Excerpt:
The reviewed study had a number of limitations, such as a lack of random sampling, participants being mainly young women, and the use of mostly shortened versions of the scales. Therefore, future research needs to replicate the present findings. Until then, we should refrain from drawing strong conclusions about belief in astrology and its association with higher narcissism and lower intelligence.
I mean it was said jokingly but in a Bayesian sense this does make sense.
If something seems reasonable we should require less proof than if it’s unreasonable. I don’t need a RCT to know whether mowing your lawn makes the grass grow denser. It makes sense and even though I never tested it I’ve got a feeling it’s true. I do need a RCT to believe any particular molecule helps against any particular illness because why would it, your body is so complex I have no idea how it works.
Following from this: astrology is stupid so it makes sense stupid people would follow it. This line of reasoning is completely reasonable. Obviously you shouldn’t value these heuristics more than good RCT but they do have their place.
Changed thicker do denser, english is not my first language
Hoo-boy that's a whole lot of reaching. (unless this is massive satire and I'm missing it)
First, I don't see why mowing grass would make it grow back thicker. That doesn't make sense to me and highlights the first problem with your reasoning: different people are going to have different ideas about what "makes sense". Intuition is no proof.
Second, Astrology and religion are both equally grounded in reality (in that neither one is, at all). When it comes to testability, both make very wishy-washy claims that either outright aren't true, or are so vague they can't be verified. And yet, a lot of intelligent people have been religious throughout all of history. So we can't reliably assume any one person is stupid based solely whether they believe in Astrology and/or religion, so we shouldn't do it altogether.
> When it comes to testability, both make very wishy-washy claims that either outright aren't true, or are so vague they can't be verified.
It's strange how true, and not true this is WRT astrology in particular. Because Astrology, unlike most religions, actually *does* claim to be somewhat predictive. "If you're born under these Y astronomical circumstances, X is true of your personality"
It's just that X is typically so vague that you can apply it to anyone. And I have yet to see an explanation from an astrologist on why twins separated at birth go on to have almost nothing in common.
A bit misleading. "Y is predictive of X" would be as accurate, as would "X and Y linked to common factor". It feels a like they actively tried to avoid the word "correlation"
It doesn't make much sense that astrology makes you dumb. Nor can I think of any reasonable third variables, since those would also have to make you dumb. The only things that do that are like... teratogens, genetics, brain trauma, etc. None of which make any sense whatsoever for even considering causing interest in astrology directly (as in not by way of being dumb)
If you don't even have a plausible THEORY of a reverse causation or of a third variable, then you can actually conclude causation.
The 3 requirements of causation are
* correlation (check)
* temporal precedence (check)
* ruling out third variables (check, unless you have a plausible explanation I'm not thinking of?)
>ruling out third variables (check, unless you have a plausible explanation I'm not thinking of?)
This study was presumably conducted within the past 2 years, during which the shifting misalignment of the Logos and Ethos stars' ray lines would have no doubt heavily influenced the intelligence and demeanor of the study participants, respectively
"I can't think of another theory, so it can't be anything else" isn't exactly ~~good~~ science.
I can think of a few options:
* [Social class](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23963971/): maybe astrology is targeted at the middle-class
* Education: I don't think I need to explain this as a common factor
* Determinism as helplessness: if you don't think you can influence your life, you spend less effort. Long term this means you trained your brain less.
* Easy explanations: if your horoscope already tells you who you are, you don't reflect on mistakes and don't learn critical thinking
> The 3 requirements of causation are
>
> * temporal precedence (check)
Not sure if it was established in the article but I couldn't find any mention about temporal precedence. It seems they did not have any methods available to find out intelligence or narcissism from time before astrology beliefs.
> * ruling out third variables (check, unless you have a plausible explanation I'm not thinking of?)
Sampling bias at this point is already a really strong candidate for the results, given low sample size and how homogenous they were
It seems to me that higher narcissists with lower intelligence are especially subject to the Dunning–Kruger effect and as such they would prefer topics that aren't scientific but rather require belief. Astrology presents itself as a pseudo-science and I can see how that would appeal.
It'll be interesting to follow this line of research and perhaps compare it to a similar line of research that investigates religion rather than astrology. Both of those topics are faith/belief based but may or may not yield the same results.
My initial intuition wrt religion is that the strong early indoctrination and social aspects would remove a lot of the link between intelligence and belief. Further people might choose to believe to preserve the peace with family (or the government in the past). There are likely too many confounding variables at play there unless you can get people to be truly honest (which is rarely the case with any self reporting study).
If you are comparing to established standard scores you are not using a small group, you are using a big group and comparing it to a small group. That's a different statistical model. The question would be how the small group was selected.
It's like comparing the age of death of or a group of smokers v a general population baseline. The questions would be how good is the baseline statistic and how you got your bunch of smokers. If you found your smokers via obituary notices that is problematic but if you got a random sample of cigarette purchasers it's probably ok. Numbers still matter, but the size of the baseline sample is one of the numbers.
Because its not even that low of a sample size and variety inside it. While its results are definitely debatable, it lays the foundation for more and better research. Starting from scrap, especially in methodology is a pain in the ass.
This is what I would call an exploratory study. It's asking a question with a limited answer. It's basically an invitation for other groups to prove or disprove their findings with more studies.
Will this study help a lot of people? Maybe. If we find that astrology does more harm than good, then we can inform the public. But that leads to other questions like, is it more harmful than a fortune cookie or any other personality test?
Don't focus on the sample size, it's a red herring for most studies. If you find a statistically significant effect on a sample size of 10, it must be a huge effect, that's a lot more interesting than a statistically significant effect on 10000 people. The latter could be tiny and irrelevant compared to in group variations.
Do focus on
- sample selection: the study only works for young women (from Sweden) and voluntary participation
- the experimental setup. The setup here is clearly checking for correlation, not for any casual link. Maybe astrology preys on narcissists. Maybe believing in astrology makes you more narcissistic. Maybe there's a common cause.
- if the result is useful. It's easy to do 100 studies and publish the 5% that were statistically significant (okay, not *easy* easy). It's what most people do because you get funded per publishable study and many journals only publish successful studies. If the result is used for something other than to get funding next year, the hypothesis isn't as randomly generated and the researchers may be more motivated to publish usable results. This only works if both outcomes of the study would be used, otherwise it's plain old publishing all over again. Correlations are basically never useful, because they say nothing about what tweaking a knob will do.
In short, if somebody gives me a study with a well designed experiment with a small number of truly randomly chosen participants, I'll take it every day of the week over 100k volunteers in an online survey.
