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SUMMARY:The geography of personality - Dr Jason Rentfrow\, Department of S
 ocial and Developmental Psychology\, Cambridge
DTSTART:20080219T130000Z
DTEND:20080219T140000Z
UID:TALK10588@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Julain Oldmeadow
DESCRIPTION:Volumes of research show that people in different geographic r
 egions differ psychologically. Most of that work converges on the conclusi
 on that there are geographic differences in personality and values\, but l
 ittle attention has been paid to developing an integrative account of how 
 those differences emerge\, persist\, and become expressed at the geographi
 c level. Drawing from research in psychology and other social sciences\, I
  present a theoretical account of the mechanisms through which geographic 
 variation in psychological characteristics emerge and persist within regio
 ns\, and propose a model for conceptualizing the processes through which s
 uch characteristics become expressed in geographic social indicators. Hypo
 theses derived from the model were tested using personality data from over
  a half-million U.S. residents. Results provide preliminary support for th
 e model\, revealing clear patterns of regional variation across the U.S. a
 nd strong relationships between state-level personality and geographic ind
 icators of crime\, social capital\, religiosity\, political values\, emplo
 yment\, and health. Overall\, this work highlights the potential insights 
 generated by including macro-level perspectives within psychology and sugg
 ests new routes to bridging theory and research across disciplines in the 
 social sciences.
LOCATION:SPS Seminar Room
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