Sample summary report.
Jan. 2008
Why do some people like New York more than others?
_______________, Harvard University
Problem. Do most New Yorkers live in the City because they “like to,” or because the “have to,” due to job or family duties? Does one’s inner personality correlate with their liking to live in the City? Based on prior surveys by Fischer (1984) and Milgram (1970), we expect to find that: (1) People are mixed in their liking or having to live in the city, and (2) those who “like” NYC are higher in arousal-seeking personality.
Method. MATERIALS: An anonymous 20-item survey was used here to measure several things, including: Whether people like/have to live in New York City, a 6-item Liking scale (6-30 points), a 6-item arousal-seeking tendency scale (AST, 6-30 points), number of years living in NYC, and a 0-9 rating of NYC life. PROCEDURE: As an exercise, six Ignatius University researchers in 2007 collected a “sample of convenience” of 10 surveys each from New Yorkers. RESPONDENTS: About __ of __ people agreed, resulting in 60 completed surveys from people of diverse age, gender, and race.
Results. (1) Yes, people were indeed highly varied: a slim majority of ___% liked to live in the city, while ___% have to. People were also highly varied in the other measures too. For example: ____________.
(2) Why do some people like NYC more than others? In Table 1, a few of several factors correlated with dis/liking NYC. In terms of group differences: [ANOVA]…
In terms of correlations: …
NYC Arousal Years love NYC
(6-30) (6-30) in NYC (0-9)
33 LIKE TO: 21.8 20.8 17.2 7.2
27 HAVE TO: 16.3 16.5 21.2 5.2
Discussion. An item-analysis of the 2 scales revealed alphas of…
Would each of the 6 researchers’ 10 surveys find the same patterns?
This study was limited by time, a small number of respondents, brief questionnaire, and limited data analysis. Since even this preliminary survey found a connection between personality and preference for city life, future research could well probe what other personality factors may explain our like/dislike of city life — extraversion, trust, honesty, shyness, loneliness? Also, ruralites might be surveyed the same way with a village scale.
References:
Fischer, C.S. (1984). The urban experience. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Milgram, S. (1970). The experience of living in cities. Science, 167, 1461-68.
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Some goals: Interesting magazine article? Concise? Data-based?
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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