In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs.
As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, pour concrete, solder pipe, weld, change oil, replace an alternator, lay PVC pipe, etc.
People in the community learn emergency medicine and how to manage a structure or brush fire by volunteering with the local volunteer fire/EMS, because that's the only show in town.
Roads wash out in the rainy season, so 4x4 is an absolute necessity. People learn to gauge sand you can drive through in 2x4, sand you can drive through in 4x4 and sand you just can't drive through by eyeballing it.
I grew up in a very remote part of the California desert and everyone was like that. It's just what you have to do to get by because you keep finding yourself in situations where you need to call on these types of skills, and if you're living out there you have a lot of free time without interruption or distraction to learn the skills. Lots of people moved out from the city, and over the years they picked up a lot of those skills and became extremely self-sufficient.
Can anecdotally confirm. Sometimes it quite annoys me that those personality traits are so embedded in myself though, because it seems to constantly be a headbutting of cultures that so many Americans on the coastal big cities just don't get or approve of, and love to condescendingly talk about that kind of personality as lesser or barbarous in some way.
I love the mountains and freedom they offered me, the lessons they taught me, and the beauty and solitude from an exhausting world they provided. After the war when I became an atheist, I would tell others in the community when they asked me to go to church that the mountains are my church.
All that said, I doubt it will last. There is a huge influx of people (not just retirees, but refugees from the coastal cities) who would be considered rich into mountain communities, driving out the locals by prices and changing the demographic hugely. I keep a close eye on land for sale and land parcels that used to be huge are starting to be divided into 5 acre parcels and sold off... I can already see the distant future of this, turning mountain towns into you have to be rich towns like Aspen, and it makes me very sad.
I can't wait till we have independent space travel, which is when I believe the frontier spirit will be reborn again. Humanity will need it then again! Alas, I probably won't live that long.
>"headbutting of cultures that so many Americans on the coastal big cities just don't get or approve of, and love to condescendingly talk about that kind of personality as lesser or barbarous in some way."
This cultural divide has deep roots in the power struggle that was created when the people who settled the Appalachian's figured out that converting fields of corn into distilled bottles of whisky was far more profitable since it could travel infinitely farther without spoilage along the trade routes.
They were "dirt poor" prior to this because they could generate fresh produce that had a limited scope and value on the market.
That's when the war on stills began and there was a very thorough campaign of misinformation about how "dumb hillbillies" were going to blow themselves up/make everyone blind trying to operate a simple still.
It was really about the potential shift in economic power if that region was able to leverage vast lands for growing and creating highly profitable alcohol that could be sold across the country.
That campaign/lobby was so effective that it still resonates to this day.
This is happening where I live. Previously huge tracks of mountain and forest are slowly being cut up. However, it's the rich newcomers that are selfish with their land. When we were children we had ATVs/dirtbikes and could put in hundred miles a day of riding. Now many trails have gates and no trespassing signs. Used to be a sense of shared commonwealth amongst connected properties. Now, it's the "privatization" of nature and it sucks. I miss the old days.
Also, totally get the condescension you speak of. "Oh. You do your own <plumbing,welding,lawn, automotive,...>! How quaint."
> Sometimes it quite annoys me that those personality traits are so embedded in myself though, because it seems to constantly be a headbutting of cultures that so many Americans on the coastal big cities just don't get or approve of, and love to condescendingly talk about that kind of personality as lesser or barbarous in some way.
"rugged individualists" always seem to care a lot about how they are viewed by "coastal elites". We'd all be a lot happier if we cared less about how we are viewed by others.
> said, I doubt it will last. There is a huge influx of people (not just retirees, but refugees from the coastal cities) who would be considered rich into mountain communities, driving out the locals by prices and changing the demographic hugely. I keep a close eye on land for sale and land parcels that used to be huge are starting to be divided into 5 acre parcels and sold off... I can already see the distant future of this, turning mountain towns into you have to be rich towns like Aspen, and it makes me very sad.
