Enterprising but a bit grumpy? Head to London. Cheerful and conscientious? Try the East Midlands

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Hard working, enterprising and open minded, but a bit grumpy? Head to London.

Friendly but not keen on new experiences? Move to Scotland.

Cheerful and conscientious? The East Midlands is the place for you.

A personality map of the UK based on research by Cambridge University has revealed that regional differences in character types are becoming amplified as like minded people increasingly cluster together.

Far from being wiped out by globalisation, as some had predicted, local personality variations are accelerating as people settle in areas of the UK where they feel most comfortable.

The research revealed that levels of creativity, intellect and open-mindedness have risen significantly among Londoners when compared with those living in the rest of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

People living in the capital are, however, now even less friendly than most of the country.

East Midlanders scored highest for friendliness and conscientiousness.

The Northern Irish emerged as highly extrovert and the happiest of any group in the UK.

People living in Wales, by contrast, emerged as less extrovert, less conscientious and more anxious than the English, Scots or Northern Irish.

Overall, more intelligent people with extrovert, open personalities moved to cities while the more introverted and relaxed settled in villages or small towns.

But the research also threw up some surprises.

The North East of England, famous for its party loving Geordies, emerged as the least extrovert and open of any English region.

People from Devon, Cornwall, were also relatively introverted, low on conscientiousness and the most neurotic, according to the research.

'People’s level of satisfaction with their lives is strongly affected by where they live,' Said Dr Jason Rentfrow Psychologist at Cambridge University who led the research.

'Our findings suggest they are happiest where their personalities most closely resemble that of the other people in that area.'

He said the sharpest divide was between the capital and the rest of the country.

'London is becoming psychologically separate from the rest of the nation,' he told the Sunday Times.

'People in London tend to be, on average, more analytical, assertive, dominant, efficient and creative.

'People in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are less open-minded, more traditional and less tolerant of differences.'

Dr Rentfrow's study of the UK is still ongoing, but he has completed research in the US which found that many of the cultural stereotypes of Americans, including the chilled-out Californian, neurotic New Yorker and friendly Midwesterner, appeared to have some basis in fact.

His report mapped geographical variations of five major human traits: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and intellect.

The results challenged the view put forward by Thomas Friedman, who, in his book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, which argued globalisation would iron out regional differences and make the choice of where to live less important.

Dr Rentfrow's research indicates that where personality types would once have been distributed randomly, increased mobility had led to clusters or similarly minded people. continues here


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