[Vision2020] The United States of Mind

[Kenneth Marcy]

Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out 
New Yorker. The laid-back Californian.

But the conscientious Floridian? The neurotic Kentuckian?

You bet -- at least, according to new research on the geography of 
personality. Based on more than 600,000 questionnaires and published in the 
journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, the study maps regional 
clusters of personality traits, then overlays state-by-state data on crime, 
health and economic development in search of correlations.

Here is a link to the story, with links to interactive graphics:
http://tinyurl.com/l6ky8y 

Even after controlling for variables such as race, income and education 
levels, a state's dominant personality turns out to be strongly linked to 
certain outcomes. Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime. 
Dutiful states -- an eclectic bunch that includes New Mexico, North Carolina 
and Utah -- produce a disproportionate share of mathematicians. States that 
rank high in openness to new ideas are quite creative, as measured by 
per-capita patent production. But they're also high-crime and a bit aloof. 
Apparently, Californians don't much like socializing, the research suggests.

As for high-anxiety states, that group includes not just Type A New York and 
New Jersey, but also states stressed by poverty, such as West Virginia and 
Mississippi. As a group, these neurotic states tend to have higher rates of 
heart disease and lower life expectancy.

Lead researcher Peter Jason Rentfrow, lecturer at the University of Cambridge 
in England, said he was startled to find such correlations. "That just blew 
me away," he said.

Psychologists unaffiliated with the study say it's intriguing but limited. 
There's no way to unravel the chicken-and-egg question: Do states tend to 
nurture specific personalities because of their histories, cultures, even 
climates? Or do Americans, seeking kindred spirits, migrate to the states 
where they feel at home? Maybe both forces are at work -- but in what 
balance?

Another issue: The personality maps may reinforce stereotypes and tempt us to 
draw overly simplistic conclusions, said Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the 
University of Arizona. Knowing Arizona ranks low in neuroticism, Ms. Schmader 
said, she might conclude that sunny weather makes for sunny dispositions. But 
if the data had turned out the other way, the sun could just as easily be 
blamed for high neuroticism -- for driving Arizonans stir crazy by keeping 
them cooped up in air conditioning.

"We tend to reject information that doesn't agree with our stereotypes," Ms. 
Schmader said.

Cross-cultural psychology was all the rage in the 1930s and 1940s, driven by a 
craze among anthropologists for comparing child-rearing practices in modern 
and pre-industrial societies. But the discipline fell out of favor, partly 
because of concerns that the comparisons were driven more by value judgments 
than standardized assessments.

In the past decade, the field has been reinvigorated by the development of a 
44-question personality test that evaluates five traits: extraversion, 
agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. Some 
psychologists disagree with this matrix; others would add traits such as 
honesty. But the assessment, called the Big Five Inventory, has been widely 
used in scientific research.

Mr. Rentfrow came to the field full of questions gleaned from a life spent 
hop-scotching across America. Why were his neighbors in Texas so relaxed, so 
courteous, so obsessed with sports? Why did New Yorkers seem so tense and 
inward-focused, often brusque to the point of rudeness?

There's more of this story at: http://tinyurl.com/l6ky8y 


Ken