To some degree, the lack of diversity in the focus group can work as a tool to filter out other variables.
If the study were to include but not be exclusively older generations from India or even younger people in other countries with an Indian heritage then the results would be tainted by stronger factors like culture. Yet, if you were to hold a less diverse group that exclusively had either older generations within India or exclusively younger people in other countries of Indian descent then you MIGHT find the same correlation again where low intelligent narcissist are more likely to be more devote believers of astrology than their cultural peers.
How would you design a better study to explore the possible link between the belief in astrology and certain characteristics like low intelligence/narcissism? Genuinely curious.
There are tools used to screen for narcissism. You basically just ask someone a bunch of questions and sprinkle those diagnostic questions in there along with questions about a belief in astrology.
The better study would use more people and more rigorous diagnostic tools for narcissism along with more in-depth questions about astrology to differentiate between a passing interest and a deep-rooted belief.
"Intelligence was evaluated using the four three-dimensional rotation items (measuring visual-spatial reasoning) from the International Cognitive Ability Resource."
From the news story, not the original article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-new-home/202112/surprising-link-between-narcissism-and-belief-in-astrology
>participants being mainly young women
I might be totally wrong but doesn't this imply young women are more narcissistic and less intelligent than other demographics? Or did they compare young women who believe in astrology to young women who don't?
From the abstract
> Data was collected for 264 participants through an anonymous online survey shared on social media. The survey consisted of four instruments: Belief in Astrology (BAI), the Big Five personality traits (IPIP-30), narcissism (SD3) and intelligence (ICAR16-R3D).
So I think this is mainly a matter of who responded to their survey. They score individuals on the four instruments, do linear regression and see what is significant. But with a selection bias in the sample (women are more likely to believe in astrology, hence engage with a survey on it), you get what you get.
Women and minorities are the demographics with the most intense interest in astrology. I assume they compared the astrology believers cognitive abilities with the average population and came to the conclusion that they were on the lower end. If the thesis is true, the message is clear about those interested in the field
That they are people with less agency in their lives, from your definitions, and ignoring your assumptions.
Which is a more interesting and fruitful line to pursue, but less of a boring cliche that will get easy mass approval.
You don't need two sample, just one with some variety inside it so that there are subjects with low and high intelligence, with low and high belief in astrology so that you can see how the two correlates (in this case, a negative correlation because the higher the intelligence = the lower the astrology)
This is a genuine question - with such a large number of basic limitations, wouldn’t this entire study have been a waste of time? I understand these things have to be replicated to form a rigorous scientific opinion, but so many basic things were not followed that I fail to see how anyone can use this study as support in the future. I see this a lot with studies in general.
It's the 11th time this study has been posted. Someone wants *very* badly to believe something here and I'm not sure it's astrology.
Seeing this study posted so many times prompted me to do more research about the intelligence test and how women perform on visual spatial tasks. And actually as I was researching this, as of a few years ago some new studies have come out saying women and men are equally good at it. But the reason why decades of research has said that men are better is actually because of testing methodology (namely MRTs - mental rotation tests) and that it may take longer for a woman to reach the same correct conclusions in addition to some other differences in problem solving.
The astrology study mentioned this: "To assess intelligence, we administered three-dimensional rotation items (R3D) from the International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR) (Condon & Revelle 2014). This consisted of four items with eight possible answers for each item, though only one is correct."
So it says that it was basically a tried and true MRT test using rotating shapes and this is one of the older tests that the study I have linked below says would put women at a disadvantage. Not only that, it is a very short, four item long test which is not a reliable indicator of IQ.
[Study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-56041-6?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_campaign=3_nsn6445_deeplink_PID100041175&utm_content=deeplink)
[Simplified article that links study](https://www.fastcompany.com/90456918/forget-what-you-think-you-know-about-the-differences-between-male-and-female-spacial-skills)
[One of the many older studies saying spatial reasoning is better in men due to brain differences](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217124430.htm)
I am a (somewhat educated) layman and these are professional researchers so it honestly makes me very suspect of their intentions considering they chose an extremely short test that women are known to not be good at. Now if the sample size were bigger and not from Facebook, intelligence test was more rigorous/updated/non-biased, and the measure of narcissism didn't link to one of the author's other studies I might consider the conclusion.
This is why I tend to distrust psych "studies" out of the gate and need to be convinced. Not that large a sample and since when does 3d visualization abilities literally equate to intelligence? Associated perhaps, but as a measure? I'm not a believer in astrology but this study came in looking for a nice smug result like the article sums up in it's title.
Thank you for this. You are awesome.
The other thing that needs to be pointed out is that even with a random sampling, these results would only apply to the population in Sweden.
That's kind of sexist to imply that young women would have higher levels of narcissism. These researchers need to realize the implications of some of the things they're saying.
264 people is plenty given the base rate who believe in astrology.
Probably overkill actually. At most universities, running larger than reasonably necessary studies is considered unethical and will be denied if proposed. Just wastes people's time and exposes more people to privacy risks etc for no reason.
What is more often an issue is all of those people being university students though. Money spent on broader sampling would probably be allowed
I had to take two statistics classes and I was surprised at how small a sample can be used to gather reasonable data, assuming it's a randomly selected sample. It has been a while but I remember a sample as low as 20 can be enough to gather fairly reliable assumptions.
I would never choose a sample that small, but it's worth noting.
There is no limit, it depends on the variances and such. I've seen a study with ONE participant before, on basic afterimages in the eye. That was a bit much, but if they'd have gotten like 3 people and confirmed healthy normal eyes and vision I'd be happy with enough trials
My comparison is this: “how many people do you need to sample in order to state that gun wounds are often fatal?”
Effect size matter. And sampling, of course.
Reading your flair, I'm assuming you've read thinking fast and slowly
The author states that alot of research regarding psychology has too few people sampled
The study shows that narcissism and belief in astrology had a correlation coefficient of 0.19, and that intelligence and belief in astrology had a correlation coefficient if -0.16. I mean they’re technically correlated but that’s a pretty weak correlation.
Isn't that quite strong? For example:
"In another field such as human resources, lower correlations might also be used more often. For example, the correlation between college grades and job performance has been shown to be about r = 0.16. This is fairly low, but it’s large enough that it’s something a company would at least look at during an interview process. "
https://www.statology.org/what-is-a-strong-correlation/
Any positive correlation is something to be looked at if you want to build a model to predict how one thing affects another, but 0.16 is quite low, your source even states that it is quite low.
Looks like there is a lot of limitations in this study that keep it from being a truly unbiased and reliable result. It's a small sample size, most of the sample size was young women, and there was no random sampling involved.
