Journal to Journalism
Michaela Ham
Grand Canyon University: PSY-260
April 3, 2018
, JOURNAL TO JOURNALISM 2
Journal to Journalism
Personality is said to be a mixture of influences from genetics and environment. Recently,
however, studies are being conducted to explore the relationship between differences in adults’
personalities and their geographical locations. Natalie Jacewicz (2017) explored further the
findings in a study conducted by Chopik and Motyl (2017), where they discovered a significant
correlation between adult attachment orientation and geographical variation within the 50 states.
In this paper, both Jacewicz’ article and Chopik and Motyl’s scientific journal will be
summarized and compared based on how similar the findings in each article claim to be.
Popular Source: Where You Live Affects Your Personality, Study Says
https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/health/move-personality-changes-partner/index.html
Whether or not someone’s personality changes based on the location of his or her address
is discussed by Jacewicz (2017) as an association claim, and the association being explored is the
differences in romantic relationships based off of which state people live in. Jacewicz describes
the findings of Chopik and Motyl (2017) as a correlational study that analyzes the answers
provided through a survey from 127,000 adults. With this she explains that individuals living in
the Northeast and midwest have much higher levels of anxiety than those living on the west coast
when it comes to long-term, romantic relationships. Most states that contain many mountains are,
on average, less interested in finding and fostering relationships; however, Utah was found to be
one of the most romantically-inclined and least anxious places in the country even though it, too,
is a mountainous region.
Jacewicz also described other possible explanations suggest by Motyl and Chopik that
could explain the reasoning behind why personality and attitudes change based on where
someone lives. There are other factors such as migration patterns, ecology, and social influence