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A comment on “I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I might be in love”. Parent comment

Re:“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I mig... by jusben1369 on Friday January 23, 2015 @10:27AM (#8935262)
When I was young I picked up a book at a friend's house on astrology. I am a Taurus. I mistakenly opened it on another sign thinking I was reading the chapter on what made up a Taurus character. I was reading and nodding my head "wow, this is kind of weird. That is me. I do that. Well, I'm not like that but it's not going to be a 100% fit" After several pages I realized my mistake. And then I realized the Forer effect without knowing what it was or that it had a name.
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Re:“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I mig... by UrMomReadsHN on Friday January 23, 2015 @12:56PM (#8936215)
Julia Sweeney on astrology - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjturKoFsg

(The background is she just found out she was actually born 3 months after her parents told her she was born - they lied to get her to start school a year earlier.)

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Re:“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I mig... by hyp0 on Friday January 23, 2015 @06:43PM (#8938093)
Astrology is obviously nonsense, but it seems plausible that the season of birth could have a personality effect: the cold dead of winter, with little fresh food vs spring etc, also from the attitudes of surrounding adults.

Of course, different near the equator, and phase-shifted in the southern hemisphere, and... much less pronounced in modern times, with supermarkets, refrigeration, air-conditioning/heating, imported foods, and wider social presence (newspapers, TV, radio, internet, phone) etc.

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Re:“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I mig... by Terr_ on Friday January 23, 2015 @11:06PM (#8938779)
The socially-constructed age-cohort you go into is huge too. Want better grades and performance at sports? Be months older than your classmates.
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Re:“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I mig... by allendoerfer on Saturday January 24, 2015 @07:41AM (#8939452)
The reverse is true, too: Want better performance than people of the same age? Have had more training than them.

I suspect this applies especially to language or logic related tasks.

We will likely never find out, variance seems to be extremely high, while the actual differences are very low.

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Re:“I paid $25 for an Invisible Boyfriend, and I think I mig... by eru on Sunday January 25, 2015 @07:42PM (#8944952)
There are actual studies. Lots of professional athletes were in the older part of their cohort when they were younger. So the effect Terr_ described seems to outweigh the one you describe.
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