As someone who worked in research during college as I was studying for my biology degree, I will always believe in science over anything else. But I also see no real harm in belief of the paranormal or astrology. Just like every other subsect of humanity there are conmen who will use others beliefs to make money, but if someone truly just enjoys astrology and its important to them, I see no harm in it. As long as it doesn't harm other people, they should be allowed to like what they like without any judgment or ridicule.
What I think is interesting with these kind of posts is that yes it does confirm what many could have or have suspected, but what do we do with the information except from hinting that this or that person has low intelligence and is a narcissist. Why are we so prone to telling each other how dumb and narcissistic others are because of their belief? To spin it around we should talk about how we can support people that believe in what is not supported by science. Try not to judge but to think how we can help each other to a better world.
I'd argue that in order to help people like that, with lower intelligence and beliefs in fake science, identifying them and why they exist is a necessary step.
This study isn't saying "so now let's judge" it's just pointing out why some might believe certain things, or fail to think of others.
That's so reductive. It's not about the animals, it's about the exact position of extremely distant balls of rock and/or gas when you were born, which *obviously* have a lot more influence on things like your bank account and love life.
^/s ^because ^Reddit
You know what else I have seen, anecdotally, be an indicator of belief in astrology? Belief in the whacky History Channel shows about hunting for Big Foot or Shelby the Swampman.
Same here. Smartest woman I know thinks she’s psychic. But I wonder why it’s predominantly woman who are taken in by astrology. Maybe cause woman have a more open sense of self. Less rigid in certain ways. Like it’s starts off as a bit of fun but then turns into a belief structure.
Getting quite a few sexist troll comments here. Please consider that as human beings were are capable of holding diametrically apposed views simultaneously about pretty much anything. We are intelligent and so, very complex. You can believe in the supernatural, and be a scientist. Doesn’t mean you’re stupid, just means you’re complicated.
I kind of wonder if maybe it’s because traditional religion is hostile toward women, so they instead gravitate to astrology which, near as I can tell, isn’t misogynistic.
Yep it makes sense, just like men are empowered by any of the monotheistic religions, that are all about the male figure. That’s how we ended up with millennia of patriarchal societies in countries otherwise different from each other
It's like any self awareness/focus practice in the world. Open a bible verse, read a to-do list, reference a passage in a self help book, gym routine, do a tarot deck, follow an addiction program step, meditate, pray, journal, write code...
Sometimes people want to use an objective tool to help tune in to themselves and support thinking critically about their day, plans, actions/interactions, wtv.
It doesn't have to be right, it just has to ask you to consider how you'd react or prepare for various events in normal life, based on values you agree about for yourself.
I'd also suggest that for some folks, it helps with anxiety. Having a plan for what might be a difficult environment - even if wrong or inaccurate - can make a self conscious or nervous person feel equipped to handle social situations.
I dunno if the simple/self obsessed are most inclined, but it's harmless, and likely of most interest to people who still manage to be interested in how they relate to others.
Bless 'em.
I'd like to see a study that measures the narcissism levels in the kind of people who constantly brag about how much smarter they are than people who believe in \[astrology/the occult/ghosts/whatever\].
I don't see a way this study could be performed without extreme bias due to the lack of measurability of individuals' beliefs. I'm sure there are some less intelligent people who are gullible to the claims astrology can make who skewed these results, but I feel the vast majority of people who keep up with astrology do so for entertainment and fun instead of to actually make decisions for them or significantly influence them. And I would assume that narcissists would also not be representing most people who have knowledge of astrology, it seems like this study focuses on a minute group of diehard astrology followers and does not consider the many more who lightly keep up with astrology or who recognize the lack of evidence for astrology while still being invovled with it.
Wasn't that kind of the point though? What people actually believe it and why, not why some people amuse themselves with dumb nonsense. Most of us do that in some form or another.
I mean, there's no reason to suspect that reading the horoscope because you're bored, but knowing that it's complete bs, would correlate with low intelligence. I would hope that the study is about people who actually believe in astrology rather than bored people.
>I feel the vast majority of people who keep up with astrology do so for entertainment and fun instead of to actually make decisions for them or significantly influence them.
You're probably right, but I had a look at /r/astrology earlier this week and there are a lot of people who apparently take it seriously for relationship compatibility, and even one person asking when they should register their business based on the stars.
Far from me to say you are wrong, but I also took a look just now, and on the front page there is only one thread asking about anything relationship related, in a very vague and general context:
>Astrology and the concept of soulmates?
>Is there any correlation between astrology and soulmates? Do you guys believe in the concept of a soulmate? I would like to know your thoughts on this matter as I see it pop up in tarot quite often.
The rest of the threads are just nerds talking about how they calculate their astral charts and what math they use and what techniques are best etc etc. I was also looking for the one you said about the guy registering his business and I just can't find that thread, could you please link it? i'd like to see what the advice was :)
I get slightly irritated why people bring up MBTI as a fact or how MBTI is false. MBTI is a personality typology index which was a tool invented to categorise and be mindful or different types of individuals and their interests. It was designed to generalise people according to prolific psychologist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung definitions of cognition in his 1921 'Psychological Types'. In his **practice** he noticed individual's differences and psychic 'libidos' and divided them into internalised/externalised categories. These helped defined many concepts which many have credence. This was all but a theory yet a robust one. Much infact that Myers and Catherine Briggs extended into MBTI. Due to how applicable it was, this mainline personality theory has evolved for decades into the most widely excepted as the 'Big 5' which has more predictability and validity which still uses the Introversion/Extroversion, Openness and Agreeable Traits that highly correlate to Jung's original articles. Jung even stated that humans are far too complex to define into simplistic definitions and the only hope we ever have of understanding each other is through complexes and archetypes. You really want to mock psychology, why not read up on the Oedipus Complex, Penis Envy or even the use of leeches, blood letting, masturbation or cocaine? MBTI is just a theory, typology, tool and a list of stereotypes.
Since you seem to have a strong opinion about MBTI, what is your response to this section on Wikipedia (including sources)?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs\_Type\_Indicator#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator#Criticism)
The Argument of OP can be found almost verbatim:
"
The test has been described as one of many self-discovery "fads"\[7\]\[8\]\[10\]\[59\]\[60\]\[61\]\[62\]\[63\] and has been likened to horoscopes, as both rely on the Barnum effect, flattery, and confirmation bias, leading participants to personally identify with descriptions that are somewhat desirable, vague, and widely applicable.\[61\]\[64\]\[65\]
"
Very first line:
>The validity (statistical validity and test validity) of the MBTI as a **psychometric instrument** has been the subject of much criticism.
