Self-attribution, sun-sign traits, and the alleged role of favourableness as a moderator variable: long-term effect or artefact?

The process of self-attribution is an important factor in the development of beliefs in the validity of presented personality descriptions. Hamilton (2001) proposed that the relative favourableness of astrologically derived personality descriptions is a moderator variable for long-term self-attribution effects based on knowledge of the astrological sun-sign symbolism. Because the sets of traits associated with some sun-signs are thought to be more favourable than those of other sun-signs, she predicts that natives born under a more favourable sign should show a stronger belief in astrology than subjects born under less favourable signs. To test this hypothesis, we studied 1700 German subjects, to see if their belief in astrology varied with respect to their sun-sign. But the mean belief scores were almost exactly the same for all sign groups, providing strong evidence against Hamiltonʹs hypothesis. It is proposed that the conflicting empirical findings of Hamilton (2001) are probably artefacts of the experimental setting, and not long-term effects of self-attribution.