I wouldn't worry too much about a large influx of people, there's more than enough land to accommodate the little influx - there aren't quite so many people who move up into the mountains and those can make a decent community and a healthy local economy. You can even migrate further into the wilderness, yes it sucks that you are forced to but there's a silver lining to all this.
Same here. I moved to eastern Idaho 3 years ago from a lifetime in northern Ohio (born and raised). Oddly I immediately felt more at home here and still do. It just fits me and seems to be the opposite of the industrial / Motor City region of the Midwest. Of course, the coastal elitism that you're referring to is aimed at Midwesterners too, but I think my clash was with the collectivism of the unionized blue collar culture.
One aspect that I can see being particularly troublesome is the "closely guarding their resources and distrusting strangers." I'm sure those traits were developed with good reason, but it can make forming relationships very difficult with the kind of personality that is by nature welcoming and trusting. While I would never describe that mindset as barbaric, it is true that I would like to see societies move toward an ideal where trust and generosity are the norm.
The early settlers of North American were in some sense selected by personality. It must have taken a certain sort of risk-taking personality to give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey to a vast and mostly uninhabited land. The people who arrived in America and decided to take it one step further by moving away from the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.
You can still see some of these early mountain towns today--some are practically unchanged from what they looked like 100 years ago.
>> the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.
The cities were not what we would call safe. If you are living in total poverty inside a city without access to any real services, that empty field doesn't seem so bad. The "free land" thing was also a plus. Rather than risk-takers, they were more akin to desperate opportunists.
You can trace the famines and wars in Europe between 1700 and 1900 by going to any town and finding the "X national historic center" and looking when the town was founded. People didn't just leave their family and friends in Europe for the fun of it. Most left because life was downright deadly back home and so staying was not an option no matter what they went into.
Getting to America was no easy. Families of 5 kids would leave, 2 would die on the way (if you got a cold on board the sailors would throw you overboard to ensure it didn't spread), then a third would be sold as an indentured servant (only slightly better than a slave, and it would only last 7 years - but no way to contact them after the 7 years were up). Then you have to find a place to live...
So I moved to Calgary, AB, Canada around 2000 along with a huge number of other Canadians and people from around the world primarily as economic migrants. The city has changed dramatically since then but I noticed that it attracted a lot of people with a similar pioneer style attitude; you had to be willing to move far away from your family mostly for your job, and the companies here had a very western "DIY" approach as well as something to prove to the more established Eastern "genteel". Some of this is gone now but many people and organizations still display it regularly.
Sounds romantic but is it the truth? I understand that immigration was spearheaded by entrepreneurs who published guides to the new land and advertised in the homeland. You can see some of the spirit in foreign graduate students - they follow recommendations and usually have a very good idea what they are getting themselves into.
Don't forget the very first settlers were native american people as we call them today in the us. It's interesting to think about their views of today's self-reliance culture. I don't know what they are.
> The people who arrived in America and decided to take it one step further by moving away from the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.
The consequences of this are not always 'positive' as the book Fantasyland argues:
> In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, “fake news” moment we’re all living through—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.
> Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies—every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.
I have read that one of the strong selection factors for the settling of the west was the ability to survive beaver fever (giardiasis). Some have speculated that this may have correlations with personality traits.
It's very frustrating that it's a blanket attitude that doesn't respond to context. There are vanishingly few people in the United States for whom a fixed frontier mindset makes sense, yet many people cling to frontier logic even when they live and spend the vast majority of their time in cities and towns that have modern amenities and professional police, fire, and EMS services. If people aren't flexible enough to adapt their thinking to whatever situation they're in, then we would be so much better off with a fixed, uniform urban mindset than a frontier one. But I think many people's idea of an alternative "urban mindset" is a caricature of effete helplessness, like the Eloi in the Time Machine (or worse and more racist images.)
