Does it ever seem like everyone around you is freaking out about their love life in exactly the same way?
According to research from the University of Michigan, that’s because geography has a role in our approach to romance. Researchers analyzed data from Americans in all 50 states, looking for two specific relationship traits: Attachment anxiety, or clinginess, whereby people are preoccupied by the idea that they might lose their relationship. And avoidance anxiety, which manifests as a fear of intimacy and the tendency to clam up.
They found notable geographic differences across the country. Some states, like New York and West Virginia, were home to a disproportionately large number of people who suffered from the urge to cling on, which can include constantly checking in on a partner, needing to know their movements, and craving reassurance. Others, like Nevada and Kentucky, had more avoidant people, who shun intimacy and try desperately to hide their feelings. [...]
There are some big caveats to the way this research was conducted. The overall sample size was 127,070 adults, which is large. But the group was self-selected, because they all chose to fill out a survey on a particular website hosted by Penn State University and dedicated to the study of “positive psychology,” meaning—as the researchers note—that it was a non-representative sample. More women than men filled out the survey, making up 73.5% of the total respondents. And when the data are broken down, some states have very small sample sizes, meaning we can’t give too much credence to the fact that North Dakota came top in both categories: Only 187 people answered the survey there.
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