Geographically varying associations between personality and life satisfaction in the London metropolitan area.

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Residential location is thought to influence people's well-being, but different individuals may value residential areas differently. We examined how life satisfaction and personality traits are geographically distributed within the UK London metropolitan area, and how the strength of associations between personality traits and life satisfaction vary by residential location (i.e., personality-neighborhood interactions). Residential area was recorded at the level of postal districts (216 districts, n = 56,019 participants). Results indicated that the strength of associations between personality traits and life satisfaction depended on neighborhood characteristics. Higher openness to experience was more positively associated with life satisfaction in postal districts characterized by higher average openness to experience, population density, and ethnic diversity. Higher agreeableness and conscientiousness were more strongly associated with life satisfaction in postal districts with lower overall levels of life satisfaction. The associations of extraversion and emotional stability were not modified by neighborhood characteristics. These findings suggest that people's life satisfaction depends, in part, on the interaction between individual personality and particular features of the places they live.

Related collections

Most cited references 24

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Social consequences of experiential openness.

Robert McCrae (1996)

Openness to Experience is one of the 5 broad factors that subsume most personality traits. Openness is usually considered an intrapsychic dimension, defined in terms of characteristics of consciousness. However, different ways of approaching and processing experience lead to different value systems that exercise a profound effect on social interactions. In this article, the author reviews the effects of Openness versus Closedness in cultural innovation, political ideology, social attitudes, marital choice, and interpersonal relations. The construct of Openness and its measures could profitably be incorporated into research conducted by social psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, and historians.

0 comments Cited 201 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Cross-Cultural Variations in Predictors of Life Satisfaction: Perspectives from Needs and Values

S Oishi, E. F. Diener, R. Lucas … (1999)

0 comments Cited 126 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence, and Expression of Geographic Variation in Psychological Characteristics.

Peter Rentfrow, Samuel D. Gosling, Jeff Potter (2008)

Volumes of research show that people in different geographic regions differ psychologically. Most of that work converges on the conclusion that there are geographic differences in personality and values, but little attention has been paid to developing an integrative account of how those differences emerge, persist, and become expressed at the geographic level. Drawing from research in psychology and other social sciences, we present a theoretical account of the mechanisms through which geographic variation in psychological characteristics emerge and persist within regions, and we propose a model for conceptualizing the processes through which such characteristics become expressed in geographic social indicators. The proposed processes were examined in the context of theory and research on personality traits. Hypotheses derived from the model were tested using personality data from over half a million U.S. residents. Results provided preliminary support for the model, revealing clear patterns of regional variation across the U.S. and strong relationships between state-level personality and geographic indicators of crime, social capital, religiosity, political values, employment, and health. Overall, this work highlights the potential insights generated by including macrolevel perspectives within psychology and suggests new routes to bridging theory and research across several disciplines in the social sciences.