Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 9, 2025

Use of Principal Components for Scaling Up Topographic Models to Map Soil Redistribution and Soil Organic Carbon
Published on: October 16, 2018
Physical topography is associated with human personality
Friedrich M Götz1, Stefan Stieger2, Samuel D Gosling3,4
1Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. fmg33@cam.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Regional differences in personality are associated with a range of consequential outcomes. But which factors are responsible for these differences? Frontier settlement theory suggests that physical topography is a crucial factor shaping the psychological landscape of regions. Hence, we investigated whether topography is associated with regional variation in personality across the United States (n = 3,387,014). Consistent with frontier settlement theory, results from multilevel modelling revealed that mountainous areas were lower on agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness but higher on openness to experience. Conditional random forest algorithms confirmed mountainousness as a meaningful predictor of personality when tested against a conservative set of controls. East-west comparisons highlighted potential differences between ecological (driven by physical features) and sociocultural (driven by social norms) effects of mountainous terrain.
Related Concept Videos
Methods of Obtaining Topography
Topographic Surveying and Contours
Plotting of Topographic Maps
Introduction to Personality Psychology
Early Theories of Personality
The study of...
Maslow's Humanistic Approach on Personality
Implicit Personality Theories

