Edited by: Vinai Norasakkunkit, Gonzaga University, USA
Reviewed by: Yulia Chentsova Dutton, Georgetown University, USA; Chris Sinha, Hunan University, China
*Correspondence: A. Timur Sevincer, Department of Psychology, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
This article was submitted to Cultural Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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People with independent (vs. interdependent) social orientation place greater priority on personal success, autonomy, and novel experiences over maintaining ties to their communities of origin. Accordingly, an independent orientation should be linked to a motivational proclivity to move to places that offer economic opportunities, freedom, and diversity. Such places are cities that can be called “cosmopolitan.” In support of this hypothesis, Study 1 found that independently oriented young adults showed a preference to move to cosmopolitan rather than noncosmopolitan cities. Study 2 used a priming manipulation and demonstrated a causal impact of independence on residential preferences for cosmopolitan cities. Study 3 established ecological validity by showing that students who actually moved to a cosmopolitan city were more independent than those who either moved to a noncosmopolitan city or never moved. Taken together, the findings illuminate the role of cosmopolitan settlement in the contemporary cultural change toward independence and have implications for urban development and economic growth.
In the twenty-first century, in most Western countries (and in many other world regions) people frequently move to places that offer better opportunities, self-realization, and/or new experiences. Within the U.S. for example, about seven million people move to another state each year (U.S. Department of Commerce,
We conceptualize cosmopolitan cities as urban areas whose cultures emphasize values including autonomy, freedom, egalitarianism, and mutual respect (Mosterin,
There are two general traditions of research on cosmopolitanism. In one line of work, some social scientists, especially geographers and economists, have defined cosmopolitanism primarily in terms of the degree to which a city is ethnically diverse. The concept is thus often operationalized in terms of the proportion of the inhabitants who are foreign born (e.g., Short,
In combination with their greater economic resources, the egalitarian, free-spirited ethos of cosmopolitan cities may offer abundant opportunities for wealth and success for those with talents, new ideas, and a willingness to take chances (Kitayama et al.,
A key component of independent social orientation is a view of the self as defined by a set of internal attributes such as motives, competences, and personality traits (Markus and Kitayama,
The idea that independent persons are attracted to places that represent opportunities for success, autonomy, and self-realization is consistent with a cumulative body of studies on frontier settlement. Historically, the proposition that settlement in a frontier is linked with an independent, egalitarian mentality is known as the Turner thesis (Turner,
Although on the surface the Wild West and contemporary San Francisco appear quite different for example, in contrast to the historical frontiers, cosmopolitan cities are densely populated areas with existing infrastructure and institutions, they in fact share similarities. These include opportunities for economic success particularly in high risk/high reward enterprises, high social mobility, weakened traditional conventions, and opportunities for adventure and novel experiences. Further, the above similarities suggest that similar factors may motivate modern migrants to cosmopolitan cities as did those who migrated to historical frontiers. In sum, drawing on the general idea that places that offer opportunities for personal goal pursuit, self-realization, autonomy, and novel experiences attract people oriented toward independence (vs. interdependence), focusing on modern day migration we tested whether cosmopolitan cities attract independent settlers.
We conducted three studies to examine the hypothesis that independently oriented people are attracted to cosmopolitan cities. Using a scenario method, we first tested whether people who chose a hypothetical move to cosmopolitan cities would be more independent that those who chose to move to noncosmopolitan cities and those who chose not to move at all (Study 1). Further, we tested whether there is a causal link between independence and preference for cosmopolitan cities by manipulating social orientation (Study 2). Finally, we investigated the ecological validity of the relationship by testing whether students who actually settled in a cosmopolitan city would be more independent compared to those who settled in a noncosmopolitan city or those who did not move (Study 3). All studies were conducted in Germany, a Western culture.
