You might make the case that this article is bait for sharing on Boomer-infested social media platforms and you would be absolutely right, good job.
By now, most of us in the Science and Skeptics spaces have seen the meme where a female stock photo model asks a male stock photo model what his astrological sign is, and he replies with something to the effect of “Dinosaur”. When that is met with “but that’s not a real Zodiac sign”, he observes, “none of them are real”.
To be up-front, this article could have just included the specified meme but we’re padding the word count because a.) the conclusion here is so painfully obvious it’s almost insulting that they had to do a study about this, b.) the paper itself is almost as short as this article, and c.) there’s so much caffeine coursing through the author’s veins right now that the clicky-clack of the keyboard is particularly gratifying at the moment.
“Even the stars think I am superior”
The authors of this paper, Ida Andersson, Julia Persson, and Petri Kajonius from Lund University, which, oddly enough is in Lund, Sweden, were clearly so enamored with this phrase that it appears as both the title and last line of the paper. Fair enough, it’s a good dunk, and we know exactly the type of person they were imagining when writing it (she smells like patchouli and a negative checking account balance).
The paper observes (n = 264) that of the “Big 5” personality traits, (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) did not demonstrate any strong relationship, but Narcissism did have a significant predictive relationship with a belief in astrology. And after controlling for other variables, a negative relationship between Intelligence and belief in Astrology was indicated.
Narcissism was surprisingly the strongest predictor, and intelligence showed a negative relationship with belief in astrology. Overall, our novel results suggest that something as innocent as astrology could both attract and possibly reinforce individual differences.
Andersson, I., Persson, J., & Kajonius, P. (2021, November 20). Even the stars think that I am superior: Personality, intelligence and belief in astrology. Personality and Individual Differences.
And, that’s basically it. That’s the article.
F it, here’s the meme:
Further Reading
Even the stars think that I am superior: Personality, intelligence and belief in astrology
