Does Oregon (or any state) have a personality?

I love it when my geographic geekiness is simultaneously stimulated and satiated!  Most recently it happened when I read “A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence, and Expression of Geographic Variation in Psychological Characteristics” by Peter J. Rentfrow (University of Cambridge), Samuel D. Gosling (University of Texas at Austin) and Jeff Potter (Atof Inc. of Cambridge MA) in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Takes me back to grad student days at the University of Oregon, where I learned about “environmental determinism” that had once ruled geographic thought.  

See, for example, this description from page 45 of the 1866 textbook Monteith’s Physical and Intermediate Geography:

In the tropical regions, the inhabitants subsist, to a great extent, upon the spontaneous yield of the soil; this, together with the enervating influence of the oppressive heat, causes them to lack energy, industry and patriotism.

In the frozen regions, the inhabitants are dwarfed both in physical stature and mental powers; this is owing to the severity of the climate, with the absence of natural productions and of inducements to labor.

Both of these regions lack that diversity of climate and of other conditions, which is necessary to the promotion of individual and national prosperity.

Uh, can you spell r-a-c-i-s-m? Environmental determinism had long been discredited when I studied geography, so the examples we saw were presented as exotic anachronisms.  The rejection suppressed any consideration of the effect of environment on culture and behavior, so it was interesting to find it has gained new attention, albeit in a VERY different form.

So back to the article.  You can read the article yourself here.  Warning:  it is very academically researchy with citations and jargon everywhere, so I’ve provided a very condensed summary below, with special emphasis on how my home state Oregon did.

Summary

New attention is being paid to geographic personality traits, largely because adoption of the Five Factor Model as a “robust and widely accepted framework for conceptualizing the structure of personality.”  The five factors include:  Extraversion [E], Agreeableness [A], Conscientiousness [C], Neuroticism [N] and Openness [O].  According to the authors, “scores of studies indicate that these basic personality dimensions are rooted in biology and are relatively stable throughout life.”

Most of the research has examined these five factors at the national level, but more recently researchers are looking at geographic variation within countries.  For example, a series of studies found that in the U.S., Southerners “place considerably more importance on personal reputation and respect than Northerners do and that this difference leads to higher rates of aggression and homicide in the South.” 

How does geographic variation in personality come about and persist?  Selective migration (people move to places that are a good fit with their personalities), social influence (common personality traits and features of the social environment can mutually reinforce each other), and environmental influence (factors ranging from crowding to climate [e.g. seasonal affective disorder], etc.)

The report includes a graphic of how it all works:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So the authors of the study went about examining if the FFM would apply to states within the U.S. by conducting a survey and correlating with census data. (Read the article for a lot more on methodology and all the associated researchy words.) They also considered what each factor would look like within a state:

• Extraversion [E] is related to community involvement, preferences for social and entrepreneurial professions and physical health and longevity.
• Agreeableness [A] relates to community involvement, religious participation, longevity and reduced crime rates.
• Conscientiousness [C] is associated with religious involvement, health-promoting behavior, and low crime rates.
• Neuroticism [N]  is linked to criminal behavior, poor coping and morbidity.
• Openness [O] is expressed by liberal values, creative and intellectual professions, artistic and investigative occupations.

So how does Oregon stack up (based on 10,211 survey responses)?  

Oregon is:

• among the least extroverted states (44th out of 51; North Dakota is most extroverted, Maryland least)
• pretty darned agreeable (18th of 51; North Dakota is also most agreeable! Alaska is least agreeable)
• not so conscientious (31st; New Mexico is most conscientious, Alaska is least conscientious too!)
• not at all neurotic (48th! West Virginia is most neurotic, Utah is least!)
• and VERY open-minded (3rd among 51! only Washington DC (#1???) and New York are more so, while agreeable and extroverted North Dakota is least open minded.)

In other words, we are warm and friendly but not as likely to attend club meetings or church or hang out in bars, less dutiful and disciplined, very unlikely to exhibit unsocial behavior, have good coping skills and are psychologically healthy, have very tolerant views and open minds.  That sounds like a place I feel at home in!

The article includes some cool maps as well, including this one depicting “agreeableness” by state:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our neighbors to the north, Washington is:

• even less extroverted (48th out of 50!)
• not quite as agreeable (22nd)
• somewhat more conscientious (25th)
• nearly as unneurotic as we are (46th)
• and almost as open-minded (5th)

And I couldn’t help but notice how off the chart Alaska is, almost the lowest in each and every category:

• 49th in extraversion
• dead last in agreeableness
• dead last in conscientiousness
• almost last in neuroticism
• almost last in open-mindedness.

