Pseudoscience: People who believe in horoscopes tend to be more narcissistic and less INTELLIGENT

People who subscribe to astrology and horoscopes tend to be more narcissistic and less intelligent and than their counterparts who don’t believe in the pseudoscience.

This is the conclusion psychologists from Lund University, who surveyed more than 250 people about their beliefs in astrology and their personality profiles.

Narcissists may be more susceptible to horoscopes because they are more ‘fact-resistant’ and find the positive framing appeals to their grandiosity, the team said.

The researchers — noted that astrology has seen a resurgence of late — also found that belief in horoscopes was linked to traits of agreeableness and extroversion.

The study was undertaken by psychologist Petri Kajonius of Sweden’s Lund University and his colleagues. 

‘Astrology is increasing in popularity, despite the lack of scientific support,’ the researchers wrote in their paper.

‘It is not clear why this ancient practice of studying positions and movements of celestial bodies — with the conviction that they influence human behaviour — is going through a revival.’

Dr Kajonius and his colleagues wanted to see if a belief in astrology was associated with any particular personality trait.

To this end, they recruited 264 people via social media and had them complete a series of questionnaires.

The first explored the extent to which each participant believed in astronomy and whether they understood it to be supported by scientific research.

Subsequent questions provided a general personality assessment — according to the ‘Big Five’ taxonomy — along with specific tests for levels of intelligence and narcissistic traits.

The team undertook a general personality assessment of each of their subjects according to the ‘Big Five’ taxonomy — which considers openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Separate tests assessed intelligence and narcissism

‘The main result showed that the higher the narcissism, perhaps surprisingly, the higher the belief in astrology,’ the researchers wrote.

Conceding that further research will be needed to explore the reasons behind this association, the team do have a few hypotheses that may explain their findings. 

Since astrological predictions and horoscopes tend to be positively framed, this reinforces grandiose feelings — and thus might appeal even more to narcissists,’ they explained.

Alongside this, they noted, ‘narcissistic traits correlated with the belief that astrology is supported by science , which leads to a speculation that narcissists may generally be more fact resistant.’

After controlling for all potentially confounding variables, the team also found that ‘the higher the level of intelligence, the lower the belief in astrology.’

Similar positive correlations were also seen between a belief in astrology and higher levels of agreeableness and extroversion.

‘It is not clear why this ancient practice of studying positions and movements of celestial bodies — with the conviction that they influence human behaviour — is going through a revival,’ psychologist Petri Kajonius of Lund University and his colleagues wrote in their paper

Previous research has concluded that people are more likely to put stock in astrology at times of personal crisis — a fact, the team noted, that could explain why the popularity of the pseudoscience appears to be on the rise at the present.

Currently we are surrounded by stressors such as climate change and, recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, which makes the topic pertinent,’ the researchers wrote.

‘Though embracing astrology might seem innocent, it is nonetheless possible that it facilitates uncritical thinking and favours biases. 

Furthermore, they warned, ‘belief in astrology correlates with belief in multiple other pseudosciences as well as with belief in conspiracy theories — which indicates that it might not be all that harmless.’ 

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.