Where a person resides is not to be determined when the question is about psychological traits and related outcome. Studies have found that the physical health of a person doesn’t change much when the person moves from a poorer neighborhood to a wealthier neighborhood or vice-versa.
Geographical Psychology is an emerging subarea of research related with spatial organization of psychological phenomena and the contribution of individual characteristics, social entities and physical features of the environment to their organization. The example of psychological phenomena that clusters geographically is ‘In comparison to the people who live in large cities, the people who live in small cities and towns are more likely to help strangers’. Personalities traits have also been found to cluster geographically for example higher level of openness are typically found in cosmopolitan cities that are ethnically diverse. According to the Rentrow and Jokela’s study, the uneven geographical distribution of personality traits, values and attitudes can be explained by three mechanisms i.e. Social Influence, Ecological Factors and Selective Migration. Thus Geographical psychology examines the spatial distribution of psychological phenomena and its relation to features of the macro environment.
By: Shruti Anand