Selfward Bound? Personal Preference Patterns and the Changing Map of American Society

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Clark University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic Geography.Take a large human population. After it has been stirred and seasoned well for two centuries, relax traditional social and economic constraints. Give many of its individual members enough leisure time and money so that they can do pretty much what they wish to please themselves. Add several dashes of new social and technological forces; let the mixture simmer for a couple of decades; then ask: what sorts of choices will be made by the millions of participants in such a macro-experiment? What things will how many persons do, and where will they do them?The ingredients for this recipe are, of course, to be found in the United States; and the challenge to the adventurous chef is enormous, exhilirating-and frustrating. Our nation has witnessed the attainment of a degree of affluence and freedom of attitude and action, of a range of individual and social options, on the part of a quite massive fraction of its total adult population that is unprecedented in human history, yet may be predictive of things to come in other highly advanced countries. But this recent acceleration in social history has been so rapid that social scientists are not yet fully aware of the qualitative transformation of their subject matter. Clearly neither our theoretical nor our data-gathering apparatus has been revamped to the point where one can readily validate, or disprove, the hypoth-* I am most grateful for the assistance in statistical design and computations rendered No direct precedent for this study is known to exist.1 This fact compels more than normal care in designing and explaining its modus operandi. If an axiomatic belief in an ongoing, fundamental 1 But two ultimate ancestors must be acknowledged: Ullman [70] and Lowenthal [42]. Since Edward Ullman published his truly seminal programmatic statement 19 years ago, North American and European geographers have slowly, but surely, turned their attention toward recreation, tourism, and the amenities in general as consequential items in the spatial ordering of man's activities. Thus, for example, we now have booklength treatments of such previously slighted topics as the spatial patterns of summer vacations [19] or the geography of sports [54]. Following Lowenthal's richly pro-

A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence, and Expression of Geographic Variation in Psychological Characteristics

“…5). The statewide distribution of O also converged with results from past work (Krug & Kulhavy, 1973, Plaut et al, 2002Zelinsky, 1974) indicating that it tended to be high in New England, Mid-Atlantic, and West Coast states and low in the Great Plain, Midwest, and South Central states (Fig. 6).…”

The geography of music preferences

“…Indeed, there is a somewhat older vein of research and theory that identifies both the geographic variation in cultural preferences and connects that variation to underlying economic and political divides. Zelinsky (1974) examined cultural differences in the USA using magazine subscriptions and found a strong divide between the preferences of residents of cities and metro areas with higher concentrations of professional, white-collar workers, college-educated residents, and higher levels of diversity, on the one hand and those with high shares of bluecollar workers, and less advantaged residents and low levels of diversity. Fox and Wince (1975) found that individuals from small farm towns preferred folk, rock, and country music, while individuals from larger regions preferred jazz and blues music.…”

“…This research focuses on the consumption of books, magazines, newspapers, film and television (Zelinsky 1974;Weiss 1988). Our research examines the extent to which preferences for music both reflects these divides and can help us understand them.…”

DuelingWeltanschauungen: Contemporary Collegiate Worldviews Part 1

“…9 To cite but one example, I remember giving a seminar assignment to identify some "sacred places". The students' responses, almost to a person, chose places which exhibited a) "secular sacredness" (e.g., "Javelina Stadium," the home of our seven-time Division II national football champions), b) a distinct measure of irony, (e.g., a popular near-campus nightspot) and (c) an assumption that individual personal experience/feelings were determinative of a place's sacredness.…”