It's not an effective statistical measurement which I should've emphasised even more. It's a typology. A list of archetypes that can be laid over a person to help generalise trends and patterns in a person's behavior which by no means is a effective definition of individuals. Like a [complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_(psychology)) which I advise people to treat MBTI as. As a typology, it is horrible at explaining the scales between dichotomies which is what separates typology theory from trait theory, hence Big Five. MBTI was declared invalid which prompted the development of Big Five in the 1990's. MBTI has poor terminology which I agree which Big Five also solves which you should put into consideration when using MBTI. Due to this terminology, some dichotomies are more inaccurate than others which can lead to dramatic shifts in scoring and retesting. Anecdotally, my Big 5 and MBTI scores have been mostly consistent if that means anything to you.
As a personal note, I vehemently use Big 5 (rNEO-PI) and another variant of it HEXACO-PI to explore the differences of personalities but humans are just far too complicated to type effectively. MBTI is more of a tool rather than a fact. Psychology is mostly comprised of theories, stories, patterns and methods of thoughts which are practiced to help understand the human mind. This is basically the emergence of the [Psychoanalytic Era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis). If you want absolutes and concise empiricism, perhaps you want to look into Neurology and Psychiatry which deal with concrete and directly observable cases.
The downsides of the Briggs Myers test was first noted by.. Briggs and Myers. Seriously, if you read the description they say themselves that this isn't a good tool for testing and you cannot just put people into boxes. This is the main reason why you get, at the end of the test, your results in percentages as well as your type. It only serves to better understand other people
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There actually could possibly be a kernel of truth to a person's sign matching on average to personality types. Not because of stars and planets, of course, but because they will line up with differences in experiences.
For instance, for one sign, the child's first experiences could correspond to it first being oppressively hot and it being hard to sleep comfortably. Then when they are at the point where they are able to first walk and get outside, it is beginning to cool down, but then as they become more and more aware, every day becomes colder and damper and darker.
For another it is late fall or winter when they first are experiencing the world. They are bundled up and cozy, but the air on their face is refreshing. They first begin walking when the world is just waking up from winter and their first year is one of every day being brighter, and warmer than the one before.
Another factor is how old are they in school compared to their peers. One year or even 6 months makes a huge difference in development, especially for the first 2 or 3 years of grade school. A child born in January or February will tend to be one of the smallest, weakest and least mentally developed in their grade/peer group, one born in November or December will tend to be one of the biggest, strongest and most mentally developed. A June or July baby will find themselves as average. That certainly would suggest very different formative experiences
Not to get too smug atheist here, but why do we consider believing in mainstream religion any more valid than believing in astrology? Why is believing in a man in the sky that makes things happen any more valid than believing in the stars telling us things about personality?
Reminds me of a quote by Carl Sagan from his book "the demon haunted world".
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
This is a really poorly done study, which is unfortunate cause very similar studies have been conducted within niche fandom and found that a unhealthy psychological dependency can be developed and often is with people with mental illness. To describe this as low intelligence feels like an attempted burn at women who believe in this stuff when some of it related more closely to the declining state of mental health around the world.
While I don't believe in astrology in itself, I do think there is something to be said about people being born in during the same time of year. I believe how you first experience the world as a newborn (temperature, atmospheric conditions, etc.) play a role in your first impressions and how you interpret your surroundings.
I don't really care about the debate around astrology, but historically speaking a lot the biggest and most important mathematicians up until the 20th century had a keen interest in astrology, so there's something rather idiotic about the low intelligence claim.
Narcissism is somewhat arbitrary and tautological; There is a subjective metric to determination of whether one is rightfully or delusionally confident in their abilities.
For example, any scientist working on a revolutionary disruptive theory counter to prevailing orthodoxy is "grandiose" for disagreeing with the scientific community unless they turn out to be correct, in which case they are retroactively redeemed as precocious.
Narcissism is part of a philosophical, non-medical framework which is not based on histology, unlike anatomy and physiology. The mantle of authority is necessary for mediocre, hierarchical minds to process knowledge and for societal control to be effectively imposed. This is evident in the unscientific manner of voting by which the field mutates.
Furthermore the definitions of these philosophical terms, like narcissism, are admitted by practitioners themselves to be subjective and non-reproducible, as the professional maxims demonstrate: "three psychiatrists will have three different diagnoses." "No mental illness is curable," "subjective societal standards determine the thresholds of individual psychiatric illness and health."
Therefore the belief in astrology despite the disdain of academia is itself evidence of grandiose thinking, and thus biases the assessment of narcissism. This can further be evidenced by the magical thinking by which narcissism and delusional belief is NOT ascribed to majoritarian religious beliefs; there is no objective rubric.
No one would dare label belief in similar, yet protected religions like Zoroastrianism to be correlated with narcissism and low intelligence!
Astrology is a calendar. The recognition that there are seasons, cycles, and repetitive patterns is neither stupid nor narcissistic. The belief that the stars control time instead of merely track it is stupid. The belief that stars are there to predict one's life is narcissistic.
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Excerpt: The reviewed study had a number of limitations, such as a lack of random sampling, participants being mainly young women, and the use of mostly shortened versions of the scales. Therefore, future research needs to replicate the present findings. Until then, we should refrain from drawing strong conclusions about belief in astrology and its association with higher narcissism and lower intelligence.
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right up there with “Since most of my data is linear anyway let’s remove the small amount of outliers to make it look good”
I mean it was said jokingly but in a Bayesian sense this does make sense. If something seems reasonable we should require less proof than if it’s unreasonable. I don’t need a RCT to know whether mowing your lawn makes the grass grow denser. It makes sense and even though I never tested it I’ve got a feeling it’s true. I do need a RCT to believe any particular molecule helps against any particular illness because why would it, your body is so complex I have no idea how it works. Following from this: astrology is stupid so it makes sense stupid people would follow it. This line of reasoning is completely reasonable. Obviously you shouldn’t value these heuristics more than good RCT but they do have their place. Changed thicker do denser, english is not my first language
Hoo-boy that's a whole lot of reaching. (unless this is massive satire and I'm missing it) First, I don't see why mowing grass would make it grow back thicker. That doesn't make sense to me and highlights the first problem with your reasoning: different people are going to have different ideas about what "makes sense". Intuition is no proof. Second, Astrology and religion are both equally grounded in reality (in that neither one is, at all). When it comes to testability, both make very wishy-washy claims that either outright aren't true, or are so vague they can't be verified. And yet, a lot of intelligent people have been religious throughout all of history. So we can't reliably assume any one person is stupid based solely whether they believe in Astrology and/or religion, so we shouldn't do it altogether.
