Personality profiles derived from star placements during the time of one’s birth are a thorn in a foot of many psychologists. But is there a reason?
One of the old principles say, that if a theory survives for a long time, there must be some validity in it. So how is it with zodiac signs?
This activity can be preceded by the Forer effect activity
Investigate validity of zodiac personality profiles. Students learn how to operationalize and structure their investigation. How to actually “define” the zodiac signs, how to assess the correct approach, how to analyse collected data.
Students learn that such approach isn’t different from other psychological tests. In the end, we discuss why zodiac signs might have survived such a long time.
Students in groups are asked to “Validate zodiac sign personality types”. The first step will be to actually define those traits. After definitions are established, they are asked to devise a plan to actually test it. Several approaches are viable - either testing for traits and then devising zodiac sign from those (but that is not how it actually works and it is not what we want to test!!!). So the “correct” approach is to be able to append correct personality type to a correct zodiac sign - therefore person born as Leo, should be classified as such.
After the method is determined, start collecting data. Note the importance of “blind” or “double blind” study in this case. Also talk about importnace of big samples.
After the data is collected, students can provide it to the teacher who will analyse it appropriately (probably chi-squared tests or fisher exact test). Talk again about the importance of large samples.
You can even try and debate meta analysis - combining results from few different groups.
Finish with the discussion about the results.