The scientific article summarised in this piece is clear about this. The effect size is quantified. It’s not fake science to look at small effects. > It should

The scientific article summarised in this piece is clear about this. The effect size is quantified. It’s not fake science to look at small effects. > It should be noted that the magnitude of the effects is generally quite small and the overall explanatory power of the models is modest. However, complex psychological phenomena, such as personality, are likely to be influenced by hundreds, if not thousands, of factors, so small effects are to be expected especially when examined in the uncontrolled context of real-world settings ... our research shows that an increase of one standard deviation in mountainousness is associated with a change of approximately 1% in personality, which may seem insignificant. However, when scaled to hundreds of thousands of people, such an increase would translate into substantial changes ...