Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Voluntary settlement on a frontier may promote values of independence. At present, however, researchers know little about the behavioral consequences of this process. In this study, we examined regional variations in baby naming. Because baby naming is an act of considerable personal and familial significance, it reflects prevalent cultural values. In support of the hypothesized link between frontier settlement and independence, we found that babies receive popular names less frequently in western regions of the United States than in its eastern regions (Study 1). The same pattern holds in Canada (Study 2), with popular names being less frequent in western provinces than in eastern provinces. Moreover, popular names are less frequently given to babies in world regions in which Europeans have settled (e.g., Australia, the United States) than in European countries (Study 3). These findings have implications for cross-generational transmission of cultural values.

Keywords

frontier settlement independence individualism regional variation names

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alter

(2007, June 22). The baby-name business. The Wall Street Journal, p. W1.

Christenfeld

Larsen

(2008). The name game. The Psychologist, 21, 210–213.

Cross

S.E.

Madson

(1997). Models of the self: Self-construals and gender. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 5–37.

European Commission. (n.d.). Population density table. In Eurostat. Retrieved from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tps00003&plugin=1

Fincher

C.L.

Thornhill

Murray

D.R.

Schaller

(2008). Pathogen prevalence predicts human cross-cultural variability in individualism/collectivism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275, 1279–1285.

Hofstede

J.H.

Minkov

(2010). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Jokela

(2009). Personality predicts migration within and between U.S. states. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 79–83.

Kitayama

Conway

L.G.

Pietromonaco

P.R.

Park

Plaut

V.C.

(2010). Ethos of independence across regions in the United States: The production-adoption model of cultural change. American Psychologist, 65, 559–574.

Kitayama

Ishii

Imada

Takemura

Ramaswamy

(2006). Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: Evidence from Japan’s “northern frontier.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 369–384.

10.

Kitayama

Park

Sevincer

A.T.

Karasawa

Uskul

A.K.

(2009). A cultural task analysis of implicit independence: Comparing North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 236–255.

11.

Liebersen

Bell

E.O.

(1992). Children’s first names: An empirical study of social taste. American Journal of Sociology, 98, 511–554.

12.

Murray

D.R.

Schaller

(2010). Historical prevalence of infectious diseases within 230 geopolitical regions: A tool for investigating the origins of culture. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 4, 99–108.

13.

Oishi

Lun

Sherman

G.D.

(2007). Residential mobility, self-concept, and positive affect in social interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 831–844.

14.

Park

Conway

L.G.

Pietromonaco

P.R.

Plaut

V.C.

Kitayama

(2009). A paradox of American individualism: Regions vary in explicit, but not implicit, independence. Unpublished manuscript, Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan.

15.

Plaut

V.C.

Markus

H.R.

Lachman

M.E.

(2002). Place matters: Consensual features and regional variation in American well-being and self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 160–184.

16.

Social Security Administration. (2010). Popular names. Retrieved from http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/state/index.html

17.

Twenge

J.M.

Abebe

E.M.

Campbell

W.K.

(2010). Fitting in or standing out: Trends in American parents’ choices for children’s names, 1880–2007. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 1, 19–25.

18.

United Nations Statistics Division. (2007). Table 3. In Demographic yearbook (p. 58). New York, NY: United Nations Publications Board.

19.

United Nations Statistics Division. (2009). Human development indices: A statistical update 2009. Retrieved from http://data.un.org/DocumentData.aspx?q=GDP+per+capita&id=185

20.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2007). Median household income. In American community survey. Retrieved from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GRTTable?_bm=y&-_box_head_nbr=R1901&-ds_name=ACS_2007_1YR_G00_&-_lang=en&-format=US-30&-CONTEXT=grt

21.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2008). Statistical abstract of the United States, 2007. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

22.

Uskul

A.K.

Kitayama

Nisbett

R.E.

(2008). Ecocultural basis of cognition: Farmers and fishermen are more holistic than herders. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 105, 8552–8556.

23.

Vandello

Cohen

(1999). Patterns of individualism and collectivism across the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 279–292.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.27 MB

What’s in a Name?

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material