What Your Personality Has to Do With Your Neighborhood

Richard Florida. CITYLAB, dd-01-2015.

It’s a well-worn sociological truth that the neighborhoods in which we live can have a powerful

effect on our lives. But how do our neighborhoods affect our overall happiness and well being?

And what might they reflect about our underlying personalities?

A new study published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

(PNAS) by an international group of psychologists, including Markus Jokela, Samuel Gosling

and Peter J. Rentfrow, takes a detailed look at the intersection of personality and happiness in

London. While a growing number of studies trace the happiness of cities and metro areas, and a

few have considered the geographic clustering and concentration of personality traits, there has

been much less research on the clustering of personality types within cities and the effects of

neighborhood location on happiness.

The study explores the neighborhood clustering of the five basic personality traits defined by

the classic five-factor model: openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness,

conscientiousness and emotional stability (or lack of neuroticism). The researchers then

examined the clustering of these personality traits and their effects on individuals’ happiness

based on an online survey of some 56,000 people in the London metro area. They define

neighborhoods by postal districts, of which there are 219 in London.

The maps below, from the study, show the clustering of the five personality types across metro

London. The sixth map, on the bottom right, shows the concentration of neighborhoods by

happiness or life satisfaction. Red indicates high concentrations of a certain personality trait or

of satisfaction, while blue indicates a cluster without that trait.

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The most clustered personality trait the researchers found was “openness to experience” (bottom

left map), which is concentrated in the center of London. Openness to experience, according to a

wide body of psychological studies, is associated with creativity, innovation and

entrepreneurship. This type is concentrated in higher density neighborhoods, with higher

housing prices, more ethnic and religious diversity and higher crime rates. Meanwhile, the blue

concentrations at the periphery indicate that there are fewer people open to experience in metro

London’s suburbs.

Extroverted types also cluster near the center city (top left map), though not in the concentration

levels seen for openness to experience. Since extroverts want to connect to other people, it

makes sense that they are attracted to denser neighborhoods with greater concentrations of

meeting places like restaurants and bars. There is an absence of extroverts at the outskirts of the

city. Two types—agreeableness (middle left) and conscientiousness (middle right)—are

concentrated in outlying suburban areas.

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The last map plots life satisfaction. Unsurprisingly, the map roughly tracks the distribution of

wealth throughout metro London, with happier residents generally clustered in the most well-to-

do neighborhoods and those with lower levels of life satisfaction concentrated in areas of greater

poverty and those with higher concentrations of ethnic minorities. The study finds that

neighborhood characteristics accounted for two-thirds of the variance in happiness across

neighborhoods, indicating, as the researchers write, “a substantial link between

sociodemographic factors and average life satisfaction of neighborhoods.”

The second part of the study examined how the connection between personality traits and

happiness varied across neighborhoods. Three key findings stand out here. One, the study found

happiness to be most closely associated with emotional stability and extraversion. However,

neighborhood location played little, if any, role in this connection.

Two, there was only a weak association between happiness and openness to experience. But this

relationship did change according to neighborhood characteristics. Living in densely populated,

ethnically diverse neighborhoods lead “open to experience” types to be happier with their lives.

Indeed, the study suggests that those of high openness move to neighborhoods full of others

with high openness “because these areas provide them with more happiness.”

Finally, the work finds that high agreeableness and conscientiousness were strong predictors of

happiness in areas with lower average levels of life satisfaction. The researchers suggest that

this means that agreeableness and conscientiousness are more important in determining

happiness in less pleasant environmental circumstances.

Overall, the study’s main findings help us better understand the psychological dimensions of

cities and suburbs. Urban centers not only draw younger people and more creative types, but

make happiest those who get high on new experiences and who are extroverted enough to take

advantage of the density and amenities that city center can offer. The most satisfied suburban

dwellers are more likely to be agreeable or conscientious personality types.

The big takeaway: It’s not just social and economic forces that shape our neighborhoods. It’s

psychological ones, too.

Consultado em: 15-jan-2015 16:29

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/01/what-your-personality-has-to-do-with-your-neighborhood/384462/