To test our hypothesis that independently oriented people feel attracted to move to cosmopolitan cities rather to noncosmopolitan cities or not moving at all we used a scenario method; we presented participants with the hypothetical choice of whether they would change their place of residence and if so, we asked where they would move to. One domain that is particularly relevant to voluntary settlement is goal pursuit (Oettingen et al.,
Because people's socioeconomic status (SES) may influence their residential preferences, for example, many affluent people chose to live in cosmopolitan cities (Murray,
One hundred and twenty-six young adults from Germany (31 men, 93 women, and two unidentified;
To determine which German cities are perceived as cosmopolitan and which are not by lay Germans, we conducted a pilot study. Drawing on our definition of cosmopolitan cities as urban areas that are characterized by abundant economic opportunities, diversity, and moral commitments to universalistic values such as freedom, autonomy, tolerance, and open-mindedness, we adopted eight items from a scale assessing perceived cosmopolitanism by Sevincer et al. (submitted). Sevincer and colleagues verified the validity of the scale by correlating it with objective indicators of cities' cosmopolitanism (e.g., employment rate, proportion of people from ethnic minorities, proportion of people with creative professions). We used the following items:
“is a cosmopolitan city,”
“is a multicultural city,”
“provides opportunities to build one's career,”
“is an exciting city,”
“is tolerant toward minority groups,”
“has an active art scene,”
“is a center for science and research.”
“is a provincial city” (reverse coded).
Specifically, in an online survey we presented 22 German students (five men, 16 women, one unidentified;
To explore whether the scale indeed measures one single construct, perceived cosmopolitanism, we explored the factor-structure of the scale. Specifically, we conducted principal-components analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation on all eight items across the 30 cities. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure verified sampling adequacy, KMO = 0.91 (“superb,” Hutcheson and Sofroniou,
The unidimensional nature of our scale implies that the eight items were highly correlated suggesting that the scale is internally consistent. To further investigate the internal consistency of the scale however, we calculated alpha reliabilities within as well as across cities.
To explore internal consistency
Finally, to obtain a ranking of how cosmopolitan the cities are, we combined the eight items for each city into an overall cosmopolitan index. See Table
1 | Berlin | 6.52 | 0.33 |
2 | Hamburg | 5.89 | 0.81 |
3 | Cologne | 5.68 | 0.64 |
4 | Frankfurt | 5.50 | 0.79 |
5 | Munich | 5.48 | 1.01 |
6 | Stuttgart | 4.85 | 0.74 |
7 | Düsseldorf | 4.67 | 0.76 |
8 | Dresden | 4.63 | 1.12 |
9 | Bremen | 4.60 | 0.83 |
10 | Hannover | 4.37 | 0.99 |
11 | Dortmund | 4.34 | 0.86 |
12 | Leipzig | 4.32 | 0.80 |
13 | Bonn | 4.28 | 0.65 |
14 | Mannheim | 4.26 | 0.93 |
15 | Karlsruhe | 4.22 | 0.89 |
16 | Münster | 4.20 | 0.70 |
17 | Essen | 3.97 | 0.75 |
18 | Bochum | 3.93 | 0.84 |
19 | Nürnberg | 3.91 | 0.75 |
20 | Augsburg | 3.84 | 0.86 |
21 | Aachen | 3.78 | 0.83 |
22 | Wiesbaden | 3.57 | 0.95 |
23 | Kiel | 3.54 | 0.87 |
24 | Duisburg | 3.47 | 0.87 |
25 | Wuppertal | 3.45 | 0.87 |
26 | Bielefeld | 3.38 | 0.98 |
27 | Braunschweig | 3.25 | 0.86 |
28 | Chemnitz | 3.07 | 0.88 |
29 | Mönchengladbach | 3.06 | 0.92 |
30 | Gelsenkirchen | 3.05 | 0.79 |
In the main study, to assess residential preferences, we used the following scenario. First, we asked participants to name the city or town they are currently living in. We then asked: “Would you rather stay in your current town or city or move to a different place in Germany if you had equal possibilities to study or work in both places?” If participants indicated that they would rather move to a different place we asked them to specify which German town or city they would most prefer. Eighty participants (64%) indicated that they would stay in their current town or city and 46 (36%) that they would move to a different place. Of the 46 participants who indicated their intention to move, nine listed Hamburg as their preferred city. Other cities listed included Berlin (5), Munich, (4), and Cologne (3).
We assessed independence by two measures: Tendency toward personal goal pursuit and subjective connectedness to others.
First, to assess their tendency toward personal goal pursuit, we asked participants to list 10 life tasks they plan to carry out over the next 5 years. Two independent raters unaware of participants' cities of origin coded the listed life tasks into one of the following three categories: (a) personal; tasks that are related to personal accomplishment and success (e.g., “get a degree,” “learn to play an instrument”), (b) relational; tasks that are related to establishing or maintaining interpersonal relationships (e.g., “get to know some people,” “keep up contact to my family”), and (c) collective; tasks that are related to social identities or promoting group welfare (e.g., “join a chess club,” “support community welfare association”). Interrater agreement was 95% (κ = 0.90). The relative number of personal (vs. relational and collective) tasks was our first indicator of independence. Because we asked participants to list exactly 10 tasks, the number of personal tasks and the number of relational and collective tasks combined were inversely related; so we analyzed the number of personal tasks only.
