Sep 15th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Nice Folks
I was talking to my grandfather over the weekend, and we agreed that, as best we could tell, people in Minnesota were unusually nice and friendly. And now I’ve got the proof in the form of these maps showing personality characteristics by state.
First the “agreeableness” map:
And now the “extraverted” map:
As you can see, people in Minnesota are extraverted and agreeable — friendly, in layman’s terms. The maps also confirm one’s stereotype-based suspicion that the Northeast is full of neurotics.
61 Responses to “Nice Folks”
Register
RSSLogin
Advertisement
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Books By Matthew Yglesias
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Afghanistan
Basketball
Budget
China
climate
Congress
DC
Denmark
Economics
Economy
education
Energy
Environment
Finance
Gender
Germany
Health Care
History
International Law
International Relations
Iran
Israel
Media
Monetary Policy
National Security
NBA
Pakistan
Palestine
Philosophy
planning
Political Reform
Proliferation
Public Health
Public Opinion
Race
Regulation
Russia
Science
Sports
Stimulus
Sweden
taxes
Technology
Trade
transportation
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Contact Matthew Yglesias
Use this form to contact blog author Matthew Yglesias.
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
September 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Somehow I find it very, very hard to believe that New York State is very low in extraversion. What is NY if not extraverted?
September 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Meanwhile look at Alabama, the only state in the south to be both very disagreeable and extroverted.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:09 am
“as best we could tell, people in Minnesota were unusually nice and friendly”
They are, to a degree that almost reaches creepiness.
Garrison Keillor verges on seeming like a serial killer.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:10 am
What’s up with Virginia? I think the large number of disagreeable Yankees working for the government and beltway bandits in Arlington and Fairfax skews the Commonwealth’s statistics.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Vermont is both agreeable and introverted. This would seem to make them a non-neurotic bastion of reserved friendliness in the northeast, which seems stereotypically accurate. On the other hand, Mainers, like Alabamans, are disagreeable and extroverted. Wouldn’t have guessed this, actually. What’s the stereotype here? Crusty fisherman?
September 15th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Ah, Massachusetts. We don’t say much, but it’s usually disagreeable.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Garrison Keillor creeps me out too when he talks. He’s probably a nice guy though. I think.
Anyway, as someone who was born in Minnesota but moved to Massachusetts, I can attest that these stereotypes are true.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:22 am
On the other hand, Mainers, like Alabamans, are disagreeable and extroverted. Wouldn’t have guessed this, actually.
The only non-Mainers they ever encounter drive Buicks, speak French, and wear Speedos to the beach. You’d be unpleasant, too.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Minnesota is a great place to visit. The people will be nice to you as long as they know you are going to leave.
If you want to live there it is one of the most clique oriented social scenes in the world. It can be really hard to crack into a clique. The theory is that due to the cold winter nights people would have parties in their houses. They didn’t want strangers in their house so the clique is formed. After that standard clique dynamics apply.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Nobody should get a second vert until everybody has a first.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:26 am
This is dead-on. Minnesotans are some nice folks, for damn sure, and they’ll prove it to you.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I don’t trust any research that places Texans in the second quintile when it comes to extraversion.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:30 am
As a Brooklynite, all I can say is: YOU CALLIN ME NOT AGREEABLE? I GOT YA AGREEABLE RIGHT HERE! WHY DONT I BUST MY AGREEABLE RIDE OVA YA HEAD YA-
(Cough) woops. Excuse me, got carried away.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Where the hell is Minnesota?
September 15th, 2008 at 10:31 am
As you can see, people in Minnesota are extraverted and agreeable — friendly, in layman’s terms. The maps also confirm one’s stereotype-based suspicion that the Northeast is full of neurotics.
No shit! Virginia Is For Unfriendly People.
I don’t trust any research that places Texans in the second quintile when it comes to extraversion.
We *should* be a bit higher.
max
['Whee haw!']
September 15th, 2008 at 10:33 am
My experience is that agreeable, extroverted people will turn on you like a pack of wild dogs if you are the sort of person who prefers to be left alone.
So this is useful information about what places to avoid.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:44 am
My childhood state of Pennsylvania is extroverted and disagreeable. Which makes perfect sense to me. People in PA will introduce themselves and then complain about everything.
Maryland is neither extroverted nor agreeable, and that’s pretty much because everyone lives in Montgomery County and the DC suburbs – Maryland is largely a state of transports, who really don’t feel at home anyway, so they tend to stay to themselves and not be happy about it. As nice as the people in Frederick are (and they are nice – they actually talk to you if you look confused!), there aren’t enough of them to make up for the huge transplant population near DC.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Alaska: land of disagreeable introverts!
(Apologies to Montana)
September 15th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Growing up in Northern Va., I was always surprised when I met people from other places who seemed so friendly and agreeable. I had never universalized the anecdote, but it seems my impressions were more widely shared than I realized.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I moved from NY to Minnesota and it’s really amazing. People make eye contact with, and say hello to complete strangers. And they’re not crazy people – they’re just friendly.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I don’t like the “Big 5″ personality typology. I can’t quite explain why, but I don’t like. One thing to note is that the types (Such as Agreeableness and Extroversion) may have definitions that are a bit outside of what one would think they may be.
