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Understanding America’s Regional Personality Types
How place, nurture, and nature shape who we are.
Sean Kernan, 08/25/24
I lived across the United States prior to turning 18. It wasn’t bad for the first decade of my life, but around adolescence, the adjustment became quite difficult. In 1999, I moved from a small town in North Carolina to Coronado, California for high school, and was dumbstruck on the first day.
I saw same-sex couples holding hands and students with brightly dyed hair and expressive outfits. People’s sensibilities and sense of humor felt so foreign. The local lingo and accents were unfamiliar. Even the sports were different. We had a varsity surfing team. Our high school water polo team was more popular than our football team.
Author and researcher, Colin Woodard, suggests there are as many as 11 cultures within the United States, including the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater, The Left Coast, the Midlands, and more. Recently, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge took this idea a step further, asking the fundamental question, “Do different places have different personalities?”
After sending thousands of surveys around the country, he discovered three regional trends in how people perceive and interact with the world. Friendliness was correlated to southern and midwestern states. Of note, the study doesn’t assert that people from outside those regions are universally mean, but it does echo the experience I had living in the south and seeing southern hospitality. Conversely, people living in western states were identified as “relaxed and creative”, which is partly driven by large populations in California, who work in entertainment, startups, and entrepreneurial fields. But the trend goes beyond that, to a cultural emphasis on creativity.
When I lived in Coronado, I was surprised by the huge art facilities and theater program that put on impressive plays each month. Many students were fantastic at painting, and had been doing it from an early age. Conversely, my school in North Carolina had one meager art room that people worked from. Few people went on to become artists.
The third and final cluster, the Northeast, was labeled as “temperamental and uninhibited”, which is partly driven by large populations living in dense cities. The experience of urbanization, and dealing with crowds, excess stimulation and squeezing onto subway cars — tends to put people more on edge. If you live in a city that was formerly a coal or factory town, your odds of being neurotic and skeptical are far higher. You will also tend to be less trusting of people. The effects of economic depression have an enormous impact on the psychology and culture of a region.
City living also shares traits with the west coast, and in particular, openness — which is a Big Five trait, that includes imagination, attentiveness to inner feelings, intellectual curiosity, adventurousness, challenging authority, and aesthetic sensitivity. It probably won’t surprise you that this trait tends to attract people to a left leaning ideology. Admittedly, it describes me. I’m a writer living in a city.
Countries with high levels of openness tend to promote democratic values. People who score high in orderliness, meaning they are by the rules and organized, tend to vote more conservative.
Why personalities cluster by region
People often migrate based on their beliefs and lifestyle. I live in Florida, but our Governor, Ron DeSantis, has often bragged about turning us into a red state. But it isn’t like he is converting people to his belief system. Liberals are moving out in droves, and conservatives are moving in.
Beyond politics, if you are someone who enjoys concerts, you might move to Nashville, or to a big city where concerts are more common. If you value outdoors and being active, Colorado might be an ideal home. These decisions, at scale, create clusters of personalities that shape regional psychology.
If you are a free-spirited type, a beach community will be more attractive. My hometown of Virginia Beach was a mish-mash in this regard. We lived in a southern state, on the border of a rural region of North Carolina. Our city was a combination of conservative orderly types, mixing with the skater and artsy folks of the beach community. We had the Neptune Festival with sand castle building competitions, and also monster truck rallies. Many times, I’ve seen surfers in the ocean wearing hunting and military board shorts.
This lived, physical, everyday experience in a place influences who you are. A study by Chinese researchers in the famed academic publication, Nature, found that people who live in areas where temperatures stay near 72 °F, tend to be more emotionally stable and easy going due to the comfort it provides.
Temperature affects how often people get sick, how much farming activity takes place, and how often you interact with others. And this plays out in ways you wouldn’t expect. The social thermoregulation theory posits that people seek social warmth in cold areas, finding that people in cold regions tend to have broader social networks.
A caveat to regional personality
There is still a strong nature and nurture component that shapes who you are. If both of your parents are neurotic and confrontational, there’s a good chance you’ll have a fiery streak that can come out when provoked. But then, if you grew up in a region where people are relaxed, that experience may have nudged some of that edge off. Who we are is not mutually exclusive to where we are.
And perhaps this is yet another reason to think deeply about where you want to live and why. Each step should be a correction for what is missing. I chose to stay here in Tampa for 13 years because I badly needed stability after my nomadic childhood. Yet, my partner and I are going through a bit of regional soul searching and toying with the idea of moving. We’re having ongoing discussions on the types of places we’d live and what it means for our lifestyle. She’s an upstate New York girl who shares my hatred for the cold. We don’t like some of the cultural issues we are finding here in the south, though I love the southern hospitality, beaches, and incredible weather.
Think through the life you want to live, the types of people you want to be around, and how the city you are scouting influences those things. And don’t forget people’s humanity. Living across the country taught me that, despite any personality or political differences, people appreciate confidence, kindness and a good sense of humor. Have fun, and stay open to people’s perspective and way of life, and I suspect you’ll do fine anywhere you land.
Sean Kernan I'm a former financial analyst turned writer out of sunny Tampa, Florida. I began writing eight years ago on the side and fell in love with the craft. My goal is to provide non-fiction story-driven content to help us live better and maximize our potential.
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