Neurotics in the north. Agreeable types in the south.

May 6, 2008 1:42 PM

Is personality a factor in where you live? Yes, according to the guys who created these maps. The authors aren't making any claims about causality, but they do suggest it may be that "people migrate to places where their psychological needs are easily met."

Missing from this overview, of course, is any hard definition of what marks someone as "neurotic" or "open-to-experience" and if any of those attributes can be reproducibly diagnosed. It could be, of course, that it's the doctors in a region that tend toward a common set of labels.

posted by CheeseDigestsAll (53 comments total)

they do suggest it may be that "people migrate to places where their psychological needs are easily met."

Wow. Those guys are really going out on a limb, aren't they?
posted by dersins at 1:51 PM on May 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

I would argue this is not so much a reflection of pockets of personality - it would be weird for personality to occur in geographic pockets - rather it reflects historical forces that create certain regional attitudes. For example "Southern Hospitality" is another way of saying "agreeable personality".
posted by stbalbach at 1:52 PM on May 6, 2008

According to these maps, I don't have a personality at all. Oh well, guess I won't have to move, then.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 1:53 PM on May 6, 2008

stbalbach, that's certainly one interpretation.
posted by small_ruminant at 1:53 PM on May 6, 2008

Cue the inevitable "I fit the maps, so clearly they're right" and "I don't fit the maps, so clearly they're wrong" comments.

Missing from this overview, of course, is any hard definition of what marks someone as "neurotic" or "open-to-experience" and if any of those attributes can be reproducibly diagnosed.

There's this neat-o invention called "the internet," which has loads of information, some of it even reliable. I hadn't heard of these specific factors as such before, but a Google search on agreeableness conscietiousness extroversion neuroticism experience turned up Big Five personality traits as the first hit.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:55 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

They misspelled conscientious on the map of conscientious people.
posted by logicpunk at 1:56 PM on May 6, 2008

Holy cow, people in California's Central Valley (and most of Imperial Valley) are "open to experience" people?

(For non-Californians: those are both very conservative agricultural areas.)
posted by phliar at 1:59 PM on May 6, 2008

Perhaps they should invent a saying... something about birds and feathers or something.

Though it's funny. In a past "Texas" thread this very fact was vociferously and laughably disputed.
posted by tkchrist at 2:00 PM on May 6, 2008

Hmm so I'm potentially a little neurotic and a little bit open to experience. I hope these jeans don't make me look fat when I go to the zoophilia club.
posted by Mister_A at 2:11 PM on May 6, 2008

Wow, so people are only allowed one personality trait now?
posted by shakespeherian at 2:14 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

They misspelled conscientious on the map of conscientious people.
How very conscientious of you, logicpunk. If you ever get up this way I'll buy you a beer.
posted by Floydd at 2:17 PM on May 6, 2008

"Concientious people"

Apparently the copy editor is from one of the white areas.

The research was done by a Brit and a Canadian and the article was written by a Canadian and yet it's all about the US.
posted by loiseau at 2:20 PM on May 6, 2008

Heh. Indiana...Neurotically Conscientious.
Or, Conscientiously Neurotic, I guess...
posted by Thorzdad at 2:22 PM on May 6, 2008

There is a book out now, The Big Sort, about our tendency to cluster into like-minded groups. Here's an interview with the author, in which he makes an interesting comment about education and political homogeneity:

Meanwhile, educated people like to think their lives are filled with diversity and worldly sophistication. But it turns out that those with the most homogenous political lives are Americans who have suffered through graduate school. The best-educated citizens are the least likely to have a political discussion with someone with a different opinion.

This isn't the best place to get data, given that there are a lot of intelligent people here who can have political discussions with each other in spite of sometimes vast geographical separation, but I'm wondering if people really do find that to be true in their (offline) lives.
posted by stefanie at 2:22 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

so new york has neurotic people and open to experience people (two traits not found in the same person, usually.) and every fucking type of person lives in idaho.