Second, to assess perceived connectedness to others we included the Inclusion of Others in the Self scale (IOSS; Aron et al.,
Participants completed a demographic questionnaire that included items to assess their SES. SES is typically measured as a combination of income, education, and occupation (American Psychological Association, n.d.)
We predicted that participants who choose cosmopolitan cities as the destinations of their moves would be more independent than those who choose noncosmopolitan cities and those who choose not to change their place of residence. To test this prediction we classified the 15 cities that participants in the pretest rated as most cosmopolitan as cosmopolitan cities, and the 15 cities that they rated as least cosmopolitan as noncosmopolitan cities.
Table
Personal | 65.6 | 72.9 | 56.7 | 65.1 |
Relational | 29.8 | 24.3 | 35.6 | 30.4 |
Collective | 0.5 | 2.9 | 7.8 | 4.5 |
Moreover, because cosmopolitanism ratings were a continuous variable, we analyzed the data in yet another way. Specifically, among participants who indicated that they would move to a different place we examined the correlation between the number of personal tasks they generated and the cosmopolitanism of their preferred destination city. If the preferred destination city was not among the 30 biggest German cities from the pretest, we assigned that city the lowest value from the pretest (3.05). The number of personal tasks correlated positively with cosmopolitanism,
Reversed IOS scores did not differ between groups,
To investigate whether the pattern that participants who preferred cosmopolitan cities pursued more independent goals remained robust when controlling for differences in SES, we first dummy-coded participants who preferred non-cosmopolitan cities and those who preferred not to move into one group. We then estimated a GLM with the number of personal life tasks as dependent variable, group (participants who preferred cosmopolitan cities vs. all other participants) as factor, and SES as covariate. The difference in the number of personal tasks between participants who preferred cosmopolitan cities and the other participants remained significant,
We assessed the cosmopolitanism of participants' hometown in the same way as we determined the cosmopolitanism of their favorite city. Specifically, we assigned participants' hometown the cosmopolitanism rating from the pretest. If a hometown was not among the cities from the pretest, we assigned that hometown the lowest value (3.05).
The cosmopolitanism of participants' home town did not correlate with the cosmopolitanism of participants' favorite city,
The distance between participants' preferred destination city and their hometown correlated positively with the number of personal (vs. relational and collective) life task they listed,
The size of participants' preferred cities (i.e., their destination cities if they preferred to move and their hometowns if they preferred not to change their location) did not correlate with the number of personal life tasks,
Young adults who showed interest in moving to a cosmopolitan city were more independent (as indicated by greater preference for personal goal pursuit) than either those who were interested in moving to a noncosmopolitan city, or those who were not interested in moving. This effect was robust, remaining significant when controlling for participants' SES, the cosmopolitanism of their hometown, the distance between their preferred city and their hometown, and the size of their preferred city. We observed a similar pattern for the relationship between another indicator of independence (subjective connectedness to others) and residential preferences, however the effect did not reach statistical significance. Overall these results were consistent with our hypothesis that independent people are attracted to cosmopolitan cities. However, Study 1 used a correlational design. Therefore, to draw causal inferences, we conducted Study 2, which used an experimental design.
To explore whether an independent orientation causes people to feel attracted to cosmopolitan (vs. noncosmopolitan) cities, we tested whether priming participants with independence (vs. interdependence) would enhance their preference for cosmopolitan (vs. noncosmopolitan) cities and their self-reported willingness to move.