So now we know what Alaska is not, wonder what it IS?  Who wants to weigh in?  Anyone from Wasilla maybe?

So how does this sound?  Do you agree?  Want a report on your state?

Happy Halloween!

Here’s our punkin this year (and I submitted it to yeswecarve.com:

What Ignite Portland won’t see

In a moment of utter foolishness, I submitted a proposal to do a presentation at Ignite Portland 4, an event where presenters show 20 slides that change every 15 seconds. I believe I had a momentary lapse when I offered up my idea, because I just got a rejection notice. (I mean, I think you really have to be way way more hip and cool and geeky than I am to be selected for events like this one.)

But I had a lot of fun making my presentation. Uh, yeah, I already made it. (That’s how foolish I feel right now!!) So, Ignite Portland’s loss will be your gain, because I’m going to show you a blog-friendly modified version of my slide show right now.

How an X-Rated Plant Came to my Parking Strip

I come by my green genes honestly. Granny and Blaine (that’s what we called my grandparents on my dad’s side) always had the best garden and orchard and flower beds in their locale.
Granny’s delphiniums grew so high they loomed over her head. (Sorry about the shades of grey, but this was before we could afford color film.)

So it’s no surprise that I was drawn to gardening when in a home of my own, and I have known some success at this hobby. For example, check out the banana plant that grows in the Zone of Denial in our back yard.

And these fine specimens by the waterfall:

You get the idea… so several years ago — soon after the wheelchair ramp went in and provided a veritable clean slate for gardening in the front yard — I put in a bunch of wild and exciting plants in the Zone of Exuberance.
First, I planted some Love Lies Bleeding:

then another kind of Amaranth:

After they comingled and cohabitated, this is what happened:

No, I am not making this up, and this picture has not been modified to fit your screen. It looks exactly like an engorged erect penis. With testicles.
Here’s another view:

We dubbed it the Cockandballs plant. Our parking strip was full of them! Kind of a phallic forest, if you will.

We thought it was our private little joke until we overheard the embarrassed titters, admiring whistles and outright guffaws from passersby.

Then one day I was telling someone I had just met where we lived, and her eyes widened, her voice raised 12 registers, and she said, “YOU live in THAT house?!? The one with the PLANTS???” She fell to her knees in an “I’m not worthy” stance and said, “You do realize that people make pilgrimages from all over the city to see those plants!?”

Uh, no, not exactly. But come to think of it, we have noticed people — viz., gay men — showing up with landscape cameras and tripods and spending hours taking portraits. We have viewed our plants with renewed respect ever since. And watched them closely. We’ve seen a lot along the way…

On this day, two words: Lorena Bobbitt:

We call this section the Vienna Boys Choir:

And of course I can’t keep Ric away from them…

I saved this photo for the climax:

They self seed, and the seed stays true to form. We’ve passed on a lot of seeds over the years, and we’re beginning to spot them elsewhere in the hood. Someday I expect to see the plant marching across the metro area… who knows where this will end????

So I may not ignite Portland, but we’ll go to our graves with the comfort that comes from knowing we are leaving a legacy.

Our last and best chance…

I have been having the most totally weird and insane dreams lately. Like last night, I had agreed to attend an event with a friend, but forgot to ask how much the tickets were. Then when we were there, I asked her how much I owed her, she said, $2,000. OMG!!!!! I was stricken! But gamely got out the checkbook and wrote her a check, doing mental math about what this would mean to my bank account and life…

Do you think this means I’m worried about the economy?? Duh!?! Of course it does. Having grown up with the spectre of the the great depression ever present in the admonitions of my parents, who had both lived through it, I am a child-once-removed of said depression. And I’ve always kind of felt that we will be revisited by such a calamity during my lifetime.

I’m thinking it’s here. It hasn’t really hit us yet, but it’s coming. I haven’t been able to sort out the details of what I’ve been reading and hearing about why we are in such a world of economic hurt right now. To tell you the truth, the various bailout scenarios I’ve heard sound like complete bullshit to me. They all seem to be expecting that putting bandaids on a cancerous lesion will cause it to heal. I know in my heart it won’t work, but I can’t give you a convincing description of how I know it.

Here’s what I do know. We live in a culture of excess. We have too much stuff. Way too much.

