ODA research seminar by Tobias Ebert, University of St Gallen

The ODA Section invites you to an ODA research seminar presented by Tobias Ebert, University of St Gallen:

Where the Future Happens First: Regional Personality Differences and Their Relevance for Innovation Diffusion

Abstract
Personality traits are unequally distributed across space. In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of the emerging interdisciplinary research landscape on regional (i.e., intranational) personality differences. I will highlight that regional personality differences matter in (at least) two broad respects. First, they matter at the micro level for the individuals living in a region (e.g., people are happier and healthier when they live in places where they psychologically fit in). Second, they matter at the macro level for a region’s development (e.g., they may help explain why some places are economically more successful than others). Building on this overview, I will then take a deep dive into a recent project that combines large-scale survey, archival, and big data to study how regional personality differences shape the diffusion of innovations. We introduce a newly curated dataset that traces the initial development of three major platform innovations (i.e., accommodation-sharing, ride-sharing, and social media platforms) across hundreds of U.S. metropolitan regions. We link these adoption data to large-scale, geo-referenced personality information from millions of U.S. residents. Results show that regional psychological openness consistently predicts earlier uptake, even after accounting for demographic, socio-economic, social, infrastructural, and geographical characteristics. In sum, the study advances a behavioral perspective on regional innovation adoption by integrating population psychology into explanations of innovation diffusion.

Everyone is welcome!