A brief perusal gave me the imeediate impression that this was their way of saying "new york is full of jews and homosexuals."

or to put it another way: this article is really really stupid.
posted by shmegegge at 2:24 PM on May 6, 2008

*immediate.
posted by shmegegge at 2:25 PM on May 6, 2008

I just moved to North Carolina, and I'm agreeable and conscientious, so that fits. In fact, I moved because someone asked me to and I hated to say no, being so agreeable.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:27 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

so new york has neurotic people and open to experience people (two traits not found in the same person, usually.)

Who'd'a thought New York, of all places, has more than one person? Amazing!
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:36 PM on May 6, 2008

Richard Florida wrote this? That man has really managed to ride his one trick creative class pony impressively far.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 2:37 PM on May 6, 2008

"Wow, so people are only allowed one personality trait now?"

No. That's why they look for clusters along five different axes. Each person occupies a place along each of the axes.

"According to these maps, I don't have a personality at all."

No, according to those maps there's no unusual distribution of personality types in the place where you live. Just an average mix.

"so new york has neurotic people and open to experience people (two traits not found in the same person, usually.) "

No, the two vary independently of each other, that's why they each get their own big 5 axis. Traits that correlate well ended up on the same axis.

"A brief perusal gave me the immediate impression that this was their way of saying "new york is full of jews and homosexuals." or to put it another way: this article is really really stupid."

No, you just were unfamiliar with the subject matter and probably too busy to pay very much attention at the moment you read it. A lot of things look stupid under those conditions.
posted by edheil at 2:44 PM on May 6, 2008 [7 favorites]

Missing from this overview, of course, is any hard definition of what marks someone as "neurotic" or "open-to-experience" and if any of those attributes can be reproducibly diagnosed. It could be, of course, that it's the doctors in a region that tend toward a common set of labels.

Actually the article mentions that they have "[drawn] on a database of hundreds of thousands of individual personality surveys," and the theory used here is the Five Factor Model of personality.

To comment on the speculations about "regional" biases in these results, that is actually impossible considering that the personality surveys based on the Big Five theory are all standardized and objectively scored tests, and so there is no room for examiner bias to weave its way into a label.
posted by tybeet at 2:45 PM on May 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

So Utah has a spot of conscientiousness but no neuroses despite having the greatest use of anti-depressants per capita? Okay, so I guess the Globe is missing the dead-inside automaton map.
posted by effwerd at 2:46 PM on May 6, 2008

Needless to say, the claims in the article about migration habits may be a leap of faith. It may just be the case that certain environments impact upon a person's personality in certain ways. The colder New England climate may evoke a certain predisposition in certain individuals that tend towards neuroticism, whereas the more moderate and warm weather of the south may not.

Who knows.
posted by tybeet at 2:48 PM on May 6, 2008

neurotic *and* open to experience basically defines me. and new york.
posted by Maias at 2:59 PM on May 6, 2008

If this premise is at all true, it seems likely to be the result of people 1) tending to live where they grew up, and 2) people learning behavior from their parents.
posted by shakespeherian at 3:07 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Are we just putting up lazily dismissive statements out of habit now? The idea is an interesting one, but I don't think they're going to force you to move against your will, so relax, people.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:18 PM on May 6, 2008

What, West Texas has a large concentration of extroverts? Not getting that at all. And what's with this weird little pool of neurotics between Wichita and OK City?
posted by pomegranate at 3:35 PM on May 6, 2008

The big cloud for extroverted people is right above my house...

*hides*
posted by quin at 3:35 PM on May 6, 2008

"The Northeast corridor, including Greater Boston, as well as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Austin, are home to concentrations of open-to-experience types who are drawn to creative endeavor, innovation, and entrepreneurial start-up companies."

Wait, did these people learn geography from the Simpsons? This Northeast Corridor must be home to the fabled Springfield, because it somehow includes Los Angeles in the deep Southwest, Boston high in the Northeast, and Austin, which is definitively in the South. Oh, and also Seattle.
posted by Kiablokirk at 3:39 PM on May 6, 2008

Open to experience people tend to be concientious and agreeable, don't they? I don't get it...
posted by Chuffy at 3:53 PM on May 6, 2008

And what's with this weird little pool of neurotics between Wichita and OK City?

