4 ms·

It's amazing how much effort has gone into phoney-baloney correlations between personality and signs of the zodiac, when there's so much real correlation betwee

by hugh3 15y ago

It's amazing how much effort has gone into phoney-baloney correlations between personality and signs of the zodiac, when there's so much real correlation between your personality and your birth order. Also: how old you are compared to the rest of your class at school. The older ones tend to wind up more dominant, the younger ones less so.

sliverstorm 15y ago
People want the Zodiac, because the Zodiac is friendly and harmless. There's no "bad" sign to be born under. Birth order, on the other hand, is something wholly out of your control with substantial rammifications. They aren't always pretty rammifications. People don't really like to hear about that sort of thing.
- vwoolf 15y ago
  I would imagine people should want to know that birth order can have profound effects on their personality and disposition: then they can try to actively counteract or encourage those tendencies. What you're not aware of, you can't change.
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    What you aren't aware of can't be used to describe your victim status.
- hugh3 15y ago
  Ehh, first and last are both pretty good. Only middle is slightly problematic, and the middle children of the world can band together and whine about their victim status. /youngest of three
6ren 15y ago
It seems plausible to me that the season you are born in (and thus, the season of your gestation) would have an effect. Especially in more dramatic climes, and in times previous to refrigeration, rapid transport of food, climate control. Different foods and vitamins would be available, which do have an effect. There could also be a markedly different social atmosphere in different seasons, lazy summer, forboding autumn, austere winter, hopeful spring. Thus, it wouldn't be 12 divisions, but perhaps 4 or so (and rotated 180 in the southern hemisphere). And possibly not apparent in modern society. EDIT (goodness, downvote?) some studies: intelligence correlation (http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/people-born-in-spring-are-brainier-how-seasons-of-birth-influence-our-personalities_1007485.html http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/people-born-in-sp...) ----- anorexia correlation http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/people-born-in-spring-are-more-likely-to-become-anorexic-2275782.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...
Sniffnoy 15y ago
I'm having some trouble finding the reference right now, but IIRC, there are some real effects from when during the year you were born -- largely due to cutoff dates for school, determining how old you are relative to everyone else in your class. I'll have to go actually dig this up later.
- jasonshen 15y ago
  This is referenced in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers when he discusses who makes it on to the Canadian Jr National Hockey team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)
pbhjpbhj 15y ago
>when there's so much real correlation between your personality and your birth order // Do you mean this or do you mean position in pecking order (I guess studies are needed to show it). I was youngest of two but lived as youngest of four (and not in an enlarged step-family). I feel that the inter-relationships between me, my sibling and my sort-of-siblings is more key to my make up than strict birth order. Presumably if you're the youngest of 8 but you're adopted in to a family as the eldest (at a young age) then you're more likely to develop as if you were an eldest child. tl;dr - hypothesis: it's not birth order but age in your groups.

by hugh3 15y ago

sliverstorm 15y ago

People want the Zodiac, because the Zodiac is friendly and harmless. There's no "bad" sign to be born under. Birth order, on the other hand, is something wholly out of your control with substantial rammifications. They aren't always pretty rammifications. People don't really like to hear about that sort of thing.

vwoolf 15y ago
I would imagine people should want to know that birth order can have profound effects on their personality and disposition: then they can try to actively counteract or encourage those tendencies. What you're not aware of, you can't change.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  What you aren't aware of can't be used to describe your victim status.
hugh3 15y ago
Ehh, first and last are both pretty good. Only middle is slightly problematic, and the middle children of the world can band together and whine about their victim status. /youngest of three

6ren 15y ago

It seems plausible to me that the season you are born in (and thus, the season of your gestation) would have an effect. Especially in more dramatic climes, and in times previous to refrigeration, rapid transport of food, climate control. Different foods and vitamins would be available, which do have an effect. There could also be a markedly different social atmosphere in different seasons, lazy summer, forboding autumn, austere winter, hopeful spring. Thus, it wouldn't be 12 divisions, but perhaps 4 or so (and rotated 180 in the southern hemisphere). And possibly not apparent in modern society. EDIT (goodness, downvote?) some studies: intelligence correlation (http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/people-born-in-spring-are-brainier-how-seasons-of-birth-influence-our-personalities_1007485.html http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/people-born-in-sp...) ----- anorexia correlation http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/people-born-in-spring-are-more-likely-to-become-anorexic-2275782.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...

Sniffnoy 15y ago

I'm having some trouble finding the reference right now, but IIRC, there are some real effects from when during the year you were born -- largely due to cutoff dates for school, determining how old you are relative to everyone else in your class. I'll have to go actually dig this up later.

jasonshen 15y ago
This is referenced in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers when he discusses who makes it on to the Canadian Jr National Hockey team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

pbhjpbhj 15y ago

>when there's so much real correlation between your personality and your birth order // Do you mean this or do you mean position in pecking order (I guess studies are needed to show it). I was youngest of two but lived as youngest of four (and not in an enlarged step-family). I feel that the inter-relationships between me, my sibling and my sort-of-siblings is more key to my make up than strict birth order. Presumably if you're the youngest of 8 but you're adopted in to a family as the eldest (at a young age) then you're more likely to develop as if you were an eldest child. tl;dr - hypothesis: it's not birth order but age in your groups.