- g
September 15th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Utah is friendly too?! Maybe if you’re a Mormon, but if you aren’t, you are nearly a second-class citizen outside of SLC. Is this map how people perceive themselves, or how others perceive them?
cheers-
E
September 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I’m a born and bred Floridian from Miami currently living in NYC, and honestly: there is just no WAY that Florida is friendlier than New York. Maybe upstate FL and NY just outweigh each state’s bigger cities on this map, but in my experience, despite how much more reserved New Yorkers are (the maps got that part right, at least) they’re much less outwardly confrontational and unfriendly than the people in my hometown.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I’ll second the disbelief in Florida, I only lived there a short time many years ago but if there is one thing Floridians are not, it’s agreeable.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I can hardly go for a run in the winter in Minnesota without someone stopping and asking if my car broke down and seeing if I needed a lift.
Based on Sarah Palin’s accent, I’ve concluded that Alaskans are the Mirror, Mirror evil equivalents of Minnesotans. I wonder how often she has to shave her goatee…
September 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
@22
Utah is friendly too?! Maybe if you’re a Mormon, …
I’ll second that sentiment. From what I saw (it was a while ago), it’s a strange place.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Ohio – wonderful midwestern friendliness without pretension. I lived in Dayton for awhile, and this was by far the friendliest place I’ve ever lived. Wonderful neighbors, and strangers I meet on the street would say hi without hesitation.
Minnesota and the Northern plains – I also spent some time in ND. Like MN, giving people a helping hand is a must in that unforgiving climate. I don’t know about MN, but in ND you had Good Samaritan laws which mandates helping people who were stranded on the road during those brutal winters. Coming from NYC, I was amazed to see people leave their keys in the ignation in the mall parking lot.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I don’t know about this. As a lifelong Twin Cities resident, I don’t know where the “extraversion” could possibly be coming from. I have a friend who moved here from Orange County, and her favorite game was to freak people out on the street by saying “hello” to them. Maybe what people are interpreting as our “friendliness” is just our smiling and nodding agreeably, hoping that it will make you stop talking to us eventually.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I live around Dayton right now. (Birthplace of Flight! Suck it, Kitty Hawk!) Pan is correct, Dayton, Toledo, Columbus, and Akron are all very pleasant cities to live in. The suburbs are nice and clean. The ghettos are only semi-ghettoish. The parks and malls and so forth are brand-spanking new and well-built.
Cincinnati, on the other hand, is a complete rathole, an inferior version of Pittsburgh. Cincinatti is a major city with no particular reason for existing other than to be one massive eyesore on the way to that evil bastion of trailer parks and fireworks shops and strip clubs that is Kentucky.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Extroversion doesn’t make you friendly. It makes you annoying. Fuck that.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
The idea that Mainers are both less agreeable and more talkative than Massholes is just absolute nonsense. Those ratings are entirely reversed. On the basis of this alone, I will assume that the compiler of the data was from Massachusetts and harbors a grudge against Maine; probably because we didn’t bend over backwards to cater to his every whim when he was clogging our roads some fall afternoon staring at leaves.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
As a Minnesotan, I heartily disagree with this assessment.
“crack”, above, partially nailed it (though the cold winter party theory is a little bit silly). Minnesota demonstrates that the different definitions of the word “friendly” don’t really need to overlap that much. Definition 1: “nice” – hell yeah, we are. Definition 2: “predisposed to form friendships” – not at all. We’re predisposed to form acquaintanceships. Though the average person you see in New York or Chicago may be much less likely to talk to you, I’ve found that your odds of having a real (as opposed to polite) conversation with someone you talk to are much, much higher in those places. To me, an NEO-PI-based definition of “friendliness” that doesn’t include “openness” is suspect. But it all depends on what you mean by “friendly”.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
So is Michigan dark black or normal black?
September 15th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Utah is a very interesting place. People seemed quite happy there- I think it’s the sunny climate. The Mormon thing is so dominant that it’s never really spoken about- it’s just there. SLC is a pretty nice city, the rest of Utah is kind of creepy.
Massachusetts doesn’t seem friendly at all. People are quite reticent and kind of provincial (I’m not very familiar with Boston). There’s a lot of people who have never lived anywhere else and can’t see that it’s kind of a peculiar place, a bit conservative in it’s own way. Townie Massholes can be the most obnoxious douchebags.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Would you prefer people who are “friendly” to people who are “authentic” (and so show their real mood)? Friendliness without authenticity is shallow and annoying, and people who are honest with their feelings are not always friendly.
On the other hand, when we are in public space we should show some restraint in imposing our (real, honest) feelings on our communication partners. So, what we would need is a combination of natural, “authentic” friendliness with a mature respect for others, and composure, self-control, reticence when our emotions run hot.
