Symposium: Advances in Geographical Psychology and Their Implications for Personality Science

The Schwartz Theory of Basic Values identifies ten universal values that guide behavior across cultures, but people differ in how they resolve conflicts among values. In Study 1, across 14 large datasets, 747,358 participants, 95 countries, and two decades, we used Latent Profile Analysis to reveal three value systems that recur across countries and time: Stability Seekers (emphasizing security, tradition, conformity), Status Seekers (emphasizing power, achievement), and Experience Seekers (emphasizing self-direction, stimulation). In Study 2, we zoom in on regional variation in the prevalence of these value systems across Europe (European Social Survey; 332 regions; 365,483 participants), examining the effects of historical shocks on modern value systems. Using Instrumental Variable analyses, we test whether variables such as Black Death mortality, Protestant diffusion, Napoleonic reforms, industrialization, and Cold War divisions can provide causal explanations for why different value systems are more or less prevalent across European regions, illuminating the historical forces that have shaped the cultural evolution of these value systems.

Research on regional personality-outcome associations flourishes in North America and Europe, but we know little about how these relationships manifest across diverse cultural contexts. To bridge the gap, we map the within-country regional variation in Big Five traits across Colombia, Japan, and New Zealand and examine how these patterns relate to key political, economic, social, and health indicators (e.g., political orientation, economic climate, crime rates, life expectancy) using a combined weight-of-evidence approach based on spatial regressions, partial correlations, and conditional random forests. Our findings reveal distinct country-specific patterns. For example, higher regional Openness is linked to greater political conservatism in Colombia, while no such association appears in Japan or New Zealand, and this contrasts with the well-documented negative association in many Western contexts. At the same time, we observe some cross-culturally consistent patterns, such as positive relationships between regional Extraversion and regional wealth and life expectancy. By comparing within-country patterns across diverse nations, our work sheds light on both culturally specific and culturally generalizable links between regional personality and societal outcomes and highlights the importance of expanding regional personality research beyond Western contexts.

Personality differences are linked to who migrates from their hometown rather than staying there, yet most studies focus on single migration types and broad destinations (e.g., moving to cities) instead of capturing various flows (e.g., moving from abroad to cities). This study examined how personality traits and sociodemographic factors predict 18 migration flows in a country, Estonia, nowadays with high mobility. Using data from the Estonian Biobank (N = 58,678; > 5% of the adult population), we mapped Big Five traits of migrants and stayers, compared the stability of Soviet and post-Soviet cohorts, and applied logistic elastic net regression models to predict migration directions using personality domains and items. Personality domain differences were generally small (SD range ≈ .20), except openness, which showed the largest and most consistent associations (e.g., SD range = 0.55). Item-level analysis showed higher predictive ability than the domain level (Δ ≈ 15 to 25 %), while some items from the same domain reversely predicted the same migration flow. Sensitivity analyses indicated that openness remained robust between historical contexts but that most traits showed larger variation in the post-Soviet era. International migrants showed more distinctive personality profiles compared to internal migrants and stayers.

Culture is typically conceptualized, measured, and studied at the national-level. However, in recent years researchers in personality and cultural psychology have begun expanding this to explore different units of culture (e.g., within-country region, social class, language). Here, we simultaneously test these cultural containers against each other, to understand which ones are most relevant to capture variation in cultural norms, specifically Dignity, Face, and Honor norms. Using a dataset of emerging adults from Sub-Saharan Africa (N = 2,677), we compared and contrasted nation, language family, religious affiliation, residence type, and urban versus rural lifestyle to provide a head-to-head comparison. A series of ANCOVA analyses revealed that language families, urban-rural differences and residence type were the most relevant containers to characterize cultural differences in the African context. Following this, we tested how previously examined correlates of the three cultural norms, such as freedom, social self-regulation, and regulatory norms, relate to each dimension when it is captured in different cultural units beyond the country-level. Together, these findings demonstrate the need to evaluate cultural container suitability empirically rather than defaulting to the national level.

Previous research revealed geographical differences in personality. However, it is yet unclear how these differences emerge. We propose personality homophily (i.e., people selecting themselves into regions where similar people already reside) as a potential mechanism behind geographical personality differences. Building on evidence for personality homophily in non-residential contexts and on the link between personality–especially Openness–and moving frequency, we argue that personality homophily–especially regarding Openness–shapes residential choice. To test this idea, we use large-scale data from an online survey (GPIPP; N > 4 Mio. participants from the US). These data contain residential biographies, individual personality scores, and geographically aggregated personality estimates. We then use discrete choice models to analyze how individual and geographical personality jointly shape residential choice. Aligning with our hypothesis, we find a positive interaction between individual and geographic Openness, indicating personality homophily in residential choice. Importantly, these effects hold beyond established effects of demographic and economic residential homophily, suggesting a unique effect of personality. In sum, by combining large-scale data with computationally intensive methods, we (a) uncover personality as a previously hidden, yet relevant factor in understanding residential choice, and (b) identify personality homophily as a mechanism driving the emergence of geographic personality differences.