I grew up in Tulsa. You think this would frighten me. Well it doesn't. Because I know this is just a filthy figment of my diseased imagination. All I have to do is simply reach out my hand and touch it!
posted by Ufez Jones at 3:56 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Space Coyote: I'm not worried about being forced to move, I'm worried about the prevalence of junk science. And this is junk science. Even if we wanted to grant them that every person is reducible to five categories, and that people would fit neatly into those categories, and each individual person that fit in that category was similar enough to every person who was also described as being "extroverted" or whatever that you could safely lump them into a uniform group, and that complex decisions such as where to live could be reduced down into component decisions which would both be rational AND align nicely with the personality traits the person has been reduced to, AND that the results of all of these outcomes would lead to the clustering of like minded people, and that the clusters would be drawn clearly enough that we could draw a reasonable conclusion from them.... then it would still be junk science because correlation isn't causation, which is what this study seems to ultimately lead to.
posted by Kiablokirk at 3:59 PM on May 6, 2008

quin: it certainly does look like a weather map. OMG, it's raining extroverts!
posted by desjardins at 4:10 PM on May 6, 2008

Psychologists have shown that human personalities can be classified along five key dimensions: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. And each of these dimensions has been found to affect key life outcomes from life expectancy and divorce to political ideology, job choices and performance, and innovation and creativity.

"have shown"? Show me! "has been found"? Find it for me! This is redonkolous pop psych masquerading as geography. Look, we has purty mapz! Therefore they must mean something.
posted by desjardins at 4:14 PM on May 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

Open to experience people tend to be concientious and agreeable, don't they? I don't get it...

Nope, as as edheil pointed out above, [they] vary independently of each other, that's why they each get their own big 5 axis. Traits that correlate well ended up on the same axis. (empirical research into the Five Factor Theory has been going on for 75 years, so that kind of correlation would have made itself evident by now, had it existed)

For what it's worth, here are the definitions of the five factors, according to wikipedia:

Openness - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.

Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behaviour.

Extraversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.

Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.

Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:18 PM on May 6, 2008

I'm a little troubled that:

They had so few data points that smoothing their results has led to the apparent emergence of large populations in the middle of the oceans and Great Lakes.

They clearly haven't normalized anything by population size, which ironically makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about traits' presence, only about their absence.

Even if there was nothing odd about the results of their data (no extroverts in Hollywood? really?) there's more than enough to be suspicious of in the mere presentation of it.
posted by roystgnr at 4:18 PM on May 6, 2008

It's always fun to watch people hate psychology.
posted by sonic meat machine at 4:20 PM on May 6, 2008 [2 favorites]

"have shown"? Show me! "has been found"? Find it for me!

desjardins, there are 42 peer-reviewed articles & monographs in the wikipedia link. You could always start there.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:20 PM on May 6, 2008 [1 favorite]

Also: I'd never heard of "OCEAN" before, but it sounds like "ESFJ", except in a different order and with less value-neutral phrasing. It looks like Thurstone post-dates Briggs and pre-dates Myers. I wonder who influenced whom, or if they just came to a lot of the same conclusions. It would be amusing if the "Myers-Briggs" indicator is just a watered down version of this theory, but one which became popular because you don't have to sound like you're insulting people when you classify their test results.
posted by roystgnr at 4:26 PM on May 6, 2008

I agree with roystgnr. What's up with the populations in the ocean? Very strange presentation.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:30 PM on May 6, 2008

Ufez Jones: I grew up in Tulsa. You think this would frighten me. Well it doesn't. Because I know this is just a filthy figment of my diseased imagination. All I have to do is simply reach out my hand and touch it!

i saw what you did there!

WHOOPS! there goes my imagination again!
posted by CitizenD at 4:41 PM on May 6, 2008

hmm... i wonder if the algorithms that made these maps could be combined to output where all the non-neurotic, open-to-experience, single women are concentrated...
posted by bilgepump at 4:59 PM on May 6, 2008

I want the actual data and research methodology. Anyone stumbled across that?

