Amateur Research: Correlation between birth date and personality

[Anima Aeterna]

Hello! As the topic name suggests, I've started a project where I'm collecting various data about different people from different parts of the world. My objective is to find whether or not there is the slightest relevance in the correlation between the personality and birth date of the individual.

 

Of course It's definitely vital to take in account the background and environment in which the individual grew up. However, the plan is to find "coincidences" between the personality type and birth date of the individual. If enough matches are found, the study will continue. Otherwise I will, personally, consider the zodiac idea to surely be nothing but a myth. It does seem interesting enough to look deeper into, though, and thus, as "silly" as it may seem, all things should be given the benefit of the doubt, in my personal opinion.

 

 

 

Hence I have a few questions for you:

 

1- What is your name? (optional)

 

2- What is your full birth date?

 

3- Where were you born and where did you grow up?

 

4- How would you describe yourself briefly? (qualities and flaws?)

 

 

 

Considering that I'm a curious amateur motivated to go forth with this sort of project for the sake of experience, all advice, critic and encouragement are welcome

Edited December 15, 2012 by Lil_Knowledge_Seeker

[iNow]

There are roughly 363,000 (nearly a half a million) babies born every day. There is likely to be a lot of overlap in personality, and a lot of differences, too. Unfortunately, we tend to have a confirmation bias and ignore the differences... accepting only the similarities that reinforce our existing preconceptions.

 

From a more basic standpoint, there is simply no mechanism by which day of birth could reasonably impact personality (except that the surrounding culture or society may be slightly different year over year). The patterns we see are invented... a result of our preconceived notions, not of any real effect. Which sperm hits the egg are not impacted by where Earth is relative to Neptune, and the health of the sperm and egg are independent of where Mars is.

 

Leaving those criticisms aside, if you truly want to gather some data on your questions, I recommend strongly that you setup an anonymous survey through an online survey tool like survey monkey or opinio. I recommend this because I am not comfortable sharing such personal information openly and unsecured on a public forum like this, and I suspect that I'm not the only one that feels that way.

 

Oh, and self-report measures of personality are invariably inaccurate. I may think one thing about myself whereas others may think something completely different. If you're going to use a survey to capture personality attributes, it's better to ask others who know us well than to ask us to describe ourselves. Better to use something like Myers Briggs or the Millan Multiaxial or the Jackson Inventory, for example. Cheers.

[Anima Aeterna]

Thank you very much iNow Valuable advice! I'll do as you've suggested, failure or not doing this kind of amateur research is fun nonetheless and might just very well teach me a couple of valuable things.

 

Cheers.

[John Cuthber]

"From a more basic standpoint, there is simply no mechanism by which day of birth could reasonably impact personality (except that the surrounding culture or society may be slightly different year over year)."

There are perfectly plausible mechanisms.

For example, people who reach some "critical" age when the pollen count is high are more likely to develop asthma and hay-fever.

Those people are, as a consequence, less likely to take up outdoor and athletic pursuits. Since they have to do something, they are more likely to take up "bookish" activities.

 

This trend is likely to be affected by latitude- being near zero at the equator abut larger near the poles. Also the effect will be opposite in the two hemispheres.

Sadly, I doubt the OP will get anything like enough data to measure the effect,but that's not the same as saying the effect can't happen.

 

" Autumn and winter conceptions were associated with an increased risk of childhood asthma admission:" from

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3263424/

[iNow]

For example, people who reach some "critical" age when the pollen count is high are more likely to develop asthma and hay-fever.

Those people are, as a consequence, less likely to take up outdoor and athletic pursuits. Since they have to do something, they are more likely to take up "bookish" activities.

 

This trend is likely to be affected by latitude- being near zero at the equator abut larger near the poles. Also the effect will be opposite in the two hemispheres.

 

Nice point. Thanks for adding that.