Could you personality be shaped by where you live? Or could your personality make a difference in where you choose to live? That's the question considered by the fairly new field of geographic psychology, or geopsychology. A study by a research team from the University of Mannheim show how five measures of personality fall on maps of the US. Those dimensions are openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Openness and extraversion sound like they might be the same, but openness refers to people being open to learning, new ideas, or experiences, while extraversion has to do with socializing with other people. The terms will be explained further at Big Think, where we get to see US maps of each of the five personality variables.
These maps do not paint everyone with the same brush, but instead track group scores. You may not fit the stereotype, but think about the community around you. According to the maps, my corner of Kentucky is full of people who are neurotic, undisciplined, closed-minded introverts, although they can be agreeable at times. I have to admit that it's a pretty accurate description of many of the people around me.
Studying the personality traits of different geographical areas does not tell us what causes it. It could be genetic, as people usually live close to family, or environmental as we learn from the culture around us. But considering mobility, it might be that once a region develops a reputation for certain traits, certain people are drawn to live there. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Tobias Ebert et al., Perspect. Psychol. Sci., 2021)