Great graphic from website about American Excess-Tionalism

We think we need way more stuff than we do. There is no way on god’s green earth that I’m ever believing anybody who lives in America needs a Hummer. They cannot be justified. Period. Any culture that condones that kind of conspicuous consumption is doomed. It doesn’t matter what the stock market does, what the Dow Jones is, or where the S&P 500 goes. For any culture that embraces Hummers, there is catastrophe ahead.

I feel like we have a chance to use the present economic condition to wake ourselves up and profoundly change our way of life. If we do, America and the planet survive. If we don’t, the days of both are numbered. It feels that dramatic and stark a choice.

We need to buy less shit, do less shit, give shit away, and get to a much simpler place. We need to find meaning in being kind and generous to one another, in making things, in growing things, walking more places, and so forth. It’s really that simple, and it’s our last and best chance to put things right.

So are you in or are you out?

Can you watch this and still sit silently by or look the other way?

From a speech by AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka

Relatively speaking…

On our recent trip to the Spokane area, we also reconnected with a cousin and an uncle of mine we have seen very little of over the past several years. We had a delightul dinner with Melody in the Peacock Room of the Davenport Hotel. Melody is a very talented, warm, funny, smart and beautiful woman who spent much of her career in the television production business and now works for a Spokane-based film and video production company. She’s been really active in the theater community in Spokane and will soon appear in a film! (More on that when we know more!)

Melody really knows her way around Spokane… and the Davenport Hotel. She gave us a personal guided tour after dinner, with all sorts of interesting tidbits I’m sure very few people ever get to hear. I was so happy to see what a happy place Melody is in these days!

A few days later I met cousins Sandy and Shelia for dinner in Gresham. We had a blast! I think it’s really amazing how easy it is to reconnect with extended family members you haven’t seen much of in years. There’s so much in common, not only family lore but certain traits and points of view. (Well, we didn’t get into the election, but nobody said anything about my Obama bumper sticker…)

Seems so easy to just talk about anything! Growing up in a big extended family makes us learn how to laugh at ourselves, don’t you think?! It felt that way in ours. We grew up overhearing the adults discuss us, defining our roles, pointing out our strengths and weaknesses in front of everybody… we all lived in very small houses, and everything that got said got heard, basically.

Here’s a little recap, tell me if I’m right about this, cuzes:

Sandy was the beauty queen, she was the star of the group, and all of us younger ones admired and adored her and wished we could be just like her, but of course we couldn’t even get close. Because she was so sweet and kind, we weren’t even jealous of her, just enjoyed basking in the glory that shone brightly from her and reflected on all of us. Boys flocked to her like moths to a flame. I have never seen anything quite like it up close and personal. She and I were especially close, spending time at one another’s houses in summer, confiding all sorts of precious and silly things. When we were apart, she was always the one I wrote to in order to mark a special event. Sandy always had a profoundly reverent streak, but I was a grateful that she loved me even though I pretty much lacked one no matter how much I pursued one so I could be like her.

I remember once in graduate school, my Chinese teacher’s wife worked for the same company Sandy worked for, and after he met Sandy, he marveled at how much she and I looked alike. “Huh? What are you smoking?!?” I wondered. I guess there is something to people thinking that all people of another race look alike.

Anyway, I was anything but the beauty, more like the ugly duckling of the extended family. Mostly I was known as the brainiac. I was so into devouring knowledge, creating things, just doing doing doing. Maybe it was to make up for what I lacked in the looks department? I remember Aunt Irene saying once: “Marie, just stay as plain and smart as you are and you will go far.” Partly I pursued the intellectual side of things because it was my family role, but also because I came by it honestly, I just had a pretty insatiable intellectual curiosity.

Okay, okay, enough about me, back to the cousins: I didn’t know Sheila and Melody as well as I did Sandy because they were younger by a few years, a number that is insignificant now but loomed large as cousins figure out how with whom to pair off as children.

Melody was always a bright star herself. She was the oldest child in her family, with the associated leadership skills and outgoing personality. When we visited her family in Kennewick when we were kids, I was blown away by her Barbie doll collection. Having never had a name-brand doll myself, that put her in another class altogether. I remember realizing one day that she had a childhood a lot more like the ones in storybooks than I did, or ever imagined. It was clear from a young age that she had talent with a capital T. What a voice!

Sheila was youngest in her family, and was always the adorable little one. I always thought her brown eyes and brown bangs were just about the cutest ever. Looking back, she may have felt she lived in Sandy’s shadow, and seemed more shy and inward, but I think she was actually quietly gathering the awesome power her presence holds now. If you want to feel centered and real, spend some time with Shelia. Meet her children, from China and the Marshall Islands. She is deep, that Shelia. She’s emerged as a family leader now. Just ask Sandy.

