personality? It can go through bone, but not through the soft tissue of a woman's abdomen?

 

[Ich]

I would love to see a serious comparison study of zodiac sign against personality type. I bet there's a genuine correlation.

I agree. If there's a causal connection, it should depend strongly on latitude. But most likely, you'll have a strong bias in the western world as those people generally know what they're supposed to be like. Such a study has to be done very carefully.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The only justification for keeping a thread like this open, is to provide an opportunity to show experimental evidence supporting the claim. So it is appropriate to post papers showing a correlation between the month of birth, and personality traits. It is not appropriate to speculate on the possibility of such evidence without providing any.

Accordingly, please limit the discussion to specific evidence like that linked below, and mainstream concepts and principles. As for any possible correlation between potential dob personality factors, and astrological claims, a casual comparison between the two is fine; with the understanding that correlation does not imply causation.

Month of Birth, a Risk Factor for Violent Behaviour in Suicidal Patients Admitted in Emergency?

Abstract Although there are numerous publications on the existing link between month of birth and suicide, only two studies focus on suicide attempts and auto-aggressive behavior. Research data suggest that month of birth is related to a variation of 5-HIAA in the cerebrospinal fluid, which correlates with violent behavior (VB). Therefore, the aim of this study is to search, for the first time, for a possible link between month of birth and the occurrence of VB in emergency, for patients admitted for a suicide attempt with medication. This is a 10 months prospective study among all the patients of the canton of Geneva, Switzerland, admitted in emergency for a suicide attempt with medication. During a 10 months study period we included 493 patients, of which 77 (15.62%) presented VB. Higher incidence of VB was found in subjects where born at the end of winter and the beginning of spring, with a maximum for April and a minimum for December. In spite of a relatively small number of subjects, it seems promising to study the occurrence of VB as a function of month of birth in patients admitted in emergency for a suicide attempt...

http://www.springerlink.com/content/y26h6482q143t1jq/

 

[Evo]

Haven't they gone out on a limb with "month of birth"? This is limited to Switzerland. Were the conditions for the months of birth the same for all picked for this study? How does this compare to other areas of the world? Why would they say "months" instead of more scientifically specifying temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, amount of sunlight, rain, snow, pollen count, mold spores, living conditions, history of violence and suicide in the family, etc...?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There is a strong correlation between time of year you are born and sporting ability - but it is due to school admission policy not the stars.

Be born in the correct month and you get to be the oldest in the class, so you are biggest and strongest and do best in sports - so you get picked for teams and encouraged.
Which month depends on how your school system works.

links?

 

[turbo]

links?

I think that he is saying that when a child is "just" too young to get into elementary school, (s)he gets an additional year to mature before joining the process. Not an unremarkable result.

In Texas, parents sometimes hold back their kids academically in elementary schools to keep their High School football eligibility open as long as possible. Sick!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think that he is saying that when a child is "just" too young to get into elementary school, (s)he gets an additional year to mature before joining the process. Not an unremarkable result.

In Texas, parents sometimes hold back their kids academically in elementary schools to keep their High School football eligibility open as long as possible. Sick!

All specific claims as such require a link. I understand why it makes sense, but we don't know that:

1). This has been established as a fact [there is good evidence to support the claim]
2). The reason suggested for the first claim has strong supporting evidence.
3). Whether there are any competing theories.

We allow a little latitude here and there, but this is a specific claim that apparently has been studied, so we need to see some links.

 

[turbo]

It's probably good practice to give a bit of latitude to people who are not involved in the central question.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950507&slug=2119696

 

[mgb_phys]

links?

I thought I read it in freakonomics or lewis Page, the claim was that it didn't correlate with pro athletes (because relatively few school athletes go pro) but it did work for politicians and 'captains of industry' - apparently being the biggest bully in kindergarten continues.

The link I can find is a guy in australia http://www.springer.com/statistics/stats+life+sci/book/978-3-642-10747-4.
He also claims it works for Europe/USA with school year starting in Sept and Australia starting in jan.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It's probably good practice to give a bit of latitude to people who are not involved in the central question.

Sorry, no exceptions.

A good numbers of posts have been deleted as they were off topic or were responding to an inappropriate argument. Just to make it as clear as possible: We do not consider personal theories here. We have the Independent Research Forum for that. Again, the only reason for keeping a thread like this open is to provide opportunity for supporting evidence to be posted.

It should be noted that in the deleted discussion, the point was made that summers and winters are reversed according to lattitude - the southern and northern hemispheres have opposite seasons. So any seasonal dependence for personality traits is seemingly irrelevant. However, I think this depends on the history of astrology. Was it developed and applied mainly in the N. hemisphere? If so, then given the admission that the basis for astrological principles is false, the idea that it is still predictive within its domain, could be explored.

