Scientific American

ABO FAN

An article of Scientific American

Surprisingly enough, my website, ABO FAN, was introduced by Scientific American's guest blog last year (Feb. 15, 2011).

You are what you bleed: In Japan and other east Asian countries some believe blood type dictates personality

Article No.1

As expected, the article concluded a negative result.
But, this is NOT correct -- at least statistically.
It said like this:
Neither study found a significant relationship between personality and blood type, rending the theory "obsolete" and concluding that no basis exists to assume that personality is anything more than randomly associated with blood type.
According to the writer "preexisting blood type belief" now penetrated into all around Taiwan and South Korea as well as Japan (Japanese found 75 percent believed in ketsueki-gata).
Therefore ALL studies in these three countries MUST show significant statistical relationships between personality and blood type, and they really do. Because these studies are based on "self-reported" personality.

The article itself stated such a Japanese result.
Sakamoto, A., & Yamazaki, K. et al. (2004), Blood-typical personality stereotypes and self-fulfilling prophecy: A natural experiment with time-series data of 1978-1988, Progress in Asian Social Psychology, Vol. 4. Seoul, Korea, Pp. 239-262. (pdf)
This indicates that blood-typical personality stereotypes actually influenced the personalities - self-reported personalities, at least - of individuals, and that they also operated as a self-fulfilling prophecy, although the greatness of that influence could be discussed.
The second is the Korean example:

Sung Il Ryu, Young Woo Sohn,  A Review of Sociocultural, Behavioral, Biochemical Analyses on ABO Blood-Groups Typology (2007), The Korean Psychological Association, The Korean Journal of Social and Personality Psychology / Vol. 21 No. 3 Pp 27 ~ 55

"Type O is extrovert while type A type is logical", and put blood-type studies together
[Seoul, Yonhap Agency News] As a result of putting many blood-type personality studies together, type O is tend to be extravert, while type A is introvert. In most studies, type A is logical and emotionally stable, but type B -- in comparison with other blood types -- is sensitive. Researcher Sung Il Ryu, at management of technology subject of Yonsei University graduate school, and professor Young Woo Sohn of psychology subject the same university, clarified it in an article entitled "A Review of Socio-cultural, Behavioral, Biochemical Analyses on ABO Blood-Groups Typology" on September 21st [2007]. Blood type and personality is a theme to attract popularity of the public, but it is generally thought that there is no relationship scientifically. The article attracts attention, because it is the first study that synthesized findings of the past blood type typology arguing against this thought. The article is going to be carried by the autumn issue of Korean psychology journal. [the original article is in Korean]
Yet another example, the survey was conducted in the South Korea:
Beom Jun Kim, Dong Myeong Lee, Sung Hun Lee and Wan-Suk Gim (2007), Blood-type distribution; Physica A: Statistical and Theoretical Physics Volume 373, 1 January 2007, Pp. 533-540
A psychological implication for the case of B-type males is also suggested as an effect of a distorted implicit personality theory affected by recent popularity of characterizing a human personality by blood types.
Strangely enough, there is no such description in the article.
Why? I wonder.

(July 31, 2012)

English Home Page

Last update: July 31, 2012.