Accuracy of United States regional personality stereotypes

Past research has suggested that impressions of how personality traits vary across geographic regions may be no more accurate than chance (Terracciano et al., 2005). We explored whether Americans can accurately describe how personality traits vary across regions of the United States. In comparing regional stereotypes to average regional self-ratings (Rentfrow, Gosling, & Potter, 2008), we found participants showed considerable accuracy in judging how openness to experience and neuroticism vary across US regions, and above chance accuracy for agreeableness and extraversion. We also detail how accuracy may arise from the use of certain regional cues such as population density and political voting patterns. The results indicate that people can detect valid regional personality differences in certain situations.