>The early settlers of North American were in some sense selected by personality. It must have taken a certain sort of risk-taking personality to give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey to a vast and mostly uninhabited land.
Many early settlers were criminals. I wonder if that personality selection shines through.
> However, "openness to experience" is much higher, and the most pronounced personality trait in mountain dwellers.
> "Openness is a strong predictor of residential mobility," said Götz. "A willingness to move your life in pursuit of goals such as economic affluence and personal freedom drove many original North American frontier settlers."
> those who left their early mountain home are still consistently less agreeable, conscientious and extravert, although no such effects were observed for neuroticism and openness.
I have difficulty reconciling these statements.
- mountain dwellers have higher openness to experience
- openness to experience is a predictor for residential mobility
- but the people who move away from mountain regions _don't_ have higher openness to experience (but stay disagreeable, unconscientious and introverted)?
I would have expected the selection bias to show up in the other direction: I would expect the people who stay put to have lower openness to experience, and the people who move to have higher openness to experience.
> Now, well into the 21st century, researchers led by the University of Cambridge have detected remnants of the pioneer personality in US populations of once inhospitable mountainous territory, particularly in the Midwest.
As a person who was born and raised in the Midwest[1], just where are these mountainous regions they speak of in the Midwest? There's the black hills[2] and that's pretty much it. I wonder what definition of the Midwest the University of Cambridge is using, cause it sounds like they are talking about the intermountain west[3], not the midwest.
As someone who lives in this "Intermountain West", I've never heard of the "Intermountain West" term before your post. It seems like a term that someone came up with, but it's never caught on.
I've typically heard of us referred to as the Western US (as opposed to the West Coast).
They could be referring to some like Appalachia too? That does include the bottom of Ohio near the WV / KY / PA borders (where I grew). I'd believe that these rural places could have the "pioneer personality" they're describing.
How about the Ozarks? They may not be the most visually impressive mountains, but I would at least consider the St. Francois Mountains in southern Missouri to be part of the Midwest.
The Appalachian mountains are present in Southeastern Ohio. The hollers don't just magically appear when you cross the river over from Marietta to Parkersburg.
Certainly prone to those kinds of things, but I think there are interesting questions that can only be answered by this kind of analysis. (For example, it seems plausibly related to why American gun culture is so much stronger and more popular than in other countries, even those with comparably permissive gun ownership laws.)
Urban WEIRD[0] weasels trying to understand normal humans really is something to see. It's as if they're studying some bizarre carnivorous plant or cannibalistic space aliens from the Planet Koozebane.
"Such rugged terrain likely favored those who closely guarded their resources and distrusted strangers, as well as those who engaged in risky explorations to secure food and territory."
I'm pretty sure New Yorkers or San Francisco residents are more likely to distrust strangers and not share than mountain people.
"These traits may have distilled over time into an individualism characterized by toughness and self-reliance that lies at the heart of the American frontier ethos"
Yeah, or the fact that the guy who lives in the mountains can't call the building superintendent to change his lightbulb might have something to do with them having slightly more self reliance. I didn't grow up in the mountains, but I did grow up poor: it has much the same effect.
I grew up in a mountainous area of the US, and can confirm the presence of these personality traits, although it's hard for me to evaluate if they are more or less prevalent than in the coastal city where I now live (hello, mobility!). It's so hard to see into the lives of others, especially of enough of them to get a representative sample.
For those interested in the history of the European settlement of the US, I would suggest the book Albion's Seed:
The relevant part of the book is about the Scots-Irish settlers who came from the Borderlands. Those "Borderers," or Rievers, are historically combative, individualistic, and distrustful of government. They settled large parts of Appalachia, and from there they helped to clear the forests of the midwest and mine the Rockies. Think Daniel Boone. Think Alamo. They like to think they are independent and they like to fight.
The repercussions on US politics are huge.