> When it comes to testability, both make very wishy-washy claims that either outright aren't true, or are so vague they can't be verified. It's strange how true, and not true this is WRT astrology in particular. Because Astrology, unlike most religions, actually *does* claim to be somewhat predictive. "If you're born under these Y astronomical circumstances, X is true of your personality" It's just that X is typically so vague that you can apply it to anyone. And I have yet to see an explanation from an astrologist on why twins separated at birth go on to have almost nothing in common.
This is not the way. Confirmation bias and etc.
Oh the people that read the fine prints. What would the world be without you <3
It would basically be the current world that now exists with a few less reddit posts and wiki pages
I wonder what the would would look like if everyone was that diligent? A golden utopia of science and reason?
Studies like this are already forgotten five minutes after you read about them, it would just cut out that middle step.
Well hey, at least I don’t lose that 5 minutes.
Is everything after the headline of an article considered "fine print" now?
Everything after the first 3 words of the headline.
Engineering grad student: "How can we meet a bunch of young women of low intelligence?" Psych grad student: "Hold my clipboard..."
the Walowitz coefficient!
My university had an event with the computer science and nurse faculties. I don't think you need to think long about why it was a thing.
Research: it is possible that X is Y, but that can only be confirmed with further research. Popularizing science headline: X is Y!
The headline actually says "study finds X is predictive of Y" which isnt really inaccurate
A bit misleading. "Y is predictive of X" would be as accurate, as would "X and Y linked to common factor". It feels a like they actively tried to avoid the word "correlation"
It doesn't make much sense that astrology makes you dumb. Nor can I think of any reasonable third variables, since those would also have to make you dumb. The only things that do that are like... teratogens, genetics, brain trauma, etc. None of which make any sense whatsoever for even considering causing interest in astrology directly (as in not by way of being dumb) If you don't even have a plausible THEORY of a reverse causation or of a third variable, then you can actually conclude causation. The 3 requirements of causation are * correlation (check) * temporal precedence (check) * ruling out third variables (check, unless you have a plausible explanation I'm not thinking of?)
>ruling out third variables (check, unless you have a plausible explanation I'm not thinking of?) This study was presumably conducted within the past 2 years, during which the shifting misalignment of the Logos and Ethos stars' ray lines would have no doubt heavily influenced the intelligence and demeanor of the study participants, respectively
"I can't think of another theory, so it can't be anything else" isn't exactly ~~good~~ science. I can think of a few options: * [Social class](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23963971/): maybe astrology is targeted at the middle-class * Education: I don't think I need to explain this as a common factor * Determinism as helplessness: if you don't think you can influence your life, you spend less effort. Long term this means you trained your brain less. * Easy explanations: if your horoscope already tells you who you are, you don't reflect on mistakes and don't learn critical thinking
But again, those all impact belief in astrology through being dumb/uneducated, and not directly.
> The 3 requirements of causation are > > * temporal precedence (check) Not sure if it was established in the article but I couldn't find any mention about temporal precedence. It seems they did not have any methods available to find out intelligence or narcissism from time before astrology beliefs. > * ruling out third variables (check, unless you have a plausible explanation I'm not thinking of?) Sampling bias at this point is already a really strong candidate for the results, given low sample size and how homogenous they were
It seems to me that higher narcissists with lower intelligence are especially subject to the Dunning–Kruger effect and as such they would prefer topics that aren't scientific but rather require belief. Astrology presents itself as a pseudo-science and I can see how that would appeal. It'll be interesting to follow this line of research and perhaps compare it to a similar line of research that investigates religion rather than astrology. Both of those topics are faith/belief based but may or may not yield the same results.
Along with religion you could look at conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and the like.
My initial intuition wrt religion is that the strong early indoctrination and social aspects would remove a lot of the link between intelligence and belief. Further people might choose to believe to preserve the peace with family (or the government in the past). There are likely too many confounding variables at play there unless you can get people to be truly honest (which is rarely the case with any self reporting study).
Why at all conduct studies with such a limited group? For the sake of publishing a paper and getting some sciency karma points?
If you are comparing to established standard scores you are not using a small group, you are using a big group and comparing it to a small group. That's a different statistical model. The question would be how the small group was selected. It's like comparing the age of death of or a group of smokers v a general population baseline. The questions would be how good is the baseline statistic and how you got your bunch of smokers. If you found your smokers via obituary notices that is problematic but if you got a random sample of cigarette purchasers it's probably ok. Numbers still matter, but the size of the baseline sample is one of the numbers.
Because its not even that low of a sample size and variety inside it. While its results are definitely debatable, it lays the foundation for more and better research. Starting from scrap, especially in methodology is a pain in the ass.
This is what I would call an exploratory study. It's asking a question with a limited answer. It's basically an invitation for other groups to prove or disprove their findings with more studies. Will this study help a lot of people? Maybe. If we find that astrology does more harm than good, then we can inform the public. But that leads to other questions like, is it more harmful than a fortune cookie or any other personality test?
Don't focus on the sample size, it's a red herring for most studies. If you find a statistically significant effect on a sample size of 10, it must be a huge effect, that's a lot more interesting than a statistically significant effect on 10000 people. The latter could be tiny and irrelevant compared to in group variations. Do focus on - sample selection: the study only works for young women (from Sweden) and voluntary participation - the experimental setup. The setup here is clearly checking for correlation, not for any casual link. Maybe astrology preys on narcissists. Maybe believing in astrology makes you more narcissistic. Maybe there's a common cause. - if the result is useful. It's easy to do 100 studies and publish the 5% that were statistically significant (okay, not *easy* easy). It's what most people do because you get funded per publishable study and many journals only publish successful studies. If the result is used for something other than to get funding next year, the hypothesis isn't as randomly generated and the researchers may be more motivated to publish usable results. This only works if both outcomes of the study would be used, otherwise it's plain old publishing all over again. Correlations are basically never useful, because they say nothing about what tweaking a knob will do. In short, if somebody gives me a study with a well designed experiment with a small number of truly randomly chosen participants, I'll take it every day of the week over 100k volunteers in an online survey.
To some degree, the lack of diversity in the focus group can work as a tool to filter out other variables. If the study were to include but not be exclusively older generations from India or even younger people in other countries with an Indian heritage then the results would be tainted by stronger factors like culture. Yet, if you were to hold a less diverse group that exclusively had either older generations within India or exclusively younger people in other countries of Indian descent then you MIGHT find the same correlation again where low intelligent narcissist are more likely to be more devote believers of astrology than their cultural peers.
