The Industrial Revolution, which brought together large-scale coal-based industries like mining, steel, pottery, and textiles, helped create the foundation of modern society and wealth. At the same time, the early industrial economies that formed in this era were also associated with brutal working and living conditions. Our research, recently accepted by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows that areas where coal was king may still be feeling the effects.
Research: The Industrial Revolution Left Psychological Scars That Can Still Be Seen Today
Many people still live in old industrial regions, but it’s not clear what effects of that heritage linger. Given that these historical industries had dominated the economic and social life of these regions for such a long time, there’s a question about whether they also influenced residents’ personality traits – particularly those seen in the current populations living there. New research suggests that the massive industrialization of the 19th and 20th centuries had long-term psychosocial effects that continue to negatively influence the well-being, health, and behaviors of millions of people in these regions today. The study, an interdisciplinary collaboration between psychologists, historians, and economic geographers, examined whether people in former industrial regions in the U.K. and the U.S. demonstrated more markers of “psychological adversity” (i.e., higher neuroticism, lower conscientiousness, lower aspects of extraversion, lower life satisfaction, and lower life expectancy) than people in other regions. The findings show that a region’s historical industries leave a lasting imprint on the local psychology, which remains even when those industries are no longer dominant or have almost completely disappeared.