It's hard to tell from the article through the link what the authors are asserting. While the conditions in the mountains may cultivate certain characteristics, they also attract certain populations. So this could be as simple as: mountain people settle in the mountains.
I graduated HS from a mountain town in NE Washington and recently have been developing a property/homestead out there again.
My wife usually remarks how nice the people are out there in the wild west compared to here in Seattle.
Politics is polarized out there too -- with old timers and hippies clashing readily. But, nobody lets it get in the way of being friendly and helpful. One friend remarked that it is because people need each other more so politics is kept in better perspective.
Some counties in NE Washington have formally recognized the "Code of the West".
"The Code of the West was first chronicled by the famous western writer, Zane Grey. The men and women who came to this part of the country during the westward expansion of the United States were bound by an unwritten code of conduct. The values of integrity and self-reliance guided their decisions, actions and interactions. In keeping with that spirit, we offer this information to help citizens of Ferry County who wish to follow in the footsteps of those rugged individualists by living outside city and town limits."
My whole family is from Appalachian parts of NC, and even though I consider myself a "city person" (born and raised in Charlotte) - the traits from the article do match up pretty well with my personal big 5 traits.
The agreeableness thing is interesting, because that's one of those traits where I've always heard there is a pretty significant difference on average between men and women (with women tending to score higher). Anecdotally, I think this could be the factor to explain a family trend, that I'm told is not uncommon in the region. The women in my family tend to do really well for themselves by going after non-traditionally female career paths and doing well - despite super modest backgrounds. My great-grandma went from working at a mill to building and running a modest mobile home park, great-aunt got a scholarship and became a doctor way back in 60s, my mom got a full scholarship and moved out of the mountains to start her own own business in a male-dominated field. Meanwhile the male side includes - a hobo, taxi-driver, mining/odd jobs, and another close family member who has been on the run from the law for dealing drugs for many years now.
I'm one of these "mountain people" so I see a lot of what's true in this article, but there's also a flip side: Mountain people look out for each other on the mountain. I've never lived in a place before where there's such a strong sense of helping out one's neighbors as there is here in the mountains of NM. We plow each others' driveways when it snows; we help older neighbors run errands; we respond to 911 calls by volunteering at the local fire department. It's a nice feeling of both community and privacy at the same time.
Having grown up in Utah, and living there now, I agree with the assessment of self reliance being emphasized much more here than other places I've lived (England, California).
When thinking about causality though, it seems to me like a mistake to leave out the Mormon influence. It's not just Utah, but Mormons founded many towns in Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, and Nevada as well. Distrust of the federal government was frequently and explicitly taught by church leaders into the early 1900s.
Well, to whatever extent this is true, I'd like to know --
1) Whether this is something very special to the US, versus happens in every country, and is a fact of life in remote / non-city areas, and
2) Does this call for a certain approach to how to effectively govern or design public policy if there is a east/west or city/suburban vs. rural social divide?
Attitudes in themselves are not a problem. Inability to have people agree on almost anything to move forward with government and economic life because there is a permanent divide in social/political climate is.
If a married couple cannot agree on finances, friends, raising kids, etc. ever, it's not pleasant for anyone.
I was born in Siberia region of former USSR. There I would do ungodly amount of things myself. To the point that I got really sick of doing those. When I immigrated to Canada one of the things I've come to immensely enjoy is the ability not to do everything myself. Well a bit later I've also discovered that you basically have to check everything unless you want it f..ed up royally.
The apogee was reached when one of the electricians I hired to change my power switch for water heater did the job and no electricity was flowing to said heater. He was doing this and that and finally said that he is giving up. This got me mad and I checked the wiring myself. Are you ready for this ? ... He screwed both of the 2 outgoing wires to a grounding plate that happened to have 2 threaded holed completely ignoring everything else that was there.
The one thing that stands out is 'lower conscientiousness'. I would have thought being on the frontier, the #1 thing you needed was that. Very strict discipline, responsibility etc. - it could be this is more of a 'farmer trait' and less so a 'mountain' trait.
