When folks think of living in West Virginia, being too stressed out usually isn’t top of their mind in terms of things to worry about. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. But yet researchers at the University of Cambridge put West Virginia at the top of another “bad” list – states with the highest percentage of stressed-out people.
“I’ve only driven through West Virginia, but it did surprise me that West Virginia was No. 1,” said Dr. Jason Rentfrow, the study’s author and a social and political science lecturer at Cambridge in England. “It didn’t surprise me that the mid-Atlantic states were high. It may be that neuroticism is high in some states for different reasons.”
While we may not have the stand-still traffic, high crime and high cost of living to stress us out, the researchers found a connection between stress and poor health. And boy is West Virginia at the top of many poor health lists. We don’t exercises nearly enough. We have sky high rates of heart disease and cancer rates. And our life spans are shorter than almost anywhere else in the United States. That’s pretty stressful.
The University of Cambridge study actually provided a deep look into a lot of interesting factors relating to geographic differences in psychological characteristics. For example:
- For “Extraversion” we’re in the 3rd quintile, meaning we’re about average vs. other states.
- For “Agreeableness” we’re 4th quintile – In this study, we don’t come across as warm, compassionate and friendly as other states – that seems opposite of our image.
- For “Conscientious” we’re 4th quintile for dutifulness, responsibility and self-discipline.
- For “Neuroticism” we’re in the 1st quintile, meaning…we’re super stressed, mostly due to heath reasons.
All of these studies come down to what criteria the researcher included to make their calculations, but after reviewing the research it is a pretty interesting look into aspects of our culture that may in fact be inhibiting our growth.
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