Seventy psychology students from the University of Hamburg (17 men, 52 women, one unidentified;
We used a scrambled sentence task developed by Kuehnen and Hannover (
Students listed three German cities in which they would most like to live if they moved out of their current city. Two independent raters from Germany coded the listed cities for cosmopolitanism. We used a 4-point coding scale ranging from 1 (
Students were also presented with nine German cities. Three of the nine cities were among the five most cosmopolitan cities in the pilot study (Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt), additional three were among the least cosmopolitan cities (Wuppertal, Bielefeld, Chemnitz), and the remaining three were somewhere in between (Dresden, Leipzig, Nürnberg). For each city, students indicated how much they would like to live there if they moved out of their current city. Answer scales ranged from 1 (
In addition, to test whether people with an independent (vs. interdependent) mentality are generally more likely to change their place of residence (Kitayama et al.,
As predicted, the cosmopolitanism of students' three most preferred cities was higher in the independence condition (
Also as predicted, the relative preference for cosmopolitan (vs. noncosmopolitan) cities was higher in the independence condition (
Finally, reported willingness to relocate tended to be higher in the independent condition (
Study 2 extended the correlational evidence provided by Study 1 by showing that priming students with independence (vs. interdependence) resulted in a greater preference for cosmopolitan (vs. noncosmopolitan) cities, and a greater willingness to change their place of residence. This evidence supports our claim that an independent (vs. interdependent) mentality causes a greater willingness to migrate to cosmopolitan cities. Study 2 also demonstrated that people's residential preferences are influenced by psychological factors that are relatively malleable (i.e., salience of independent vs. interdependent mindsets) rather than being solely motivated by relatively stable economic and sociological factors (e.g., SES, the number and quality of available jobs at a location; Harris and Todaro,
The aim of Study 3 was to examine whether independence is linked to actual migration to cosmopolitan cities. To test this hypothesis we compared students in a cosmopolitan vs. a noncosmopolitan city who either voluntarily moved to the city they inhabit or were born in that city. If highly independent people are particularly motivated to settle in cosmopolitan cities, then the settlers in such cities should be more independent than those who settled in noncosmopolitan cities and those who never changed their place of residence (i.e., those residing in the city of their birth). To test our prediction, we tested matched samples from Hamburg and Braunschweig. Hamburg was among the five most cosmopolitan cities in the pilot study reported in Study 1; Braunschweig was among the five least cosmopolitan cities. Both cities are located in the Northwestern part of Germany, have a majority of protestant inhabitants, and are university towns. The universities of Hamburg and Braunschweig are both long-established universities in Germany and both rank in the middle of an international ranking on universities' reputation in research and teaching (QS World University Rankings, n. d.)
Because in Study 1 participants who preferred cosmopolitan (vs. noncosmopolitan) cities evinced a stronger tendency toward personal goal pursuit, we took students' tendency toward personal goal pursuit as our principal indicator of independence. Moreover, we measured students' preference for uniqueness (vs. conformity) as a second indicator of independence.
As in Study 1, to control for differences in SES, we assessed students' SES. In addition, because choice can increase independence (Savani et al.,
Two hundred and seven psychology and educational sciences students (155 women and 52 men;
First, as in Study 1, we assessed students' tendency toward personal goal pursuit by asking them to list 10 life tasks. Interrater agreement for the coding of the tasks was 98% (κ = 0.96). Table
Personal | 69.7 | 75.3 | 67.1 | 66.9 | 67.7 |
Relational | 26.3 | 23.3 | 29.6 | 26.5 | 26.0 |
Collective | 4.0 | 1.3 | 3.3 | 6.9 | 6.3 |
Second, we assessed students' preference for uniqueness (vs. conformity) using a questionnaire by Kim and Markus (
To identify whether students moved to or were native to Hamburg or Braunschweig, respectively, we asked them to list all places where they had lived for at least 1 year and to indicate for each place the year when they had moved there. Because most German students live at their parents' home until they complete high school at the age of 19 (Bien,
We used the same demographic questions as in Study 1
In addition, to explore whether students voluntarily had chosen their university town, we asked: “How much personal choice did you have when you enrolled in this university?” on a 9-point scale ranging from 1 (
A One-Way ANOVA indicated that the number of personal life task students named differed between groups,
Students' preference for uniqueness score did not differ between groups,
Students from Hamburg had a higher SES (
Students were asked how much choice they had in attending their university. The mean choice rating was well above the midpoint of the 9-point scale (
Students who voluntarily moved to the cosmopolitan city of Hamburg held more personal (vs. relational and collective) goals and had a stronger preference for uniqueness (vs. conformity) than those who moved to the noncosmopolitan city of Braunschweig and those who did not change their place of residence (those native to Hamburg or Braunschweig, respectively). These effects were robust, remaining significant when controlling for differences in participants' SES. Of importance, the residential move was highly voluntary for the settlers in Hamburg and Braunschweig, respectively, and, moreover, the native residents of both cities chose to remain in their city on an equally voluntary basis. These findings argue against the alternative explanation that the settlers in Hamburg were more independent than the native residents because the settlers but not the natives chose where to live. Study 3 thus suggests that the relationships between independence and migration to cosmopolitan cities observed in Studies 1 and 2 are ecologically valid by showing that more independent people actually moved to such cities.