I read somewhere in the real wild west people were very collectivist as they had to rely on the whole village to work together to survive. The rugged individualist is a myth. I can't find the link though, anyone have similar stories?
[+] [-] phobosanomaly|5 years ago|reply
As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, pour concrete, solder pipe, weld, change oil, replace an alternator, lay PVC pipe, etc.
People in the community learn emergency medicine and how to manage a structure or brush fire by volunteering with the local volunteer fire/EMS, because that's the only show in town.
Roads wash out in the rainy season, so 4x4 is an absolute necessity. People learn to gauge sand you can drive through in 2x4, sand you can drive through in 4x4 and sand you just can't drive through by eyeballing it.
I grew up in a very remote part of the California desert and everyone was like that. It's just what you have to do to get by because you keep finding yourself in situations where you need to call on these types of skills, and if you're living out there you have a lot of free time without interruption or distraction to learn the skills. Lots of people moved out from the city, and over the years they picked up a lot of those skills and became extremely self-sufficient.
[+] [-] arminiusreturns|5 years ago|reply
I love the mountains and freedom they offered me, the lessons they taught me, and the beauty and solitude from an exhausting world they provided. After the war when I became an atheist, I would tell others in the community when they asked me to go to church that the mountains are my church.
All that said, I doubt it will last. There is a huge influx of people (not just retirees, but refugees from the coastal cities) who would be considered rich into mountain communities, driving out the locals by prices and changing the demographic hugely. I keep a close eye on land for sale and land parcels that used to be huge are starting to be divided into 5 acre parcels and sold off... I can already see the distant future of this, turning mountain towns into you have to be rich towns like Aspen, and it makes me very sad.
I can't wait till we have independent space travel, which is when I believe the frontier spirit will be reborn again. Humanity will need it then again! Alas, I probably won't live that long.
[+] [-] dualboot|5 years ago|reply
This cultural divide has deep roots in the power struggle that was created when the people who settled the Appalachian's figured out that converting fields of corn into distilled bottles of whisky was far more profitable since it could travel infinitely farther without spoilage along the trade routes.
They were "dirt poor" prior to this because they could generate fresh produce that had a limited scope and value on the market.
That's when the war on stills began and there was a very thorough campaign of misinformation about how "dumb hillbillies" were going to blow themselves up/make everyone blind trying to operate a simple still.
It was really about the potential shift in economic power if that region was able to leverage vast lands for growing and creating highly profitable alcohol that could be sold across the country.
That campaign/lobby was so effective that it still resonates to this day.
[+] [-] tylerjwilk00|5 years ago|reply
Also, totally get the condescension you speak of. "Oh. You do your own <plumbing,welding,lawn, automotive,...>! How quaint."
[+] [-] vb6sp6|5 years ago|reply
"rugged individualists" always seem to care a lot about how they are viewed by "coastal elites". We'd all be a lot happier if we cared less about how we are viewed by others.
[+] [-] tartoran|5 years ago|reply
I wouldn't worry too much about a large influx of people, there's more than enough land to accommodate the little influx - there aren't quite so many people who move up into the mountains and those can make a decent community and a healthy local economy. You can even migrate further into the wilderness, yes it sucks that you are forced to but there's a silver lining to all this.
[+] [-] mbostleman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monktastic1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] briga|5 years ago|reply
You can still see some of these early mountain towns today--some are practically unchanged from what they looked like 100 years ago.
[+] [-] sandworm101|5 years ago|reply
The cities were not what we would call safe. If you are living in total poverty inside a city without access to any real services, that empty field doesn't seem so bad. The "free land" thing was also a plus. Rather than risk-takers, they were more akin to desperate opportunists.
