Abstract
Personality traits cluster across countries, regions, cities, and neigh- borhoods. What drives the formation of these clusters? Ecological theory suggests that physical locations shape humans’ patterns of behaviors and psychological characteristics. Based on this theory, we examined whether and how differential land-cover relates to individual personality. We followed a preregistered three-pronged analysis approach to inves- tigate the associations between personality (N = 2,690,878) and land-cover across the United States. We used eleven land-cover categories to classify landscapes and tested their association with personality against broad physical and socioeco- nomic factors. Urban areas were positively associated with openness to experience and negatively associated with conscientiousness. Coastal areas were positively as- sociated with openness to experience and neuroticism but negatively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness. Cultivated areas were negatively as- sociated with openness. Landscapes at the periphery of human activity, such as shrubs, bare lands, or permanent snows, were not reliably associated with per- sonality traits. Bivariate correlations, multilevel, and random forest models un- covered robust associations between landscapes and personality traits. These findings align with ecological theory suggesting that an individual’s environment contributes to their behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.
