Does It Matter Where We Live?

Nansook Park and I recently co-authored the lead article in the September 2010 issue of American Psychologist, which described our ongoing research on psychological differences across residents of cities in the United States. Although many fields of social science focus on life in cities, psychologists have rarely considered the possibility that people who live in different cities have different psychological characteristics. And when psychologists do occasionally study city differences, they usually look at problems, such as crime, obesity, and mental illness.

In contrast, we studied character strengths - positive dispositions like love of learning, kindness, and teamwork - among 47,000+ residents residing in the 50 largest U.S. cities who completed an on-line survey between 2002 and 2005 that measured character strengths. Differences in character strengths were found across cities and were strongly related to important city-level features, including economic accomplishment and 2008 Presidential voting.

To make sense of our findings, we distinguished between strengths of the "head," which are intellectual and self-oriented (e.g., curiosity, creativity), and strengths of the "heart," which are emotional and interpersonal (e.g., gratitude, forgiveness).

U.S. cities like San Francisco and Seattle whose residents have greater intellectual and self-oriented dispositions - head strengths - are more innovative as gauged by such indices as patents per capita and the presence of high-tech industries. Residents of these cities tended to vote for Barack Obama - the liberal candidate - for president in 2008.

These cities have more colleges and universities. Cities with strengths of the head are also more crowded and have a higher cost of living. These features converge to suggest that the culture of head cities entails individual achievement, affluence, education, and change.

In contrast, U.S. cities like El Paso and Omaha whose residents have greater emotional and interpersonal strengths - heart strengths - are less innovative. Residents of these cities were more likely to vote for John McCain - the conservative candidate - for president in 2008.

Heart cities are smaller and less crowded. They have a lower cost of living, and their temperatures are warmer, perhaps allowing residents to go outside and interact with their neighbors. These cities are more likely to be populated by families with children. Their residents report more positive emotions and a greater sense of meaning. These features suggest that the culture of heart cities centers on other people and the emotional ties that bind people together. Heart cities are kinder and gentler because they afford greater opportunities for close relationships and - perhaps - more pleasurable and more meaningful lives.

We concluded that:

Cities as a topic of explicit study deserve greater attention from psychology. Psychology researchers can contribute to future urban policy and the well-being of cities and their residents by addressing how cities create, enable, or allow the expression of different strengths of character among their residents ... Rather than trying to mimic cities such as San Francisco and Boston, mayors and chambers of commerce of other U.S. cities might instead emphasize the soft trade-off between strengths of the head and strengths of the heart implied by our results and stress that life may already be good in their own towns, simply in different ways.

Where we live does matter.

Reference

Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2010). Does it matter where we live? The urban psychology of character strengths. American Psychologist, 65, 535-547.