The other relative we visited with last month was Uncle JB, my dad’s remaining living brother. (Aunt Arnelle — Sandy and Shelia’s mom — is his only remaining living sister.) He lives in a nursing home in Kennewick. What a sight for sore eyes. Not so many left from his generation now. We must honor them.

We had a wonderful visit, and I fear it may be our last. He just turned 90 and he is tired.

The human brain is an amazing thing. So many parts stay intact, others lose their grip. His sense of humor is still sharp: when I asked if he was following sports, he said, “Oh, yeah, my hotshot Mariners.” (a reference to their record-setting losing season!)

He’s also up on politics (“Obama’s my man!”) but not so clear on where he had breakfast that morning. Lots of discussion of many different topics…some random, some linear, some new, some old. Best part was being able to touch him. I left with mixed feelings, happy we had come, sad about some of what the visit represented.

I really really miss my Granny and Blaine. Think about them every single day of my life. Miss them. Sometimes it just hurts.

Best. Waitress. Ever. (Breakfast too!)

On a recent trip out of town, we had an awesome dining experience.

Frank's Diner: great food inside a beautiful ornate old railcar

First, some background. When she found out I was headed to Spokane, a terrific co-worker said we should be sure and eat breakfast at a diner that was in an old railcar somewhere on the outskirts of Spokane.

I have to admit I wasn’t altogether hopeful about locating it, partly because there wouldn’t be much spare time outside the conference I was attending and partly because I figured Spokane’s outskirts might be rather large.

But sometimes the magic happens. When Ric and I missed the correct freeway exit and took the next one so we could work our way back to the hotel, after navigating a couple of streets I looked up and smack straight ahead of us was an old railcar!!! And it had a diner in it!! The whole thing is arranged and decorated to make you feel you are actually riding on a train. Imagine our delight!

So we pulled right into the parking lot. What an awesomesauce dining experience! That was in the evening, so we had dinner. And came back the next morning for breakfast.

So here’s the scoop: Frank’s Diner has been voted Best Breakfast in Seattle 11 years and counting. According to the website, they “shop daily to find the largest and freshest eggs, super extra thick bacon and time proven recipes. At each Frank’s we crack 15,000 eggs and grill 2.5 tons of hashbrowns per month…”

Apparently the railcar used to be a restaurant in Seattle, but things didn’t work out so eventually it was moved here.

And yum-mee. The food was just totally wonderful. I had the FRANK’S BREAKFAST COMBO: Two eggs, eight dollar size cakes, three bacon strips or two jumbo links, with hash browns and toast. Huge, quite Frankly! Ric had the BOXCAR STEAK & EGGS: Breakfast sized top sirloin with two jumbo fresh eggs, hash browns and toast.

There was so much food, in fact, that we boxed up the leftovers for lunch, but since we weren’t hungry again until the evening, we ate them for dinner.

Even though it may well have been the best breakfast we’ve ever eaten, it wasn’t even the best part. The best part would be Gage. The. Best. Waitress. Ever. Srsly. Here she is, bringing us our food.

Gage brings us our breakfast.

I actually told her she was the best I had ever seen, and she seemed genuinely surprised to hear it?? If you can read her nametag, you’ll see she’s been at it for more than 17 years. She was just totally perfect. Should be in a movie. Maybe she is. Maybe the whole thing was a movie, it was so heavenly.

Gage. Best. Waitress. Ever.

So when you go to Spokane, and now I trust you will, please go to Frank’s Diner and tell Gage she is still the best waitress you ever had.

Puppy love

Everybody who knows us knows how much we love our puppies. We express our love in a number of ways. Cesar Millan would definitely not approve of how much we treat our dogs like humans. But we just can’t help it. Or at least I can’t.

So, as we prepare to spend yet more hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Pippi’s second bladder stone removal surgery (the first was two years ago), and take Poppi in to see if she needs more neurosurgery because of the weird way she is walking and holding her tail (after spending thousands of dollars on her herniated disk last year), we are thinking a lot about how much we love our puppies and all the ways they enrich our lives. (Funny choice of words, don’t you think, when you count up all the dollars we’ve put out!)

This month they have been selected as their groomer’s first ever pet of the month. Which makes them poster puppies, kinda. Check out their supreme adorableness on her website.