We argued that independently oriented people prefer moving to cosmopolitan cities rather than moving to noncosmopolitan cities or staying in their hometowns. Study 1 supported this pattern using a scenario method to assess residential preferences. Study 2 established a causal link between independence and preference for cosmopolitan (vs. noncosmopolitan) cities as well as willingness to generally change one's place of residence. Finally, Study 3 supported the ecological validity of our findings by suggesting that people who actually moved to a cosmopolitan city are more independent than those who moved to a noncosmopolitan city or stayed in their hometown. Moreover, we ruled out alternative explanations including differences in SES (Studies 1 and 3), the cosmopolitanism of one's hometown (Study 1), the distance between hometown and preferred destination (Study 1), and the extent to which participants had a choice in selecting their destination city (Study 3). In sum, we explored the link between independence and preference for cosmopolitan cities with different populations (students and a broader sample of internet users), using different research designs (correlational, quasi-experimental, and experimental), different research methods (scenario, survey, paper and pencil tasks, and priming), and measures that tapped various dimensions of independence (personal goal pursuit, subjective connectedness, and preference for uniqueness).
Over the last decades, in nearly all countries and cultures in the world a constant cultural change has been observed in the direction of independence and individualism (Inglehart and Baker,
We suspect that cosmopolitan settlement is a major factor in cultural shifts toward independence, because it integrates several factors known to foster independence (Kitayama and Uskul,
Economists and historians have proposed that the historical frontier was a major factor in promoting the economic development of the U.S. precisely because it attracted highly independent settlers motivated toward personal success and willing to take chances (Turner,
Our research also sheds light on the processes by which cosmopolitan settlement fosters independence. According to the voluntary settlement hypothesis (Kitayama et al.,
To investigate whether the process of
Concerning the mechanisms that mediate independent people's self-selection for cosmopolitan settlement, we hypothesized that cosmopolitan cities symbolize an independent lifestyle (e.g., freedom, self-realization, and nonconformity). Thus, independent people may feel attracted to settle in cosmopolitan cities via the mechanism of prototype matching between personality and location (Niedenthal et al.,
Future research may investigate whether other mechanisms, such as positive attitudes toward an independent life-style (Triandis,
Cosmopolitan cities tend to be urban although not all urban areas necessarily qualify as cosmopolitan. Investigating psychological differences between urban and rural residents is a longstanding research topic (Simmel,
It has been proposed that residential mobility (i.e., people's tendency to relocate) is associated with independence (Oishi and Kisling,
Finally, other person variables than social orientation (independence vs. interdependence) may influence residential preferences toward cosmopolitan cities. For example, because cosmopolitan cities are places of high diversity, people high in openness to experience may prefer moving there (Rentfrow et al.,
Traditional models of rural-urban migration emphasize the role of economic factors (the quantity and quality of available jobs; Harris and Todaro,
The present program of research illuminates the relationship between people's social orientation (independence vs. interdependence) and their likelihood to actively settle in cosmopolitan cities. In the 18 and 19th century the frontier in the Western U.S. symbolized unlimited opportunities, wealth, and freedom and, by attracting highly independent orientated people, shaped the nations' orientation toward independence. In the twenty-first century, the new frontiers may be cosmopolitan cities that value self-determination, personal goal pursuit, nonconformity, pluralism, tolerance, creativity, and openness to ideas, and may be an important factor in continuing shifts toward individualism in many cultures.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Preparation of this article was supported by a postdoctoral stipend from the German Exchange Service awarded to A. Timur Sevincer. The help of Vania Biesler, Malin Chromik, Lara Hansen, Sandra Koerner, Tobias Lerner, Verena Linhart, Gerlinde Luka, Simon Pradel, and Greta Wagner with collecting and coding the data is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Todd Hovanec, Peter J. Rentfrow, and Henrik Singmann, for helpful comments.
1Socioeconomic Status. Retrieved from:
2In Studies 1, 2, and 3 we performed all analyses a second time adding gender as a factor to explore possible interactions of our main predictors with gender. We did not observe any systematic interactions with gender. Moreover, in all studies the pattern of results did not change when gender was included in the analyses.
3Retrieved from:
4Due to time constraint we only assessed parent education as a proxy for SES in the sample from Braunschweig.