[+] [-] bluGill|5 years ago|reply
Getting to America was no easy. Families of 5 kids would leave, 2 would die on the way (if you got a cold on board the sailors would throw you overboard to ensure it didn't spread), then a third would be sold as an indentured servant (only slightly better than a slave, and it would only last 7 years - but no way to contact them after the 7 years were up). Then you have to find a place to live...
[+] [-] winphone1974|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HarryHirsch|5 years ago|reply
Sounds romantic but is it the truth? I understand that immigration was spearheaded by entrepreneurs who published guides to the new land and advertised in the homeland. You can see some of the spirit in foreign graduate students - they follow recommendations and usually have a very good idea what they are getting themselves into.
[+] [-] nick_kline|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostrademons|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed
[+] [-] throw0101a|5 years ago|reply
The consequences of this are not always 'positive' as the book Fantasyland argues:
> In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, “fake news” moment we’re all living through—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.
> Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies—every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35171984-fantasyland
An hour-long talk by the author:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRqDzEOJImw
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Andersen
[+] [-] PaulDavisThe1st|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkarl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluntfang|5 years ago|reply
Many early settlers were criminals. I wonder if that personality selection shines through.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation#Transport...
[+] [-] abeppu|5 years ago|reply
> "Openness is a strong predictor of residential mobility," said Götz. "A willingness to move your life in pursuit of goals such as economic affluence and personal freedom drove many original North American frontier settlers."
> those who left their early mountain home are still consistently less agreeable, conscientious and extravert, although no such effects were observed for neuroticism and openness.
I have difficulty reconciling these statements.
- mountain dwellers have higher openness to experience
- openness to experience is a predictor for residential mobility
- but the people who move away from mountain regions _don't_ have higher openness to experience (but stay disagreeable, unconscientious and introverted)?
I would have expected the selection bias to show up in the other direction: I would expect the people who stay put to have lower openness to experience, and the people who move to have higher openness to experience.
[+] [-] aaron695|5 years ago|reply
They can't afford to take more risks.
Not sure if you'd expect liberal people to seed the place and conservative genetics to evolve.
Or conservative genetics to seed the place and stay strong.
[+] [-] 2trill2spill|5 years ago|reply
As a person who was born and raised in the Midwest[1], just where are these mountainous regions they speak of in the Midwest? There's the black hills[2] and that's pretty much it. I wonder what definition of the Midwest the University of Cambridge is using, cause it sounds like they are talking about the intermountain west[3], not the midwest.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hills
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_West
[+] [-] falcolas|5 years ago|reply
I've typically heard of us referred to as the Western US (as opposed to the West Coast).
[+] [-] nickpinkston|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viridian|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kipchak|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reaperducer|5 years ago|reply
See also: Almost every single BBC News report ever filed.
[+] [-] crocodiletears|5 years ago|reply
I'm sure we're not worth distinguishing. Outside of the cities, we're all just barbarian backwaters.
[+] [-] chmod600|5 years ago|reply
Maybe kind of interesting, but extremely prone to misinterpetation, over-generalization, and potentially prejudice.
[+] [-] zajio1am|5 years ago|reply
http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-res...
[+] [-] ethbr0|5 years ago|reply
Conclusions should take additional care, but populations are different in important ways.
[+] [-] charlieflowers|5 years ago|reply
I agree -- they might be onto something here, but you have to be careful or your reasoning can be misled.
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SpicyLemonZest|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colordrops|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scottlocklin|5 years ago|reply
"Such rugged terrain likely favored those who closely guarded their resources and distrusted strangers, as well as those who engaged in risky explorations to secure food and territory."
I'm pretty sure New Yorkers or San Francisco residents are more likely to distrust strangers and not share than mountain people.
