The places you go can change your personality

In a bad mood? Go for a walk. We all know that changing location is good for us. In my freelance days I would tour five coffee shops across a normal working day to "keep things interesting" (read: I couldn't stand the guilt of nursing one coffee and steailng all their free WiFi).

But it turns out, it can have more profound effects on our identity.

“We found that when people spend time in social places, they tend to be more open-minded, extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, and less anxious compared to when they spend time at home,” says Gabriella Harari, an assistant professor of communication at Stanford University and author on a new study.

The findings suggest that the places we choose to frequent can affect not only our thinking, feelings, or behavior in the moment, but may actually change our personalities over time.

“You typically have your home as a restorative base to come back to after engaging with the world, and it’s a way to break up your routine. Now, we’re constantly in just one place and people might feel that this impacts how they see themselves,” says study coauthor Sandra Matz, an assistant professor of management and organizational behavior at Columbia Business School.

“If you currently feel less creative than usual, for example, that might be the effect of just staying at home and not having the change in your environment.”

The research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology also suggests that different places hold different levels of attraction for people, depending on how extroverted or introverted they are.