Where in the USA do we get most of THAT mature and honest friendliness?
And how could THAT be measured?
September 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I’m just a small town (Minneapolis) boy, those fancy words confuse me. When you say “neurotics” you mean assholes, right?
September 15th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
I think there’s a big difference between visiting a place and living there. There are lots of places I’ve visited where the people are extraordinarily friendly, but if you lived there, you would never feel liked you belonged. And I’ve lived in a couple of places where everyone seems cold to visitors, but they’re quite welcoming to people who decide to put down roots.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Couldn’t have said it better….
September 15th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I find the grayscale map a bit hard to read. I frankly can’t distinguish between the 1st and 2nd quintiles.
September 15th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Re: there is just no WAY that Florida is friendlier than New York.
Don’t know about New York, but no way is Florida friendlier than Ohio. I had lived in Akron for three months and filled a house (for my house warming party) with recent acquaintances. After three years in St Pete I could count people whose names I knew (other than relatives and coworkers) on the fingers of hand– and Ft Lauderdale was even worse.
September 15th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Ahh, my home of Vermont: 1st quintile aggreeable, 5th quintile extroverted. Just the way I like it, nice people who mind their own business!
September 15th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
In regard to Florida, my guess is that they oversamped dixie culture in the northern part and Hispanic culture in the south (Miami) over older transplants (who are probably less aggreeable, and less extroverted).
September 15th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Having recently moved back to New England after almost 20 years in San Francisco, I am relieved to find quantitative analysis that backs my perception of RI as a grumpy little burgh of a state, and it makes me wish for a regional breakdown of California. LA and SF are different planets.
September 15th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
As a native Vermonter. I absolutely agree that Vermont is full of people who are really, really nice, but refuse to let you know it.
But once you break into their trust, they will never let you down.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I find the grayscale map a bit hard to read. I frankly can’t distinguish between the 1st and 2nd quintiles.
Agree. Fer chrissakes, it’s pixels, not ink….costs no more to do color!
September 15th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I’m from Minnesota: glad you think we are nice and friendly. Unfortunately “Minnesota Nice” is not always a compliment. Sometimes we are known for being so “nice” that we will not say what needs to be said in a situation.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
It all depends on context and experience. I lived in the DC area for 8 years and moved back to Pittsburgh 2 years ago. Whereas DC was rather rude and extraverted, I find Pittsburgh almost annoyingly friendly at times. People do a lot of smiling and say hello and are quick to chit-chat at the mere suggestion of a line at the grocery store.
I know Pittsburgh isn’t all of PA– I know less about Philly and the rest of the state is small towns. That being said, I’m surprised it fell into the 4th group because I don’t think overall that PA is that unfriendly.
September 16th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
The filmakers in the dvd commentary for the movie “Fargo” stated their belief that friendly cultures, such as you see in the Midwest and the South, are ultimately violent cultures. Considering that the preponderance of serial killers seem to come from the Midwest, and recalling the mayhem in pre-civil rights South, their theory may be true.
Putting aside the crime-ridden, population-dense urban areas of America’s biggest cities (which have their own unique pathologies) it may well be that the “friendliest” regions in this country are indeed the most violent.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:30 am
States with the highest rates of violent crime (2005):
1. District of Columbia (1,459 per 100,000 pop.)
2. South Carolina (761)
3. Tennessee (753)
4. Florida (708)
5. Maryland (703)
6. New Mexico (702)
7. Alaska (632) (tie)
7. Delaware (632) (tie)
9. Nevada (607)
10. Louisiana (594)
Notice that none of those are in the Midwest.
In that Top 10 list of most violent states, only Tennessee is in the Top 10 states for agreeableness; only Florida is in the Top 10 states for extraversion.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0301.pdf
September 17th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Yes, Steve D, but as I said, you would have to put aside the crime-ridden, population-dense urban areas of America’s biggest cities (which have their own unique pathologies). That means you would have to remove D.C., and take Baltimore out of your Maryland count and New Orleans out of your Louisiana count. If you controlled for density, you might just find some of the Midwestern states creeping in there.
September 17th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Then you would also have to remove the big cities in the Midwestern states (Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, etc.) — and once again you would see that the Midwestern states have lower violent crime rates than the country as a whole.
Hypothesizing is cheap. How about some statistical evidence to back up your claim?
January 18th, 2009 at 5:55 am
laptop battery
laptop batteries
February 24th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I’m not a native of Virginia but am surprised to see it receive poor ratings. When I moved there I was amazed at never having met so many warm, gracious, friendly people from all walks of life and backgrounds.
March 1st, 2009 at 6:02 am
viagra
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:35 am
levitraIt is the coolest site,keep so!
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:25 am
tramadol
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 am
buy viagra online
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
April 2nd, 2009 at 5:33 am
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:21 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 7:04 am
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!! viagra
April 16th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Good Day. I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.
I am from England and now study English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Airline fares flight discounts air discount air tickets round trip one way airline tickets and hotel deals ready.”
Best regards
, Yehudi.