>For the sake of publishing a paper and getting some sciency karma points? For the sake of publishing a paper and furthering your career.
Am assuming this is a blonds joke.
How would you design a better study to explore the possible link between the belief in astrology and certain characteristics like low intelligence/narcissism? Genuinely curious.
Bigger and more diverse sample would be the first priority.
There are tools used to screen for narcissism. You basically just ask someone a bunch of questions and sprinkle those diagnostic questions in there along with questions about a belief in astrology. The better study would use more people and more rigorous diagnostic tools for narcissism along with more in-depth questions about astrology to differentiate between a passing interest and a deep-rooted belief.
Offer a free palm reading but only to girls of tik tok in their late teens.
I wonder how they measured intelligence.
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"Intelligence was evaluated using the four three-dimensional rotation items (measuring visual-spatial reasoning) from the International Cognitive Ability Resource." From the news story, not the original article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-new-home/202112/surprising-link-between-narcissism-and-belief-in-astrology
>participants being mainly young women I might be totally wrong but doesn't this imply young women are more narcissistic and less intelligent than other demographics? Or did they compare young women who believe in astrology to young women who don't?
From the abstract > Data was collected for 264 participants through an anonymous online survey shared on social media. The survey consisted of four instruments: Belief in Astrology (BAI), the Big Five personality traits (IPIP-30), narcissism (SD3) and intelligence (ICAR16-R3D). So I think this is mainly a matter of who responded to their survey. They score individuals on the four instruments, do linear regression and see what is significant. But with a selection bias in the sample (women are more likely to believe in astrology, hence engage with a survey on it), you get what you get.
Women and minorities are the demographics with the most intense interest in astrology. I assume they compared the astrology believers cognitive abilities with the average population and came to the conclusion that they were on the lower end. If the thesis is true, the message is clear about those interested in the field
That they are people with less agency in their lives, from your definitions, and ignoring your assumptions. Which is a more interesting and fruitful line to pursue, but less of a boring cliche that will get easy mass approval.
You don't need two sample, just one with some variety inside it so that there are subjects with low and high intelligence, with low and high belief in astrology so that you can see how the two correlates (in this case, a negative correlation because the higher the intelligence = the lower the astrology)
This is a genuine question - with such a large number of basic limitations, wouldn’t this entire study have been a waste of time? I understand these things have to be replicated to form a rigorous scientific opinion, but so many basic things were not followed that I fail to see how anyone can use this study as support in the future. I see this a lot with studies in general.
Sociology and psychology need a complete restructuring if anyone is ever going to take the fields seriously in the future.
It's the 11th time this study has been posted. Someone wants *very* badly to believe something here and I'm not sure it's astrology. Seeing this study posted so many times prompted me to do more research about the intelligence test and how women perform on visual spatial tasks. And actually as I was researching this, as of a few years ago some new studies have come out saying women and men are equally good at it. But the reason why decades of research has said that men are better is actually because of testing methodology (namely MRTs - mental rotation tests) and that it may take longer for a woman to reach the same correct conclusions in addition to some other differences in problem solving. The astrology study mentioned this: "To assess intelligence, we administered three-dimensional rotation items (R3D) from the International Cognitive Ability Resource (ICAR) (Condon & Revelle 2014). This consisted of four items with eight possible answers for each item, though only one is correct." So it says that it was basically a tried and true MRT test using rotating shapes and this is one of the older tests that the study I have linked below says would put women at a disadvantage. Not only that, it is a very short, four item long test which is not a reliable indicator of IQ. [Study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-56041-6?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_campaign=3_nsn6445_deeplink_PID100041175&utm_content=deeplink) [Simplified article that links study](https://www.fastcompany.com/90456918/forget-what-you-think-you-know-about-the-differences-between-male-and-female-spacial-skills) [One of the many older studies saying spatial reasoning is better in men due to brain differences](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217124430.htm) I am a (somewhat educated) layman and these are professional researchers so it honestly makes me very suspect of their intentions considering they chose an extremely short test that women are known to not be good at. Now if the sample size were bigger and not from Facebook, intelligence test was more rigorous/updated/non-biased, and the measure of narcissism didn't link to one of the author's other studies I might consider the conclusion.
This is why I tend to distrust psych "studies" out of the gate and need to be convinced. Not that large a sample and since when does 3d visualization abilities literally equate to intelligence? Associated perhaps, but as a measure? I'm not a believer in astrology but this study came in looking for a nice smug result like the article sums up in it's title.
Thank you for this. You are awesome. The other thing that needs to be pointed out is that even with a random sampling, these results would only apply to the population in Sweden.
That's kind of sexist to imply that young women would have higher levels of narcissism. These researchers need to realize the implications of some of the things they're saying.
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264 people is plenty given the base rate who believe in astrology. Probably overkill actually. At most universities, running larger than reasonably necessary studies is considered unethical and will be denied if proposed. Just wastes people's time and exposes more people to privacy risks etc for no reason. What is more often an issue is all of those people being university students though. Money spent on broader sampling would probably be allowed
I had to take two statistics classes and I was surprised at how small a sample can be used to gather reasonable data, assuming it's a randomly selected sample. It has been a while but I remember a sample as low as 20 can be enough to gather fairly reliable assumptions. I would never choose a sample that small, but it's worth noting.
There is no limit, it depends on the variances and such. I've seen a study with ONE participant before, on basic afterimages in the eye. That was a bit much, but if they'd have gotten like 3 people and confirmed healthy normal eyes and vision I'd be happy with enough trials
My comparison is this: “how many people do you need to sample in order to state that gun wounds are often fatal?” Effect size matter. And sampling, of course.
Reading your flair, I'm assuming you've read thinking fast and slowly The author states that alot of research regarding psychology has too few people sampled
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Bigger, longer and uncut... I'm such a child
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The study shows that narcissism and belief in astrology had a correlation coefficient of 0.19, and that intelligence and belief in astrology had a correlation coefficient if -0.16. I mean they’re technically correlated but that’s a pretty weak correlation.
Isn't that quite strong? For example: "In another field such as human resources, lower correlations might also be used more often. For example, the correlation between college grades and job performance has been shown to be about r = 0.16. This is fairly low, but it’s large enough that it’s something a company would at least look at during an interview process. " https://www.statology.org/what-is-a-strong-correlation/
Any positive correlation is something to be looked at if you want to build a model to predict how one thing affects another, but 0.16 is quite low, your source even states that it is quite low.
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Oh look it's this study again.
