Time to saddle up your trusty horse and hit the dusty trail. The University of Cambridge says we Montanans still have a strong "Wild West" personality. Meaning the geography and harsh weather has us acting just as tough as the settlers that first came to Montana. I do feel that this is somewhat true for most Montanans. It seems like the terrain and weather does make us a hearty group of people. Definitely people you wouldn't wan to mess with in a bar fight.

According to the study from Cambridge

A team of scientists algorithmically investigated how landscape shapes psychology. They analysed links between the anonymised results of an online personality test completed by over 3.3 million Americans, and the “topography” of 37,227 US postal – or ZIP – codes.

“When we look at personality across the whole United States, we find that mountainous residents are more likely to have psychological characteristics indicative of this frontier mentality.”

The mountains are mostly the ones to blame for our "Wild West" personalities. They toughen us up and make our attitude a little more confident. While at the same time make us wary of outsiders and strangers. It is almost like the frontier mentality was genetically altered in our DNA by just taking a big breath of mountain air. Just one breath and your ready to pack up the wagon and go find yourself a homestead.

Check out the entire study from the University of Cambridge and lead author, Friedrich Götz, from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.

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