Seasons, Rather Than Birth Month Influences Personality Traits: Study

A new study suggests that if you are born between late December and March, you are more likely to become a celebrity. Seasons have a great influence on people's personalities and astrological signs may have developed as a useful system for remembering these patterns.

"Psychologists want to dismiss these astrological correlations, but there are seasonality effects that we have yet to explain," said researcher Mark Hamilton, a social scientist in the Communication Department at the University of Connecticut.

Hamilton looked at a data set of 300 celebrities from the fields of politics, science, public service, literature, the arts and sports.

He found that celebrities' birth dates tended to cluster at certain times of the year. 'Wet' signs were associated with more celebrities, as were signs classified as 'bright' and 'fixed'. Traditional Western astrology uses elements (water, earth, air and fire), sign duality (bright/dark) and sign qualities (cardinal, mutable and fixed) to describe and categorise these effects.

Such seasonal effects may not be clear in individuals, but can be discerned through averaging personality traits across large cohorts born at the same time of year.

People born in January and February tend to be more creative, and have a higher chance of being diagnosed with schizophrenia, than people born at any other time of year. And people born in odd-numbered months tend to be more extroverted than those born in even-numbered months.

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Hamilton is not arguing that heavenly bodies are the true source of these effects; rather, astrological aspects are just useful tools, or heuristics that help people remember the timing and patterns of nature.

Source-Medindia