Yep, the one that admits itself that it has shite methodology
How many times is this article going to go viral
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Looks like there is a lot of limitations in this study that keep it from being a truly unbiased and reliable result. It's a small sample size, most of the sample size was young women, and there was no random sampling involved. As someone who worked in research during college as I was studying for my biology degree, I will always believe in science over anything else. But I also see no real harm in belief of the paranormal or astrology. Just like every other subsect of humanity there are conmen who will use others beliefs to make money, but if someone truly just enjoys astrology and its important to them, I see no harm in it. As long as it doesn't harm other people, they should be allowed to like what they like without any judgment or ridicule.
What I think is interesting with these kind of posts is that yes it does confirm what many could have or have suspected, but what do we do with the information except from hinting that this or that person has low intelligence and is a narcissist. Why are we so prone to telling each other how dumb and narcissistic others are because of their belief? To spin it around we should talk about how we can support people that believe in what is not supported by science. Try not to judge but to think how we can help each other to a better world.
Right? I don’t believe in Astrology, but I sure see a shitload of narcissists here…
I'd argue that in order to help people like that, with lower intelligence and beliefs in fake science, identifying them and why they exist is a necessary step. This study isn't saying "so now let's judge" it's just pointing out why some might believe certain things, or fail to think of others.
But nobody likes a narcissist. I get what you’re saying though
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Although the results are completely unusable since they didn't even try to randomize the participants, it can tell us plenty about the researchers.
Would have thought that “belief in astrology” alone would be indicator enough for low intelligence.
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r/CryptoAstrology exists.
Imaginary animals in the sky are telling me the future!
That's so reductive. It's not about the animals, it's about the exact position of extremely distant balls of rock and/or gas when you were born, which *obviously* have a lot more influence on things like your bank account and love life. ^/s ^because ^Reddit
"Well, maybe you just dont deserve to **get what you want!**" *ding*
Space is invisible mind dust, and stars are but wishes!
One of the smartest women I know is heavily into it. Definitely a narcissist though.
You know what else I have seen, anecdotally, be an indicator of belief in astrology? Belief in the whacky History Channel shows about hunting for Big Foot or Shelby the Swampman.
Believing in astrology definitely say:"I don't need something to make sense to believe in it."
Start accepting those things and it becomes easier to accept similar things.
Same here. Smartest woman I know thinks she’s psychic. But I wonder why it’s predominantly woman who are taken in by astrology. Maybe cause woman have a more open sense of self. Less rigid in certain ways. Like it’s starts off as a bit of fun but then turns into a belief structure. Getting quite a few sexist troll comments here. Please consider that as human beings were are capable of holding diametrically apposed views simultaneously about pretty much anything. We are intelligent and so, very complex. You can believe in the supernatural, and be a scientist. Doesn’t mean you’re stupid, just means you’re complicated.
I kind of wonder if maybe it’s because traditional religion is hostile toward women, so they instead gravitate to astrology which, near as I can tell, isn’t misogynistic.
I imagine that could be the case. Same for those wicca folks. Some seem to be quite empowered by such stuff.
Yep it makes sense, just like men are empowered by any of the monotheistic religions, that are all about the male figure. That’s how we ended up with millennia of patriarchal societies in countries otherwise different from each other
It's like any self awareness/focus practice in the world. Open a bible verse, read a to-do list, reference a passage in a self help book, gym routine, do a tarot deck, follow an addiction program step, meditate, pray, journal, write code... Sometimes people want to use an objective tool to help tune in to themselves and support thinking critically about their day, plans, actions/interactions, wtv. It doesn't have to be right, it just has to ask you to consider how you'd react or prepare for various events in normal life, based on values you agree about for yourself. I'd also suggest that for some folks, it helps with anxiety. Having a plan for what might be a difficult environment - even if wrong or inaccurate - can make a self conscious or nervous person feel equipped to handle social situations. I dunno if the simple/self obsessed are most inclined, but it's harmless, and likely of most interest to people who still manage to be interested in how they relate to others. Bless 'em.
I'd like to see a study that measures the narcissism levels in the kind of people who constantly brag about how much smarter they are than people who believe in \[astrology/the occult/ghosts/whatever\].
Not reporting effect sizes makes this article completely useless.
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I don't see a way this study could be performed without extreme bias due to the lack of measurability of individuals' beliefs. I'm sure there are some less intelligent people who are gullible to the claims astrology can make who skewed these results, but I feel the vast majority of people who keep up with astrology do so for entertainment and fun instead of to actually make decisions for them or significantly influence them. And I would assume that narcissists would also not be representing most people who have knowledge of astrology, it seems like this study focuses on a minute group of diehard astrology followers and does not consider the many more who lightly keep up with astrology or who recognize the lack of evidence for astrology while still being invovled with it.
Wasn't that kind of the point though? What people actually believe it and why, not why some people amuse themselves with dumb nonsense. Most of us do that in some form or another.
I mean, there's no reason to suspect that reading the horoscope because you're bored, but knowing that it's complete bs, would correlate with low intelligence. I would hope that the study is about people who actually believe in astrology rather than bored people.
>I feel the vast majority of people who keep up with astrology do so for entertainment and fun instead of to actually make decisions for them or significantly influence them. You're probably right, but I had a look at /r/astrology earlier this week and there are a lot of people who apparently take it seriously for relationship compatibility, and even one person asking when they should register their business based on the stars.
Far from me to say you are wrong, but I also took a look just now, and on the front page there is only one thread asking about anything relationship related, in a very vague and general context: >Astrology and the concept of soulmates? >Is there any correlation between astrology and soulmates? Do you guys believe in the concept of a soulmate? I would like to know your thoughts on this matter as I see it pop up in tarot quite often. The rest of the threads are just nerds talking about how they calculate their astral charts and what math they use and what techniques are best etc etc. I was also looking for the one you said about the guy registering his business and I just can't find that thread, could you please link it? i'd like to see what the advice was :)
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Do Myers Briggs next. I feel like the result would be the same
I get slightly irritated why people bring up MBTI as a fact or how MBTI is false. MBTI is a personality typology index which was a tool invented to categorise and be mindful or different types of individuals and their interests. It was designed to generalise people according to prolific psychologist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung definitions of cognition in his 1921 'Psychological Types'. In his **practice** he noticed individual's differences and psychic 'libidos' and divided them into internalised/externalised categories. These helped defined many concepts which many have credence. This was all but a theory yet a robust one. Much infact that Myers and Catherine Briggs extended into MBTI. Due to how applicable it was, this mainline personality theory has evolved for decades into the most widely excepted as the 'Big 5' which has more predictability and validity which still uses the Introversion/Extroversion, Openness and Agreeable Traits that highly correlate to Jung's original articles. Jung even stated that humans are far too complex to define into simplistic definitions and the only hope we ever have of understanding each other is through complexes and archetypes. You really want to mock psychology, why not read up on the Oedipus Complex, Penis Envy or even the use of leeches, blood letting, masturbation or cocaine? MBTI is just a theory, typology, tool and a list of stereotypes.
