A Tale of Peaks and Valleys: Sinusoid Relationship Patterns Between Mountainousness and Basic Human Values
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
Social Psychological and Personality Science
ISSN
1948-5506
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
13
Issue
2
Pages
390-402
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Stieger, S., Götz, F., Wilson, C., Volsa, S., & Rentfrow, P. (2022). A Tale of Peaks and Valleys: Sinusoid Relationship Patterns Between Mountainousness and Basic Human Values. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13 (2), 390-402. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211034966
Abstract
<jats:p> Mountains—mythic and majestic—have fueled widespread speculation about their effects on character. Emerging empirical evidence has begun to show that physical topography is indeed associated with personality traits, especially heightened openness. Here, we extend this work to the domain of personal values, linking novel large-scale individual values data ( n = 32,666) to objective indicators of altitude and mountainousness derived from satellite radar data. Partial correlations and conditional random forest machine-learning algorithms demonstrate that altitude and mountainousness are related to increased conservation values and decreased hedonism. Effect sizes are generally small (| r| < .031) but comparable to other socio-ecological predictors, such as population density and latitude. The findings align with the dual-pressure model of ecological stress, suggesting that it might be most adaptive in the mountains to have an open personality to effectively deal with threats and endorse conservative values that promote a social order that minimizes threats. </jats:p>
Keywords
Articles, personal values, mountainousness, geographical psychology, socioecology, conditional random forests
Sponsorship
Economic and Social Research Council (Doctoral Scholarship)
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (Post-Doctoral Fellowship)
Cambridge Trust (Doctoral Scholarship)
Identifiers
10.1177_19485506211034966
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211034966
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/334645
Rights
Licence:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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