Personality correlates of sense of direction and geographic orientation.

Abstract

Personality measures were related to several dimensions of geographical orientation ability. Participants completed a questionnaire about their sense of direction and pointed to unseen locations on or near the Berkeley campus of the University of California. In addition, participants completed the Mental Rotations Test and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). The CPI scales assessing interpersonal dimensions related both to pointing performance and to worrying about becoming lost but not to self-reports of sense of direction. In multiple regression analyses, personality scores on Capacity for Status, Sociability, and Self-Acceptance were found to account for a significant additional portion of the variance in pointing error even after various possible mediating variables (e.g., exploration, familiarity, spatial visualization) were taken into account. It is suggested that plans of action and attitudes toward the environment engage individuals differentially in building accurate real world representations.