Your Personality Type Can Predict Your Next Holiday

Turns out it’s not a coincidence that Nietzsche’s Übermensch, Zarathustra, heads off to live a solitary life in the mountains instead of waxing philosophical on the beach. According to new research presented to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, there is a real difference in the kinds of terrain preferred by introverts and extroverts. Lone wolves head for the hills, and social butterflies party on la playa.

Lead researcher Shige Oishi, a professor at the University of Virginia, arrived at this oddly unsurprising conclusion by conducting three separate studies. The first found that extroversion predicts individual preference for ocean over mountains, the second found that preference for ocean versus mountains changed according to whether subjects wanted to be around people or not, and the third found that people who live in mountainous areas are very likely to be introverted.

I know, I know – suddenly your whole life makes sense, right?

(h/t FastCoexist.com. Lead images: Éole Wind/Flickr and Anton Bielousov/Flickr)