The point is not to argue that astrological predictions are right or wrong; it is to ask if any evidence exists suggesting that there is a correlation between personality traits, and the month of one's birth.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Off-topic posts were again deleted. Each off-topic post from here on will result in an infraction.

If you are not going to respect the guidelines, then you are not welcome here.

 

[AJ Bentley]

I originally raised this topic as an idle thought.

However the furore it caused has prompted me to take a look at what the A*s actually say rather than my vague assumption that it would be something based on seasons.

Apparently they split the year up into quite small slices of roughly a month each and describe four personality types (earth, air, fire and water of course)
However, instead of cycling through these four in a seasonal manner as I would have expected, they cycle through them month by month, repeating the cycle three times in a year.

Of course, this completely blows my theory out of the water. there's no hope that such a system would have a seasonal correlation.
So I'm officially retracting the topic.

Please talk among yourselves if you like.

 

[sshzp4]

Problem of psychologically motivated selection of observations leading to false correlation and hypothesis.

I always notice the number 454 (at the minimum rate of once per day) when I look at the watch, internet or anything that flashes numbers... it was the user ID my ex used who I dumped very heartlessly. Coincidence? Haunting? Karma? I prefer my explanation, heartless b**ch that I am.. :D

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Unfortunately, I think the key point has been missed. The op asked the question:

Is it completely insane to suggest that the time of year that someone was born might have an effect on their overall nature and outlook on life?

...I would love to see a serious comparison study of zodiac sign against personality type. I bet there's a genuine correlation.

While we all agree that the positions of the planets could have no conceivable effect on personality, what is not clear to me is this: Is there any possibility that the astrological personality traits find their origins in observations of human behavior; which was then incorrectly attributed to the stars? Or, were these predictions derived, in principle, directly from some abstract interpretation of the stars, with no basis is actual observations? Assuming that we don't know, is there any evidence that they are predictive?

Are astrologically predicted personality traits [from so-called serious astrologers] specific enough to be tested for accuracy? If so, can they be falsified using standard psychological profiles? It has never been clear to me if the most basic claims about personality can be falsified.

 

[sshzp4]

My implication was, the question even arises because of a faulty method we use to observe behavior. We tend to 'look out' for things that we expect, and unconsciously not take note of counter observations. Eg. I probably look at the watch all time time. However, I take notes only when its 454, leading to the idle conjecture that every time I look at a numeric display, I see the same numbers.

Well let's consider the problems one would need to tackle to answer such OP's question. The first problem is to define what a 'personality type' (PT) is. Then we have to have years of observations to make sure our definition is 'correct'. The psychologists who should actually work on this are more interested in making money by hypothesizing deliberate controversial claims about human sexuality.

After (If) we have agree upon PT, then we need to design the most comprehensive protocol for collecting data on each PT. After that, its just simple stats to test correlation and hypothesis.

And you must recall the vagueness of most predictions. The astrologers deliberately use ambiguous terminology to make statements as general as possible. Its never 'you will meet your Chinese boss', but 'You will see the colors of the dragons from the East'. What is the measure of truth here? How do we show a prediction and observation are factually correlated?

These particular reasons have already discredited this field and no serious academic would want to touch this. I know some studies were carried out by some European (German) social scientists (late 80's and early 90's) who found that predictions were correct over 80% of the time for a particular astrologer. Later, other scientists found evidence of manipulation of data and that the original scientists had accepted financial supported by the astrologer.

And the big question here still is: How do we define the extents of a personality type? You can imagine very well that a 'personality' is not a stationary phenomenon. The $\mathfrak{L}^p$ norm won't help us here...

 

[Ich]

links?

This is called the "Relative Age Effect" and is very well documented (3.5m hits on Google scholar). See http://www.dkysa.org/RelativeAgeEffectSportsHelsenEtAl_2005.pdf" for example.

 

[CEL]

Political ability is a trait that can be tested. See the signs of the POTUS:
http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/zodiac-signs-presidents.html

 

[Ken Natton]

I have just discovered this thread and have found some of the opinions expressed on it quite surprising. I completely understand, accept and even support the general rules of Physics Forums that Ivan Seeking is trying to uphold. I have a perspective to offer to this debate. It provides no links or any hard data, my hope of avoiding an infraction is based entirely on the fact that it does perhaps offer a suggestion of a realistic way in which the idea expressed by the OP might be tested scientifically. I only beg your indulgence to develop my point before you jump to the conclusion that I am off-topic.

On a completely different group of forums, I had an exchange that I found quite disturbing with someone whose belief is that it is possible to identify an inherent tendency in a person towards certain types of criminal behaviour, using an FMRI scanner. It is an idea that I find repugnant, but I accept that that is based on philosophical opinion, not on scientific fact. The heart of my argument was that it is a fallacy to suppose that there is anything to be found in the neural structures that would link all persons with any given character trait and distinguish them from all such persons without that trait.

