I'm looking for sociological studies on the friendliness (or
unfriendliness) of New England compared to other regions.  Academic
studies only, please.  The studies themselves don't have to be online.
 If not, then I need a complete citation of the journal issues in
which they can be found.

Hi Yudkin,

Friendliness is a quality which is very difficult to quantify, even in
the context of comparisons.

(However, there is a clinical scale for measuring friendliness or
unfriendliness, the SACRAL.
I was unable to find the definition for this acronym, but the full
reference is listed below

Friendliness unfriendliness scale [SACRAL]. Reisman JM. IN: Corcoran K
& Fischer J (2000). Measures for clinical practice: A sourcebook. 3rd
Ed. (2vols.) NY, Free Press V.2, Pg.299-301

The scale is designed for quantifying an individual's friendliness
characteristics, rather than a whole region's.  I was unable to find
this scale used in a study relating to New England residents - I
include it only for personal interest!)


Another scale used in measuring friendliness is SYMLOG, System of
Multiple Level Observation of Groups.  Its use by Whyte in a study of
Boston's Italian-American neighbourhoods in 1943 paints a telling
portrait of the society.  An explaination of Whyte's works, with links
and references, is online at

http://www.people.vcu.edu/~jforsyth/methods/measure.htm


A study in 2000 titled "Y’all come back now, y’hear!?  Language
attitudes in the United States towards Southern American English"
compares many qualities and charateristics of Southerners with
Northerners, in this case, from New England and Tennessee.  The
findings of the study's survey indicate Northerners think Southerners
are more friendly; the study unfortunately did not have a reciprocal
survey for Southerners.

The abstract of this paper is online at
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/bibliogs/soukup.html

For an historical perspective, I suggest you read "A Culture of the
Word: Puritanism and the Construction of Identity in Colonial New
England" by Winifred Hegert, published in (Trans)formations of
Cultural Identity in the English-Speaking World.  Jochen Achilles and
Carmen Birkle, eds. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1998.
[Anglistiche Forschungen, Band 251] ISBN: 382530565I.

I hope these articles are useful to you.  Please ask for a
clarification if this answer is in any way unsuitable.

Araminty

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Request for Answer Clarification by yudkin-ga on 27 Oct 2002 06:50 PST

This is a totally unhelpful answer.  It is a non-answer to my
question.  There is nothing in your answer that addresses what I asked
about.  It amounts to nothing more than, "I couldn't find what you
were asking about, but here's some other information you might find
interesting."

---

Clarification of Answer by araminty-ga on 27 Oct 2002 14:08 PST

Hi yudkin,

I'm very sorry my answer was not suitable.  From my extensive
research, I believe there has been no such study performed.

Araminty

---

Clarification of Answer by araminty-ga on 27 Oct 2002 14:36 PST

I have neglected to include my search strategy:
Google search: friendliness unfriendliness friendly unfriendly "new
england" boston comparative
I also undertook to search the online journal databases provided
through my university library: Academic Search Elite (EBSCOhost),
Current Contents, and the SocialSciIndex.

Twice I requested reposting of this question, and nothing happened.
I find it outrageous that at a service called Google ANSWERS someone
could expect to get paid by saying, in effect, "I couldn't find what
you asked about, but here are some other articles you might be
interested in."  This is totally unsatisfactory.

This is a totally unhelpful answer.  It is a non-answer to my
question.  There is nothing in your answer that addresses what I asked
about.  It amounts to nothing more than, "I couldn't find what you
were asking about, but here's some other information you might find
interesting."

I found this on sociological abstracts.

While "friendliness" is not exactly the issue, it does address
collectivism vs. individualism in U.S. regions and identifies the
Northeast uniquely.

Author	Vandello, Joseph A.; Cohen, Dov 
Author Affiliation	Dept Psychology, U Illinois, Champaign [e-mail:
jvandell@s.psych.uiuc.edu]
Title	Patterns of Individualism and Collectivism across the United
States
Appears In	Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1999, 77, 2,
Aug, 279-292.
Abstract	Although the individualism-collectivism dimension is usually
examined in a US vs Asian context, there is variation within the US.
The authors created an eight-item index ranking states in terms of
collectivist vs individualist tendencies. As predicted, collectivist
tendencies were strongest in the Deep South, & individualist
tendencies were strongest in the Mountain West & Great Plains. In Part
2, convergent validity for the index was obtained by showing that
state collectivism scores predicted variation in individual attitudes,
as measured by a national survey. In Part 3, the index was used to
explore the relationship between individualism-collectivism & a
variety of demographic, economic, cultural, & health-related
variables. The index may be used to complement traditional measures of
collectivism & individualism & may be of use to scholars seeking a
construct to account for unique US regional variation. 4 Tables, 1
Figure, 96 References. [Reprinted with the permission of the American
Psychological Association]

yudkin,

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