"These traits may have distilled over time into an individualism characterized by toughness and self-reliance that lies at the heart of the American frontier ethos"
Yeah, or the fact that the guy who lives in the mountains can't call the building superintendent to change his lightbulb might have something to do with them having slightly more self reliance. I didn't grow up in the mountains, but I did grow up poor: it has much the same effect.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias
[+] [-] blueyes|5 years ago|reply
For those interested in the history of the European settlement of the US, I would suggest the book Albion's Seed:
https://b-ok.cc/book/1242050/e88335
The relevant part of the book is about the Scots-Irish settlers who came from the Borderlands. Those "Borderers," or Rievers, are historically combative, individualistic, and distrustful of government. They settled large parts of Appalachia, and from there they helped to clear the forests of the midwest and mine the Rockies. Think Daniel Boone. Think Alamo. They like to think they are independent and they like to fight.
The repercussions on US politics are huge.
It's hard to tell from the article through the link what the authors are asserting. While the conditions in the mountains may cultivate certain characteristics, they also attract certain populations. So this could be as simple as: mountain people settle in the mountains.
[+] [-] pnw_hazor|5 years ago|reply
My wife usually remarks how nice the people are out there in the wild west compared to here in Seattle.
Politics is polarized out there too -- with old timers and hippies clashing readily. But, nobody lets it get in the way of being friendly and helpful. One friend remarked that it is because people need each other more so politics is kept in better perspective.
Some counties in NE Washington have formally recognized the "Code of the West".
"The Code of the West was first chronicled by the famous western writer, Zane Grey. The men and women who came to this part of the country during the westward expansion of the United States were bound by an unwritten code of conduct. The values of integrity and self-reliance guided their decisions, actions and interactions. In keeping with that spirit, we offer this information to help citizens of Ferry County who wish to follow in the footsteps of those rugged individualists by living outside city and town limits."
[PDF]: https://www.ferry-county.com/PDF_Files/Commissioners/Code_of...
[+] [-] sudosteph|5 years ago|reply
The agreeableness thing is interesting, because that's one of those traits where I've always heard there is a pretty significant difference on average between men and women (with women tending to score higher). Anecdotally, I think this could be the factor to explain a family trend, that I'm told is not uncommon in the region. The women in my family tend to do really well for themselves by going after non-traditionally female career paths and doing well - despite super modest backgrounds. My great-grandma went from working at a mill to building and running a modest mobile home park, great-aunt got a scholarship and became a doctor way back in 60s, my mom got a full scholarship and moved out of the mountains to start her own own business in a male-dominated field. Meanwhile the male side includes - a hobo, taxi-driver, mining/odd jobs, and another close family member who has been on the run from the law for dealing drugs for many years now.
[+] [-] dreamcompiler|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bjt|5 years ago|reply
When thinking about causality though, it seems to me like a mistake to leave out the Mormon influence. It's not just Utah, but Mormons founded many towns in Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, and Nevada as well. Distrust of the federal government was frequently and explicitly taught by church leaders into the early 1900s.
[+] [-] supernova87a|5 years ago|reply
1) Whether this is something very special to the US, versus happens in every country, and is a fact of life in remote / non-city areas, and
2) Does this call for a certain approach to how to effectively govern or design public policy if there is a east/west or city/suburban vs. rural social divide?
Attitudes in themselves are not a problem. Inability to have people agree on almost anything to move forward with government and economic life because there is a permanent divide in social/political climate is.
If a married couple cannot agree on finances, friends, raising kids, etc. ever, it's not pleasant for anyone.
[+] [-] kyleblarson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] FpUser|5 years ago|reply
The apogee was reached when one of the electricians I hired to change my power switch for water heater did the job and no electricity was flowing to said heater. He was doing this and that and finally said that he is giving up. This got me mad and I checked the wiring myself. Are you ready for this ? ... He screwed both of the 2 outgoing wires to a grounding plate that happened to have 2 threaded holed completely ignoring everything else that was there.
[+] [-] golemotron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jariel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antiterra|5 years ago|reply
Article with more information: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mountain-peaks-se...
[+] [-] x87678r|5 years ago|reply