I came across an interesting study on the Internet, called “The Geography of Personality: A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence, and Expression of Regional Variation in Basic Traits. Perspectives on Psychological Science.” It’s written by this Cambridge professor dude named Peter Jason Rentfrow.
He’s smirking because he knows that Virginia isn’t a southern state. We even have the maps to prove it. Typically we would not question the concept of Virginia being a southern state. It’s south of the Mason Dixon line, it welcomes with good old Southern Charm, we eye those “northerners” as foreign morons, etc. It’s a tautology, we just don’t talk about it (like religion and politics).
Check out the map; it polls different States using the “Big Five Personality Traits” What are the 5 and what do they mean?
- Openness - appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.
- Conscientiousness - a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior.
- Extraversion - energy, positive emotions, surgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others.
- Agreeableness - a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.
- Neuroticism - a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability.
Virginia is downright awful, we are near the very bottom when it comes to Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, ranking, 45, 44 and 39, respectively. At least we redeem ourselves with 11th best for openness, but hey, look through that map and you will see our Southern neighbors really, truly are the southern states.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Tagged as: Questions, southern, southern charm, studies, the south, truth, Virginia
I’m originally from PA and at my first day of work in VA I was called a Damn Yankee. Love that Southern Charm!
Virginia is not aweful.I am not disagreeable! Everyone else is stupid. Now leave me alone.
Virginia gets tainted by the shear mass of people who live in the NOVA area. That place is d”ownright aweful”.
I’m not sure when “y’all” crept into my vocabulary, but it’s there now, and I can’t get rid of it.
/mom’s a yankee
Ya’ll is just so much more convenient.
English language… /FAIL
What in tarnation are y’all on about? I reckon I’m gonna mosey down yonder way fer some vittles.
I have always been amazed at the frequency I hear the phrase “high class” used by natives. Very odd .
@3 better than the buffalonian “youze guys.”
“Did you say ‘yoots’?”
“Yeah, two yoots.”
“What is a ‘yoot’?”
Well Bless Your Heart, Mr Rentfrow.
This southern bell that was born and raised here in rural virginia would have to disagree. Virginia is by all rights a southern state. If you’re trying to label Virginia based on those factors then you missed the concept all together. Southern hospitality only applies to the people that are born here and the ones who are vacationing. Everyone else can pack there carpet bags and get the hell off my land.
Dear Cousin Vinny, I mean P.J., I believe it’s spelled “extrovert”. I would guess that “extraversion” has something to do with a sex club (see appropriate thread). At least we Virginians know how to spell, even if you suspect that the citizens of our fair commonwealth aren’t “southern” enough…
I’m all for retaining regional identity, but I was beyond amazed by how die-hard people were about the Civil War down here. The whole “damn yankees” and “It’s the Battle of Manassas, NOT Bull Run”… Just saying.
Speaking of regional dialect, where I’m from there’s the ubiquitous agreement “eh” (”You betcha, eh?) and like the Buffalonian “Youz guys”, we have “Yous guys”. I get teased about how I say roof (like ruff), egg (aygg, not ehgg), and about (aboat). What can I say? At least there’s no contention about whether or not I’m from the north.
I do consider Virginia a part of the south though.
there’s South and the Deep South, ie Virginia vs. Louisiana
12: the truth. and seriously, with D.C. as the capital of The North, Virginia is pretty much a border state and all that that entails. Having lived where secession began, I can say there is a big difference in mindset and manners.
@13 exactly, there is a huge difference between say Chantilly and Afton.
This land is my land
this land ain’t your land
I’ve got a shotgun
and you ain’t got one
if you don’t get off
I’ll blow your head off
this land is private property.
@12 totally agree. The upper southern states are completely different from the deep south but the rest of the country lumps both groups into “the south”. That is like saying that “the north” includes the midwest….
In my mind, Virginia is and always will be a southern state…even if the sprawling black hole of NOVA removes a lot of the charm from VA. Most people from NOVA don’t even identify themselves as southern (and I have no idea why!). It is very difficult for me to understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be southern…
being southern is quite charming. Being from NOVA is..um..neutral. It’s because NOVA is whatever the suburbs of DC are. Not quite anything.
evening/morning all - is anyone up?
damnation, outlasted everyone again…damn, damn, damn - I’ve been tryin to sign on earlier, but the fambly schedule just won’t allow it…
rats, am alone again… pout
@17 yeah, nova is not southern. maybe that’s why they get multiple TJ’s & fuddruckers & we don’t? grrr.
bp, i appreciate your new restraint.
bp, i appreciate your new restraint.
that discussion should be over on the sex club thread.
Virginia is tough–the sump of NoVA skews things a lot by being grotesque and overpopulous, as do VA Beach for being airheaded and… sorry folks… Cville for being preternaturally and unregenerately faux-newyorkais. Richmond can be a pretty gracious place, and certainly the better parts of it have the elegance of Charleston, etc. But if you head west towards the mountains you lose the stereotype of aristocratic southernness and get that hatfield/mccoy insularity and antigregarious suspicion of outsiders.