Does that not offer a technique, if it were to be considered at all worth while, to test the notion of a link between personality and any commonality of birth circumstances? If such an idea were to have any basis in truth, would it not have to be that a link could be found between those birth circumstances and consequential neural structures? You’ll gather that my own opinion is that no such link exists.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The problem is that we are not interested in speculation about what evidence might or might not exist; nor personal theories to account for evidence that we don't have.

The first order of business for any claim is to see if the claim can be or has been tested. That is why much of the discussion was deleted. We don't posit theories and then look for evidence to support them. Theories [even speculation] must be based on evidence. Beyond this, personal theories are specifically banned from discussion. It has always been a guiding princple of this forum that theories are published in professional journals, not in debunking forums.

The point has also been made that astrological claims are so vague that they can be interpreted however desired. While this may be true as a matter of personal interpretation, and it may be true of tabloid level astrology, I don't know this to be true of the so-called serious astrologers. That is a claim that in itself requires evidence.

Are astrological claims about personality any more vague than personality profiles? If so, please give some examples.

The impression that I've gained over the years is that there is no accepted personality test that could be used as a baseline, so the astrological claims cannot be falsified. True or false? Please show evidence to support your answer.

 

[eyeofdivine]

The problem is that we are not interested in speculation about what evidence might or might not exist; nor personal theories to account for evidence that we don't have.

I think one of the issues with this topic is there is no reasearch behind this topic. All you can give is a personal opinion.

 

[Gokul43201]

I think one of the issues with this topic is there is no reasearch behind this topic. All you can give is a personal opinion.

Not true. See, for example: Shawn Carlson, "A double-blind test of astrology", Nature 318, 419-425 (1985)

Anyway, I think you're missing the point Ivan was making. The way this particular sub-forum works is that you typically need some reasonable evidence as a starting point.

 

[Gokul43201]

The impression that I've gained over the years is that there is no accepted personality test that could be used as a baseline, so the astrological claims cannot be falsified. True or false? Please show evidence to support your answer.

See reference above.

28 astrologers (self-selected from among 90 nominees named by the National Council for Geocosmic Research, as being astrologers who were "held in high esteem by their peers" were given profiles (one correct, two incorrect) to match to a natal chart. The personality test used was the CPI (California Personality Inventory) because that was the one specifically chosen by the Astrologers advising in the study "because they judged the CPI attributes to be closest to those discernible by Astrology." Moreover, the Astrologers that participated were allowed to attach a weight (0-10) to the confidence in their match. A weight of 10 meant that the CPI profile very closely matched a set of attributes that could be derived from the natal chart.

The study tested for two things:

1. Whether the astrologers were able to significantly beat the 33% odds from random guessing (the advising astrologers estimated that they would beat 50% accuracy),

2. Whether the accuracy of their matching varied in proportion to the weights that they assigned to those predictions.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

See reference above.

28 astrologers (self-selected from among 90 nominees named by the National Council for Geocosmic Research, as being astrologers who were "held in high esteem by their peers" were given profiles (one correct, two incorrect) to match to a natal chart. The personality test used was the CPI (California Personality Inventory) because that was the one specifically chosen by the Astrologers advising in the study "because they judged the CPI attributes to be closest to those discernible by Astrology." Moreover, the Astrologers that participated were allowed to attach a weight (0-10) to the confidence in their match. A weight of 10 meant that the CPI profile very closely matched a set of attributes that could be derived from the natal chart.

The study tested for two things:

1. Whether the astrologers were able to significantly beat the 33% odds from random guessing (the advising astrologers estimated that they would beat 50% accuracy),

2. Whether the accuracy of their matching varied in proportion to the weights that they assigned to those predictions.

Thanks, Gokul.

Am I missing something? I don't see the results anywhere. Not even the abstract was quoted in what I saw online.

Given that the astrologers were allowed to pick one, it is implied that no two tests are alike. Is this true?

Do different personality tests reliably produce the same results for the each individual tested?

Does this imply that astrological claims are no more vague than personality profiles? The astrologers picked their favorite, but how do the two compare in terms of specificity?

 

[Gokul43201]

Ivan, the paper does not talk about tests other than the CPI. Nor does it discuss the relative specificity (of CPI profiles vs astrological profiles) - at least not from my memory. I've sent you the paper, so you can read it and judge for yourself.

 

[FlexGunship]

The problem with astrology having "predictive power" is that two astrologers are free to disagree. In any specific case you are likely to find at least one astrologer be correct. It's like this with many pseudosciences. James Randi and Carl Sagan both worked hard to show that this is true.

Astrology is no better at predicting someone's future (or their personality) than any other method of divination.

There is no God and James Randi and Carl Sagan are his prophets.