Is Virginia for lovers? Geographic variation in adult attachment orientation

Effective Maps, Easily Done: Visualizing Geo-Psychological Differences Using Distance Weights

Psychologists of many subfields are becoming increasingly interested in the geographical distribution of psychological phenomena. An integral part of this new stream of geo-psychological studies is to visualize spatial distributions of psychological phenomena in maps. However, most psychologists are not trained in visualizing spatial data. As a result, almost all existing geo-psychological studies rely on the most basic mapping technique: color-coding disaggregated data (i.e., grouping individuals into predefined spatial units and then mapping out average scores across these spatial units). Although this basic mapping technique is not wrong, it often leaves unleveraged potential to effectively visualize spatial patterns. The aim of this tutorial is to introduce psychologists to an alternative, easy-to-use mapping technique: distance-based weighting (i.e., calculating area estimates that represent distance-weighted averages of all measurement locations). We outline the basic idea of distance-based weighting and explain how to implement this technique so that it is effective for geo-psychological research. Using large-scale mental-health data from the United States ( N = 2,058,249), we empirically demonstrate how distance-based weighting may complement the commonly used basic mapping technique. We provide fully annotated R code and open access to all data used in our analyses.

Collective Reactions to Epidemic Threat: Attachment and Cultural Orientations Predict Early COVID-19 Infection and Mortality Rates and Trajectories

Hypotheses on culture-level attachment and individualism/collectivism relationships with COVID-19 infection and death rates during a period at the beginning of the epidemic were tested in data from 53 countries and 50 U.S. states. Results from multilevel growth curve analyses showed group-average anxious attachment predicted a lower initial number of cases and deaths cross-culturally and in the United States, while avoidant attachment predicted a higher initial number of COVID-19 infections in the United States and a higher initial number of deaths in both studies. Yet, during this period, culture-level anxious attachment was associated with a higher growth rate of infections and deaths, while a lower growth rate of infections and deaths was observed in countries and U.S. states with higher individualism and avoidance. The research provides new insights into attachment and culture relationships and points to different mechanisms that may explain initial and growth rate trajectories at the beginning of the epidemic.

Are Regional Differences in Psychological Characteristics and Their Correlates Robust? Applying Spatial-Analysis Techniques to Examine Regional Variation in Personality

There is growing evidence that psychological characteristics are spatially clustered across geographic regions and that regionally aggregated psychological characteristics are related to important outcomes. However, much of the evidence comes from research that relied on methods that are theoretically ill-suited for working with spatial data. The validity and generalizability of this work are thus unclear. Here we address two main challenges of working with spatial data (i.e., modifiable areal unit problem and spatial dependencies) and evaluate data-analysis techniques designed to tackle those challenges. To illustrate these issues, we investigate the robustness of regional Big Five personality differences and their correlates within the United States (Study 1; N = 3,387,303) and Germany (Study 2; N = 110,029). First, we display regional personality differences using a spatial smoothing approach. Second, we account for the modifiable areal unit problem by examining the correlates of regional personality scores across multiple spatial levels. Third, we account for spatial dependencies using spatial regression models. Our results suggest that regional psychological differences are robust and can reliably be studied across countries and spatial levels. The results also show that ignoring the methodological challenges of spatial data can have serious consequences for research concerned with regional psychological differences.

Regional Cultures and the Psychological Geography of Switzerland: Person-Environment-Fit in Personality Predicts Subjective Wellbeing

The present study extended traditional nation-based research on person-culture-fit to the regional level. First, we examined the geographical distribution of Big Five personality traits in Switzerland. Across the 26 Swiss cantons, unique patterns were observed for all traits. For Extraversion and Neuroticism clear language divides emerged between the French- and Italian-speaking South-West vs. the German-speaking North-East. Second, multilevel modeling demonstrated that person-environment-fit in Big Five, composed of elevation (i.e., mean differences between individual profile and cantonal profile), scatter (differences in mean variances) and shape (Pearson correlations between individual and cantonal profiles across all traits; Furr, 2008, 2010), predicted the development of subjective wellbeing (i.e., life satisfaction, satisfaction with personal relationships, positive affect, negative affect) over a period of 4 years. Unexpectedly, while the effects of shape were in line with the person-environment-fit hypothesis (better fit predicted higher subjective wellbeing), the effects of scatter showed the opposite pattern, while null findings were observed for elevation. Across a series of robustness checks, the patterns for shape and elevation were consistently replicated. While that was mostly the case for scatter as well, the effects of scatter appeared to be somewhat less robust and more sensitive to the specific way fit was modeled when predicting certain outcomes (negative affect, positive affect). Distinguishing between supplementary and complementary fit may help to reconcile these findings and future research should explore whether and if so under which conditions these concepts may be applicable to the respective facets of person-culture-fit.

Geographic Variation in the Black-Violence Stereotype

The stereotype that Blacks are violent is pervasive in the United States. Yet little research has examined whether this stereotype is linked to violent behavior from members of different racial groups. We examined how state-level violent crime rates among White and Black Americans predicted the strength of the Black-violence stereotype using a sample of 348,111 individuals from the Project Implicit website. State-level implicit and explicit stereotypes were predicted by crime rates. States where Black people committed higher rates of violent crime showed a stronger Black-violence stereotype, whereas states where White people committed higher rates of violent crime showed a weaker Black-violence stereotype. These patterns were stronger for explicit stereotypes than implicit stereotypes. We discuss the implications of these findings for the development and maintenance of stereotypes.