The flatlands to the east and south of here are more ‘typically’ southern, seem culturally more to define the Commonwealth in character: tobacco and pulpwood and people who’ll drive you twenty miles to get you a can of gas, greet every living soul they pass on the street, speak in a flatter more distinctively virginian accent.
There are certainly holdout pockets around Cville. Courteous and open natives both wealthy and poor, a tradition of military service and liberal arts education, a LEISURED way of living and doing and speaking and being.
Seems like the above misguided Limey, whom oddly i believe i met once at a gallery-opening on Manhattan, may have done his research in Cville, Reston, and Norfolk.
According to that map, we should all move to North Dakota. Alaska is ranked 51st for “agreeableness.” What does Sarah Palin have to say to that?
that she can see Russia from her house.
i never like the restraints, never
/just sayin’
/ returns to work on scale topographical model of Yogaville made from Necco-Wafers and EZ-Cheese.
wtf>>
OD - are you pullin’ a BP tonight?
@29
sorry to poach on your preserve, BP, but i was doing my best to take up your slack while you were reading the new People Magazine in the ER. Hope everyone is OK. i was in the ER one autumn foxfield afternoon getting a bunch of stitches in my eyebrow, and it was a pretty lively party.
This is the sort of thing that bothers me immensely. My family has been in VA for ages and I was born/raised in C’Ville. Have lived in south-western VA, the dreaded NoVA, the (imo) largely soulless Woodbridge/Occoquan area, sporadic periods spent in the wastes of the California desert and Frederick, MD, on the beaches of Oahu and for the last seven years - the dismal concrete bound landscape of NYC.
Virginia is, by far, the most agreeable place I’ve ever lived. I don’t think my opinion is tainted (entirely) by VA being my birthplace. These sort of studies always give me pause when I see the conclusions drawn from them. Not just in their accuracy (which likely gets better the closer you get to Cambridge) but their purpose. [Not sure where I was going to go with this but yeah… there that is.]
As for regional identity.. when my two youngest sons were born here in NYC the form I had to fill out asked for my “cultural heritage” with blocks for Italian, German, Puerto Rican and the like. I wrote in “Virginian”. It amused me greatly but I think I was alone in that respect and I’m fairly certain that I’m now listed in some database in New York as being from the Virgin Islands.
I do recall that (probably 15 years ago) I did a small survey for a Sociology class regarding spoken accents’ impact on perception. This was in NoVA with sophomores at a local 2 year school. It seemed to boil down to:
’southern accent’ = bigoted and/or uneducated
‘NYC/NJ accent’ = uneducated
‘New England accent’ = snobbish
‘California accent’ = fun and/or free spirited (most dubbed the Cali accent as the surfer/valley variety)
‘Mid-west accent’ = slow-witted or dull
‘British accent’ = intelligent (I didn’t break the Brit’s into their varieties of dialect because they didn’t seem to be able to tell the difference between them)
The other ‘foreign’ accents were perceived along the stereotypical lines you’d think they would be, French/snobs, Italian/emotional, etc..
On a lark I added a single question at the end that just said “Where was the Mason-Dixon Line located?”. Answers were from Georgia up to New York and everywhere in between. As well as a handful that had no idea what I was talking about. Depressing to say the least.
@30 - this event turned out to be a gentle lesson - what happened since then is totally not - lotsa stress happenin’ . damnation that there ain’t no idiots guide to parenthood…While I’m so not republican, need lots of prayers for this one…
/thanks in advance
I submit that Virginia has the coolest state flag. Seriously, who else has nudity, a cool latin phrase, and a symbolic King George being killed on their flag?
Also Virginia has beaches, the Bay, ski slopes, amusement parks, and so many beautiful mountains — a real outdoor-lovers paradise. Granted VA Beach isn’t the Outer Banks or Daytona, and our ski slopes aren’t like Stowe VT, but it’s a nice median: the Deep South doesn’t get snow, and the North has shitty beaches.
We don’t have those bitter northern winters (and consequently we have hardly any toll roads, since we don’t have to pay to repair them after an annual winter beating), and we also manage to avoid those sweltering summers of the Deep South. If you want better local wine you have to move to the west coast or deal with Long Islanders (shudder). Also birthplace of the nation, 8 presidents, history everywhere, etc.
I do hate NOVA though. Other than that, Virginia is tops in my book.
\slightly-biased opinion from an Albemarle County native and self-confessed townie.
North has shitty beaches.
Really? Jersey Shore, the Hamptons and the Cape? Admittedly, I’m not a Jersey Shore fan, but the Hamptons and the Cape have great beaches.
@7…
“youze guys” is buffalonian? ?
“pop” is. for buffalo is on lake erie = great lake dealio.
but then, i was born in buffalo, grew up on lake ontario and have been saying “y’all” for quite a long time.
/way before i rolled up my magic carpet via california and swooped in here to take the riches of the land away from all y’all secessionists.
Virginia is for lovers.
with D.C. as the capital of The North, Virginia is pretty much a border state
odd point, given that Richmond was the capital of the confederacy…
Virginia is for lovers.
true. i’m totally watching porn right now…