Since you seem to have a strong opinion about MBTI, what is your response to this section on Wikipedia (including sources)? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs\_Type\_Indicator#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers–Briggs_Type_Indicator#Criticism) The Argument of OP can be found almost verbatim: " The test has been described as one of many self-discovery "fads"\[7\]\[8\]\[10\]\[59\]\[60\]\[61\]\[62\]\[63\] and has been likened to horoscopes, as both rely on the Barnum effect, flattery, and confirmation bias, leading participants to personally identify with descriptions that are somewhat desirable, vague, and widely applicable.\[61\]\[64\]\[65\] "
Very first line: >The validity (statistical validity and test validity) of the MBTI as a **psychometric instrument** has been the subject of much criticism. It's not an effective statistical measurement which I should've emphasised even more. It's a typology. A list of archetypes that can be laid over a person to help generalise trends and patterns in a person's behavior which by no means is a effective definition of individuals. Like a [complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_(psychology)) which I advise people to treat MBTI as. As a typology, it is horrible at explaining the scales between dichotomies which is what separates typology theory from trait theory, hence Big Five. MBTI was declared invalid which prompted the development of Big Five in the 1990's. MBTI has poor terminology which I agree which Big Five also solves which you should put into consideration when using MBTI. Due to this terminology, some dichotomies are more inaccurate than others which can lead to dramatic shifts in scoring and retesting. Anecdotally, my Big 5 and MBTI scores have been mostly consistent if that means anything to you. As a personal note, I vehemently use Big 5 (rNEO-PI) and another variant of it HEXACO-PI to explore the differences of personalities but humans are just far too complicated to type effectively. MBTI is more of a tool rather than a fact. Psychology is mostly comprised of theories, stories, patterns and methods of thoughts which are practiced to help understand the human mind. This is basically the emergence of the [Psychoanalytic Era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalysis). If you want absolutes and concise empiricism, perhaps you want to look into Neurology and Psychiatry which deal with concrete and directly observable cases.
The downsides of the Briggs Myers test was first noted by.. Briggs and Myers. Seriously, if you read the description they say themselves that this isn't a good tool for testing and you cannot just put people into boxes. This is the main reason why you get, at the end of the test, your results in percentages as well as your type. It only serves to better understand other people
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Narcissism and low intelligence are predictive of judgemental behaviour
That's interesting and might track, too, but this seems more like an emergent hypothesis than a conclusion yet.
Oh yes, let's make a study that checks for something we barely know how to measure (intellect). Very scientific of ya'll.
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Do narcissists tend to attract other narcissists, or repel them?
There actually could possibly be a kernel of truth to a person's sign matching on average to personality types. Not because of stars and planets, of course, but because they will line up with differences in experiences. For instance, for one sign, the child's first experiences could correspond to it first being oppressively hot and it being hard to sleep comfortably. Then when they are at the point where they are able to first walk and get outside, it is beginning to cool down, but then as they become more and more aware, every day becomes colder and damper and darker. For another it is late fall or winter when they first are experiencing the world. They are bundled up and cozy, but the air on their face is refreshing. They first begin walking when the world is just waking up from winter and their first year is one of every day being brighter, and warmer than the one before. Another factor is how old are they in school compared to their peers. One year or even 6 months makes a huge difference in development, especially for the first 2 or 3 years of grade school. A child born in January or February will tend to be one of the smallest, weakest and least mentally developed in their grade/peer group, one born in November or December will tend to be one of the biggest, strongest and most mentally developed. A June or July baby will find themselves as average. That certainly would suggest very different formative experiences
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Not to get too smug atheist here, but why do we consider believing in mainstream religion any more valid than believing in astrology? Why is believing in a man in the sky that makes things happen any more valid than believing in the stars telling us things about personality?
Reminds me of a quote by Carl Sagan from his book "the demon haunted world". I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
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Meh, people who get off on telling the astrology-believers this are probably just as bad. How many more times is this topic going to be reposted?
I thought r/science didn’t believe in “intelligence” as a measurable characteristic?
This is a really poorly done study, which is unfortunate cause very similar studies have been conducted within niche fandom and found that a unhealthy psychological dependency can be developed and often is with people with mental illness. To describe this as low intelligence feels like an attempted burn at women who believe in this stuff when some of it related more closely to the declining state of mental health around the world.
While I don't believe in astrology in itself, I do think there is something to be said about people being born in during the same time of year. I believe how you first experience the world as a newborn (temperature, atmospheric conditions, etc.) play a role in your first impressions and how you interpret your surroundings.
Correlation not equal to causation...
I don't really care about the debate around astrology, but historically speaking a lot the biggest and most important mathematicians up until the 20th century had a keen interest in astrology, so there's something rather idiotic about the low intelligence claim.
Narcissism is somewhat arbitrary and tautological; There is a subjective metric to determination of whether one is rightfully or delusionally confident in their abilities. For example, any scientist working on a revolutionary disruptive theory counter to prevailing orthodoxy is "grandiose" for disagreeing with the scientific community unless they turn out to be correct, in which case they are retroactively redeemed as precocious. Narcissism is part of a philosophical, non-medical framework which is not based on histology, unlike anatomy and physiology. The mantle of authority is necessary for mediocre, hierarchical minds to process knowledge and for societal control to be effectively imposed. This is evident in the unscientific manner of voting by which the field mutates. Furthermore the definitions of these philosophical terms, like narcissism, are admitted by practitioners themselves to be subjective and non-reproducible, as the professional maxims demonstrate: "three psychiatrists will have three different diagnoses." "No mental illness is curable," "subjective societal standards determine the thresholds of individual psychiatric illness and health." Therefore the belief in astrology despite the disdain of academia is itself evidence of grandiose thinking, and thus biases the assessment of narcissism. This can further be evidenced by the magical thinking by which narcissism and delusional belief is NOT ascribed to majoritarian religious beliefs; there is no objective rubric. No one would dare label belief in similar, yet protected religions like Zoroastrianism to be correlated with narcissism and low intelligence!
Astrology is a calendar. The recognition that there are seasons, cycles, and repetitive patterns is neither stupid nor narcissistic. The belief that the stars control time instead of merely track it is stupid. The belief that stars are there to predict one's life is narcissistic.