Southerners: The Social Psychology of Sectionalism (Institute for Research in Social Science)

In this pioneering study of what it means to be Southern, John Shelton Reed uses a survey to examine Southerners as an ethnic group. He finds that such experiences as urban residence, travel, education, and media exposure generally erode such traditional attitudes as ethnocentrism, racism, fatalism, localism, authoritarianism, xenophobia, and resistance to innovation. At the same time, however, Reed shows that these modernizing experiences heighten regIonal consciousness among Southerners. Reed concludes that "despite mass society, Southerners are and apparently will remain 'different'; because of [mass society], they will remain aware of their difference." In this, he writes, Southerners are like other cultural minorities in American society.