I'm assuming a bunch of you must've already read it, since you're so certain the study is bunk.
posted by salvia at 5:31 PM on May 6, 2008

I want the actual data and research methodology. Anyone stumbled across that? I'm assuming a bunch of you must've already read it, since you're so certain the study is bunk.

@salvia: The research methodology is meta-analytic. Which is to say they've gathered up "hundreds of thousands" of completed surveys which were all theoretically grounded in the five-factor theory of intelligence. If you're referring to the methodology of how this data was plotted for the rendering of these graphics, then I'm not sure. It would be hard to say beyond this without actually having the article.

The question that the newspaper here didn't even bother to raise is: why does the nation seem to sort itself by personality? What link can be established between New England and neuroticism, for instance?
posted by tybeet at 5:41 PM on May 6, 2008

hundreds of thousands

You'd think "hundreds of thousands" of surveys would allow for better resolution mapping.
posted by aramaic at 5:48 PM on May 6, 2008

Hey desjardins or other geographers, anyone remember / have a link to that classic cultural geography map of, was it called "cultural hearths"? I remember it from a freshman Cultural Geography class, so it's one of those classics. The idea being, if I'm remembering right, that different parts of the US were settled at different times by different groups of people, and under different socioeconomic factors. I doubt that map has too much similarity, but it'd be fun to compare it.

I'd also like to see what the correlations are between those traits and urbanized vs. unurbanized areas. Too bad a quick initial google search for an actual detailed study has come back empty. Anyone else found it?

On preview, thanks, tybeet. I'd still like to know more of the details. And yeah, like aramaic, I'd like to see the real maps before the fuzzy clouds gathered overhead.
posted by salvia at 5:54 PM on May 6, 2008

What link can be established between New England and neuroticism, for instance?

Dude, have you been to New England?
posted by dersins at 6:05 PM on May 6, 2008

It's interesting that the Extroversion map shows a big blotch centered around Chicago and Milwaukee, two of the drunkest cities in the USA.
posted by jtron at 6:16 PM on May 6, 2008

Wait, so because I live in Atlanta, I'm more likely to extroverted, agreeable and concientious (sic)? Well, maybe the latter .. as for for the rest, fuck you all.
posted by intermod at 6:19 PM on May 6, 2008

wait a minute, there's neurotics in New York City? STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES!
posted by jonmc at 7:26 PM on May 6, 2008

On quick read I thought that "concientious" was "contentious." I immediately dismissed the survey because New Jersey was not represented.
posted by Slap Factory at 7:29 PM on May 6, 2008

It's interesting that the Extroversion map shows a big blotch centered around Chicago and Milwaukee, two of the drunkest cities in the USA.
Hell, jtron I'll buy you a beer, too! *hic*
Fuck it, a round for the house!!
posted by Floydd at 8:43 PM on May 6, 2008

OK, let's go:

1. This is a buy-my-book fluff article, clearly written from a press release (the Globe and Mail has an article that's nearly identical). So grain of salt to start with.

2. There is (of course) no journal article or even preprint around to back it up. So you have no idea about the methodology, effect size, significance, or anything---unless you buy his book.

3. Personality is more complicated than five factors. There, I said it. OCEAN is pretty much BS; it just so happened that some personality test showed five clusters of questions that correlate together. But the naming is pretty arbitrary; some of the things clustered in O, or C, etc., have very little to do with Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, etc.

4. All people have personality attributes from all five traits. OCEAN doesn't divide people into five groups, it ranks people on five scales. There are no "neurotic people". edheil: I know that's not necessarily how they made the maps, but that's what the captions say.

5. Maps aside, there will ALWAYS be more personality deviation within large demographic groupings than across them. There are lots of agreeable people everywhere, lots of neurotic people everywhere, and so forth. We don't know the scale of the various colors on the map.
posted by goingonit at 9:43 PM on May 6, 2008