Lichtgedanken 05

Rubrik 48 Economists at the Friedrich Schiller University have been working together with psychologists from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United Sta- tes and have discovered that many of the stereotypes attributed to different population groups are actually ac- curate. The researchers have compiled »psychological maps«, which consider the level of five different personality traits. They analysed the data from over 73,000 people aged between 20 and 64, who took part in an online personality study as part of the international »Big Five Project«. »Important progress has been made in research into cultural differences bet- ween regions recently thanks to large datasets like these«, says Prof. Dr Mi- chael Fritsch, who conducts research at the University of Jena together with his colleague PD Dr Michael Wyrwich. »Our work focused on the so-called Big Five. This concerns five personality traits, which remain relatively constant throughout adulthood and which can be used to comprehensively describe the personality structure of a human adult«, explains Prof. Dr Martin Ob- schonka from the Queensland Uni- versity of Technology. These five per- sonality traits are: extraversion, i.e. an outward, active and sociable attitude; tolerance, in the sense of a willingness to cooperate and altruism; conscienti- ousness, i.e. organized, carefully plan- ning and reliable; an openness to new experiences, which are identified th- rough an active imagination, curiosity and a preference for variety; and neu- roticism (low emotional stability) and a tendency for anxiety, nervousness and uncertainty. Tolerant Bavaria—conscientious Mecklenburg When you depict the degrees of these personality traits on a map, you can see certain characteristic profiles that part- ly confirm common stereotypes, despite the great diversity. You can, for example, see that South Germans and residents of large cities, such as Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, are more open-minded than those living in coastal areas, for example. There is a similar difference between former East and West Germa- ny, which confirms the stereotype of East Germans being more introverted in comparison to the rather more extro- verted West Germans. Tolerance is less pronounced in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania than in southern Bavaria, the south-west of Germany near Frei- burg and in western Saxony-Anhalt, for example. By contrast, residents of the Mecklenburg Lake District show higher values of conscientiousness— unlike the region around the Ba- den-Württemberg capital of Stuttgart. People in southwestern Germany tend to be more emotionally stable than tho- se in southern Thuringia or in the area around Bremerhaven. »When it comes to the regional distribution of neuroti- cism in Germany, we noticed a two-way split within Germany and, surprisingly, it clearly follows the historic Limes line—the lower values are found south of the Limes. In other words, people there exhibit a more stable emotional personality, which is connected to well- being and psychological resilience«, ex- plains Fritsch. And, a general rule: people living in ru- ral areas tend to have a lower degree of openness to new experience than city dwellers. The most open people tend to live in Berlin and in the metropolitan regions around Hamburg and Cologne, as well as Leipzig and Dresden. East-West differences and migration patterns There are relatively few differences bet- ween East and West Germany. Never- theless, it appears that East Germans tend to be slightly less extroverted, less emotionally stable and less open to new experiences than West Germans. The scientists also took a closer look at migration patterns. »The study shows that people who were born in the coun- tryside and moved to the city are si- gnificantly more open-minded than those who stayed in the countryside«, says Michael Wyrwich. »In the case of people who take the opposite route and move from the city to the country- side, extraversion, openness and tole- The psychological map of Germany North Germans are stand-offish, South Germans are friendly—big city dwellers are open-minded; those living in the countryside are more reserved. There are plenty of stereotypes about people living in different regions of Germany; not least with the East-West comparisons. But how much truth is there in these attributions and what causes regional personality differences? A study provides some answers. BY SEBASTIAN HOLLSTEIN B U S I N E S S P S Y C H O L O G Y