Blood type personality theory

Not to be confused with Type A and Type B personality theory.
Blood type horoscope cards in Japan

The blood type personality theory[1] is a pseudoscientific belief prevalent in Japan which states that a person's blood group system is predictive of a person's personality, temperament, and compatibility with others.[2] The theory is generally considered a superstition by the scientific community.

One of the reasons Japan developed the blood type personality indicator theory was in reaction to a claim from German scientist Emil von Dungern, that Blood type B people were inferior.[3][better source needed] The popular belief originates with publications by Masahiko Nomi in the 1970s.

Although some medical hypotheses have been proposed in support of blood type personality theory,[4] the scientific community generally dismisses blood type personality theories as superstition or pseudoscience because of lack of evidence or testable criteria.[2][5][6] Although research into the causal link between blood type and personality is limited, the majority of modern studies do not demonstrate any statistically significant association between the two.[7][8][9][10] Some studies suggest that there is a statistically significant relationship between blood type and personality, although it is unclear if this is simply due to a self-fulfilling prophecy.[11][12][13]

  1. ^ Davis, Matt (25 March 2019). "What is the Japanese blood type theory of personality?". Big Think. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  2. ^ a b Yamaguchi, Mari (6 May 2005). "Myth about Japan blood types under attack". MediResource Inc. Archived from the original on 28 December 2009. Retrieved 29 December 2007.
  3. ^ Takeji Furukawa (1927), 血液型と気質 Blood Type and Temperament - in Europe, type A was more common than type B, while in Asia type B was more prevalent. Von Dungren claimed A people are superior to B people. Because Asia had more B people than some parts of Europe, the inference was that Asia was inferior (along with European B's) A Japanese scholar, Takeji Furukawa opposed that idea and asserted that B persons were active while A persons were passive.
  4. ^ Tsuchimine, Shoko; Saruwatari, Junji; Kaneda, Ayako; Yasui-Furukori, Norio (2015). "ABO Blood Type and Personality Traits in Healthy Japanese Subjects". PLOS ONE. 10 (5): e0126983. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1026983T. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0126983. PMC 4433257. PMID 25978647.
  5. ^ "Dating by blood type in Japan". April 28, 2010 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
  6. ^ Nuwer, Rachel. "You are what you bleed: In Japan and other east Asian countries some believe blood type dictates personality". Scientific American. Archived from the original on 2012-10-18. Retrieved 16 February 2011.
  7. ^ Cramer, K. M., & Imaike, E. (2002). Personality, blood type, and the five-factor model. Personality and individual differences, 32(4), 621–626.
  8. ^ Rogers, M., & Glendon, A. I. (2003). Blood type and personality. Personality and individual differences, 34(7), 1099–1112.
  9. ^ Wu, K., Lindsted, K. D., & Lee, J. W. (2005). Blood type and the five factors of personality in Asia. Personality and individual differences, 38(4), 797–808.
  10. ^ Kengo Nawata (2014), No relationship between blood type and personality: Evidence from large-scale surveys in Japan and the US Archived 2021-12-17 at the Wayback Machine, The Japanese Journal of Psychology, 85(2), 148–156.
  11. ^ Sakamoto, A., & Yamazaki, K. (2004), Blood-typical personality stereotypes and self-fulfilling prophecy: A natural experiment with time-series data of 1978–1988. Archived 2016-01-22 at the Wayback Machine, Progress in Asian Social Psychology, Vol. 4, 239–262.
  12. ^ Yamazaki, K., & Sakamoto, A. (1992), 血液型ステレオタイプによる自己成就現象II－全国調査の時系列分析－ The self-fulfillment phenomenon generated by blood-typical personality stereotypes: time-series analysis of nation-wide survey II, Paper presented at the 33rd annual convention of the Japanese society of social psychology. Tokyo (pp. 342–345).
  13. ^ Cosy Muto, Masahiro Nagashima et al. (2011), A Demonstrative and Critical Study on Pseudo-science for Scientific Literacy Construction at Teacher Education Course[permanent dead link], FY2011 Final Research Report from the Database of Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research - neither exact number of samples nor years was specified in the report