2008-09-21

Which State are You?

I've automated the "Which State are You" test based on the Rentfrow et al study. Post your results!

15 comments:

alison said...

Your new metric bumps MA down to #7 for me.

Rank State Z-squared E A C N O
1 NewHampshire 1.36 -0.5 1.0 0.4 0.1 -0.2
2 Vermont 1.88 -1.1 0.4 0.3 0.3 -0.6
3 Maryland 2.12 -0.3 1.3 0.1 0.3 -0.3
4 Idaho 4.64 -1.1 1.4 -0.3 1.1 0.4
5 Virginia 4.78 -1.2 1.7 0.2 0.6 -0.3
6 Louisiana 4.99 -2.1 0.4 -0.1 -0.4 0.4
7 Massachusetts 5.13 -1.5 1.4 0.4 -0.2 -0.8
8 Washington 5.66 -1.0 0.7 -0.3 1.9 -0.8
9 Indiana 5.71 -2.0 0.5 -1.1 -0.1 0.6
10 California 6.02 -1.8 0.9 -0.3 1.3 -0.6

I'm not sure I approve. :p

oogRobot said...

Idaho is number 4 on your list, eh?

I used the z-scores rather than the percentiles because I thought it captured the differences a bit better - I think the difference between the 10th and 30th percentiles is much larger than the difference between the 40th and 60th percentiles. But this is just me thinking things, clearly your state pride has a much more objective stance on the situation.

According to the data you're more introverted and less agreeable than the average Massachusetts resident.

I wonder what the average Google personality would be? Maybe I should make an internet map of personalities...

alison said...

Yeah, z score makes sense, esp if personality scores wind up normally distributed (which I am going to resist the urge to look up at work).

Internet map --> personalities visualized by IP address? I like it.

My state pride is an objective, relevant, and important assessment of *everything*. Especially personalities. And effective urban planning. (Street signs are for the weak.)

I'm more introverted than *everyone*. Really, look at it. And actually I thought that said I was *more* agreeable than the average MA resident ... ?

oogRobot said...

You and I clearly use different parts of 6.041.

The paper gave z-scores for the states, which is also a strong implication.

Dan Gagner said...

Ah, I took the test. Reminds me of myers briggs test we did years ago. So, you generated lots of positive and negative numbers that mean neat things to you.

huh.... MIT...

So, how about something that chooses winning lottery numbers huh?

;-)

oogRobot said...

The big five test is a lot like Myers-Briggs, the extraversion dimension is the same for both. The big five captures a little more information.

Re: numbers, you are correct, I did generate a lot of numbers which mean things to me. Perhaps I should attempt to capture what these things mean in a more human accessible manner. Hmmmm.

Jenn said...

E 34; A 33; C 44; N 20; O 28.

1 Idaho
2 Montana
3 Alabama
4 Delaware
5 Arizona
6 Michigan
7 Texas
8 Hawaii
9 Iowa
10 California

Maine was #37. Sadness.

Jenn said...

huh. and all of those were between 1.2 and 3 on the z-scale. Apparently I am like a lot of people.

fooyun said...

this test is a load of ****; how the heck did i get alabama?

alison said...

hey, i'm not in school anymore, i am totally allowed to forget basic probability.

(besides i'll bet there's halfway-convincing arguments to be made that people are not IIRVs.)

(where's "likes arguing too much" in the five-factor model?)

oogRobot said...

Wow, controversial post. I guess the short ones are the controversial ones.

Re: IIRV, the CTL does not require IIRV.

Re: Arguing a lot, you could get a pretty good sense of whether someone will argue with you by examining their agreeableness trait (lower argues more), followed by their conscientiousness (lower argues more) and slightly affected by their openness (lower argues more) and neuroticism (higher argues more).

Re: Alabama, you are most similar to the average personality in Alabama. This test is similar to the MBTI profiles at a certain company, and we all know how highly I thought of personality profiling. Especially when I threw my results.

Anyways, there are distinct variations in the average personality of state residents. I could make the test a little more meaningful if there were variation numbers, too. At the end of the day, though, I wouldn't read *too* much into the results of this test. Even though in Alabama you'd fit right in.

alison said...

re iirv -- the first sentence of the link threw me off, i'll admit. that'll teach me to trust wikipedia. :p

Liz! said...

o=76 c=74 e=70 a=74 n=60

1 Texas 0.61 0.1
2 Illinois 0.76 -0.3
3 Florida 0.82 -0.1
4 Missouri 0.83 0.2
5 SouthCarolina 0.89 0.6
6 Tennessee 0.99 0.7
7 Michigan 1.34 0.2
8 Georgia 1.84 -0.7
9 Indiana 2.03 0.9
10 Oklahoma 2.28 0.7
----------------------------
15 California 2.89 1.1
30 Massachusetts 5.82 1.3

I dont understand what you're doing, but here are my thingys :)

oogRobot said...

Wow. You're definitely a Texan at heart, Liz!.

Liz! said...

born and bred!