Why do some cities embrace new technologies and business models while others are slower to take them up? Economic conditions, infrastructure and access to technology clearly matter. But a new study from the University of Amsterdam and the University of St Gallen suggests there is another factor that has received much less attention: the psychological openness of the local population. Regions where people are more open to new experiences and unfamiliar ideas are more likely to be early adopters of radical innovations, the study says.
The researchers analysed personality data from more than 3.2 million Americans across 349 metropolitan regions and compared it with the early spread of three digital platforms: Airbnb, Uber and Flickr. Across all three, regions with more psychologically open populations showed stronger early adoption, even after the researchers accounted for economic, demographic, infrastructural, social and geographical differences.
Openness as ‘invisible social infrastructure’
Psychological openness is one of the established Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism). It includes curiosity, receptiveness to new ideas and experiences, and a willingness to engage with unfamiliar or unconventional things.
The researchers describe regional psychological openness as a kind of ‘invisible social infrastructure’: something that cannot be seen in the way that roads, universities or broadband networks can, but which may nevertheless influence how readily people engage with something new.
‘What stood out was the consistency of the pattern,’ says Prof. Tobias Ebert of the University of St Gallen. ‘Psychological openness was the only factor reliably associated with adoption across all of the three innovations we studied.’
The differences between regions were substantial. The proportion of people classified as highly open ranged from around 21% to 48% across the metropolitan areas studied. Early adoption also varied sharply: regions such as San Francisco, Portland and Austin repeatedly appeared among the strongest adopters, while El Paso, Flint and Jackson were among the lowest.
Why does openness matter?
The finding may be particularly relevant during the uncertain early stages of an innovation. When Airbnb launched, people had to be willing to let strangers stay in their homes. Uber required people to offer rides in their own cars. Early social-media platforms such as Flickr depended on people creating and publicly sharing content before this behaviour was commonplace.
In other words, users were not simply buying a new product. They were being asked to adopt unfamiliar behaviours – and, in the case of platforms, their participation helped create the service itself.
‘Someone has to be willing to try a new behaviour before everyone else regards it as normal,’ says Prof. Martin Obschonka of the Amsterdam Business School at the UvA. ‘This can be especially important for platforms, which need enough local users, hosts, drivers or content creators to generate the network effects that make them useful and viable’
A new factor in innovation ecosystems
The findings add a behavioural dimension to the way innovation ecosystems are usually understood. Regions seeking to encourage innovation typically focus on infrastructure, investment, universities, entrepreneurs, skilled workers and access to capital. The study does not suggest that these factors are unimportant. Instead, it suggests that the psychological composition of a population may also shape how readily a radically new activity gains an early foothold.
For businesses, local behavioural receptivity could offer an additional clue when deciding where to introduce unfamiliar technologies or business models. For policymakers, differences in adoption may not always be explained by infrastructure or investment alone.
What about AI?
The researchers stress that their study did not examine AI adoption, and that its results should not be directly extrapolated to AI. However, they argue that the broader question is increasingly relevant as new technologies emerge.
‘We did not study AI adoption, so we should be careful not to extrapolate,’ says Obschonka. ‘But when a genuinely new technology arrives, its future does not depend only on the technology itself. It also depends on whether people are ready to experiment with it.’