Abstract
A surprisingly large share of the population believes in zodiac signs and their significance regarding individuals’ personality traits, despite there being no scientific evidence in favour of a relationship between zodiac signs and personality traits. Existing studies, however, often suffer from small and non-representative samples, which may undermine their conclusions. In this paper, we re-visit the question of whether zodiac signs predict personality traits using the German Socio-Economic Panel, which provides representative data for the German population. Having access to the exact date of birth, we can compute zodiac signs and compare Big 5 personality traits across zodiac signs. Our findings indicate that, indeed, personality traits do differ between zodiac signs. However, differences are relatively small. A heterogeneity analysis suggests that these differences are driven by individuals who are more likely to be believe in the significance of zodiac signs.
To test whether this mechanism is indeed true, we plan to run a short survey among undergrade students at a University in East Germany. Students will fill-in an online survey that asks about standard socio-demographics, the birth date, the zodiac sign, and personality traits (Big 5).