Physical topography is associated with human personality

Friedrich M. Götz (), Stefan Stieger, Samuel D. Gosling, Jeff Potter and Peter J. Rentfrow ()
Additional contact information
Friedrich M. Götz: University of Cambridge
Stefan Stieger: Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences
Samuel D. Gosling: University of Texas at Austin
Jeff Potter: Atof Inc.
Peter J. Rentfrow: University of Cambridge

Nature Human Behaviour, 2020, vol. 4, issue 11, 1135-1144

Abstract: Abstract Regional differences in personality are associated with a range of consequential outcomes. But which factors are responsible for these differences? Frontier settlement theory suggests that physical topography is a crucial factor shaping the psychological landscape of regions. Hence, we investigated whether topography is associated with regional variation in personality across the United States (n = 3,387,014). Consistent with frontier settlement theory, results from multilevel modelling revealed that mountainous areas were lower on agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness but higher on openness to experience. Conditional random forest algorithms confirmed mountainousness as a meaningful predictor of personality when tested against a conservative set of controls. East–west comparisons highlighted potential differences between ecological (driven by physical features) and sociocultural (driven by social norms) effects of mountainous terrain.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-0930-x

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