Personality // Current

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29 days ago

United Kingdom Talk Thursday 11th June 2009 Widescreen

Thursday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch or listen to the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs &... more

ChrisReardon
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Check Out Her Aura

Ever wondered why there's something about your mate that you can't quite figure out? Perhaps she's got a touch of... more

Kangaroo62
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Bottoms up! How you hold your drink shows your personality

Forget the stylish outfit, the expensive coiffure and the witty chat-up lines. That all-important first impression comes from how... more

burukku16
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You are what you eat.

This was a photography piece done by Mark Menjivar in which he photographed the contents of strangers refrigerators and revealed... more

MissAmanda
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United Kingdom Talk Video Thursday 23rd April 2009

Thursday's edition of my three times a week talk show.Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats. In... more

ChrisReardon
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Is There a Longevity Personality?

Why do some people live to be older than others? You know the standard explanations: keeping an abstemious diet; engaging in... more

kid_amy
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The psychometric test that claims to find you love

This is the latest research by love experts claiming they can make choosing love a science. There are apparently four chemicals... more

Helen_Croydon
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The Simpsons personality test

It's Friday. Time to find out which Simpsons character you are!

abbym0308
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How Your Looks Betray Your Personality

"The idea that a person's character can be glimpsed in their face dates back to the ancient Greeks. It was most famously... more

St_Alia_10191
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Personality traits may be written on womens' faces

Research from Glasgow University and New Scientist revealed that a women's personality traits may be "written all over... more

ClareW
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How to lift your mood? Try smiling

My personal trainer sometimes gives me an odd piece of advice during workouts: "Relax your face." For a long time, I... more

kid_amy
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Why you're not happy

Happiness can be a paradox: The more you reach for it, the more it seems to slip through your fingers. “Ask yourself if... more

KefKef
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Analysis: Bush's personality shapes his legacy

"President George W. Bush will be judged on what he did. He will also be remembered for what he's like: a fast-moving,... more

KefKef
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Psychologist finds Wikipedians grumpy and closed-minded

What persuades people to add articles to Wikipedia? Maybe a psychological profile of Wiki contributors measuring openness to... more

mischabarrett
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Why we take risks - it's the dopamine

Risk-taking, by definition, defies logic. Reason can't explain why people do unpredictable things — like betting on... more

verlierer
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1 in 5 young adults has personality disorder

Almost one in five young American adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life, and even more abuse... more

cerulean226
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20% of young Americans have personality disorders. What about you?

Being a recent graduate with a B.A. in Psychology, I find this pretty interesting, but nothing shocking. Personality disorders can... more

AtreusDesign
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Five Ways to Update Your Look

Five Ways to Update Your Look.

CutestPrincess
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The United States of Mind

Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian. But the... more

jenn5
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The United States of Mind: new research on the geography of personality

Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian.

But the conscientious Floridian? The neurotic Kentuckian?

You bet -- at least, according to new research on the geography of personality. Based on more than 600,000 questionnaires and published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, the study maps regional clusters of personality traits, then overlays state-by-state data on crime, health and economic development in search of correlations.

Even after controlling for variables such as race, income and education levels, a state's dominant personality turns out to be strongly linked to certain outcomes. Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime. Dutiful states -- an eclectic bunch that includes New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah -- produce a disproportionate share of mathematicians. States that rank high in openness to new ideas are quite creative, as measured by per-capita patent production. But they're also high-crime and a bit aloof. Apparently, Californians don't much like socializing, the research suggests.

As for high-anxiety states, that group includes not just Type A New York and New Jersey, but also states stressed by poverty, such as West Virginia and Mississippi. As a group, these neurotic states tend to have higher rates of heart disease and lower life expectancy.

Lead researcher Peter Jason Rentfrow, lecturer at the University of Cambridge in England, said he was startled to find such correlations. "That just blew me away," he said.

Psychologists unaffiliated with the study say it's intriguing but limited. There's no way to unravel the chicken-and-egg question: Do states tend to nurture specific personalities because of their histories, cultures, even climates? Or do Americans, seeking kindred spirits, migrate to the states where they feel at home? Maybe both forces are at work -- but in what balance?

Another issue: The personality maps may reinforce stereotypes and tempt us to draw overly simplistic conclusions, said Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of Arizona. Knowing Arizona ranks low in neuroticism, Ms. Schmader said, she might conclude that sunny weather makes for sunny dispositions. But if the data had turned out the other way, the sun could just as easily be blamed for high neuroticism -- for driving Arizonans stir crazy by keeping them cooped up in air conditioning.

"We tend to reject information that doesn't agree with our stereotypes," Ms. Schmader said.

Cross-cultural psychology was all the rage in the 1930s and 1940s, driven by a craze among anthropologists for comparing child-rearing practices in modern and pre-industrial societies. But the discipline fell out of favor, partly because of concerns that the comparisons were driven more by value judgments than standardized assessments.

---more at link with an interactive map--Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian. But the... more