There are many stereotypes associated with the location of where a person is from or lives. I found through my research that the South has a more defined identity and culture than any other region in the United States. This defined identity of the South has brought many stereotypes associated with people living there. These stereotypes affect the way a person may identify themselves or act.  The history of the South can explain why certain traits are stronger in people living in South than anywhere else. The South also has such a distinct background that has lead to its identification today, as well as the stereotypes associated with the people living there.  Due to the South's historical background of violence, secession, and political conservatism, it has developed a stereotyped identity of aggression and unintelligence as a result. Despite the fact that these stereotypes are oftentimes misused, this does not stop people from applying them liberally and, as a result, limiting potential opportunities of Southern youth.

The South was once thought to be the most distinctive region in the country, however, its Southern identity may be fading (Cooper and Gibbs 1083). This is an on-going debate that has caused controversy in the South. The article, "Declining Dixie: Regional Identification In The Modern American South," provides multiple examples that show the South's identity is fading. One example includes the elimination of the phrase "Heart of Dixie" from Alabama's license plate (Cooper and Gibbs 1085). Another example includes the recent removal of the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina State House. This caused an uprising because some people thought taking the Flag down was taking away the South's history. The flag is seen as a symbol of the South and taking it down makes the South lose its Southern identity. These examples show that the South is fading, forcing the South to change and lose its "Southern" identity. This article also proves the South's identity is fading by replicating a study that was performed by John Shelton Reed in 1976.

In this study the authors examined the relationship between identification and location in the South by looking at business names that included words related to "Southern" and "Dixie" (Cooper and Gibbs 1084). Alderman claims that, "Naming a symbolic capital is a theme that recognizes how place names are evoked to bring distinction and status to landscapes and people associated with them." (Cooper and Gibbs 1085). This means, according to Alderman, the name of a business correlates to the identity of the owner. This is why names of businesses were used to determine if the South's identity is fading. Businesses that had the word "Dixie" in them received a D score, and would represent the Old South. Places that had a word similar to "Southern" received an S score, and represented the New South (Cooper and Gibbs 1086). The results showed that using the name "Dixie" has dropped considerably from 1976. The mean score of D in 1976 was seventeen percent and in 1998 it dropped to nine percent. The most recent results showed that the D scores continued to drop to five percent as of 2008. The mean S scores only differed slightly compared to the D scores throughout the years. In 1976 the S score was thirty-eight percent, thirty-six percent in 1988, and thirty-five percent in 2008. The overall results of this experiment show that the identification of the Old South and South are declining, however, the South is declining at a slower rate (Cooper and Gibbs 1095). The identity of the South may be fading, but the stereotypes associated with the South are not.  (Deleted next paragraph)

For example, when Northerners were asked what they thought when they heard the word "The South" some of the words they associated with the South included: hillbillies, rednecks, trailer park trash, and lack of diversity ("Southern Stereotypes"). However, the South is and has been the country's most diverse region (Bruns 1). In 1940, only twenty-three percent of the African American population lived in the South, whereas today there is approximately fifty-seven percent ("Southern Stereotypes"). Between the years of 1990 and 2009 South Carolina experienced a 200% increase in their immigration populations ("Southern Stereotypes"). This quantitative information proves that the South does not lack diversity. 

Another negative stereotype that is proven to be false is that people living in the South are racists. Many people think the South is racist because of slavery and the century of legalized segregation that followed, but this stereotype has been proven to be wrong (Burns 1). There is an increasing number of streets, monuments, and buildings that are named after Martin Luther King Jr. in the South (Cooper and Gibbs 1086). There is also an African-American Memorial on the capitol grounds of Columbia, South Carolina, as well as a Booker T. Washington monument in Tuskegee, Alabama, proving that the South is not racist (Cooper and Gibbs 1086 ).

 Another stereotype associated with the South is because the way people talk in the South, they are not as educated (Swaim 15). Linda Jones, an administrator at a school in Alabama, explains why she thinks the stereotype exists claiming, "People still have stereotypes of what . . . Alabamians are like, and because we talk slower maybe they think we're not on the ball." (Jonsson para 1).  It is true that people in South do tend to talk slower than other people, however, this has no effect on their education level.

In a survey nineteen of the twenty-nine participants, which is approximately sixty-five percent, listed at least one response related to Southerners being viewed as unintelligent (Clark 249).  In the article, "Southern Discomfort: The Effects Of Stereotype Threat On The Intellectual Performance Of US Southerners," a study was conducted to test the performance level of Southern college students on intellectual tasks, including difficult math and verbal questions (Clark 248) .  A test was given to a group of participants after they were told people from the North tend to do better on the test than people from the South (Clark 252). Another test was given to a different group of participants that were not informed of the negative stereotype associated with the South and the results of both test were compared (Clark 251). The results showed that the scores were lower when the participants were informed that people from the North performed better on the test than people from the South (Clark 254). The study also found the more a person identified as a Southern the lower the test scores (Clark 256). The South has long lagged behind in terms of quality of education compared to other regions in the United States (Clark 248). Most states in the South fell in the bottom thirty percent on an index of educational effectiveness and performance on college entrance exams (Clark 248). This study proves that the South's education is not affected by the way people in the South talk. It shows that the stereotype affects the way people in the South perform. They believe it is okay if they do not do as well as people in the North because it is considered normal for people in the South to not do as well, yet they are wrong in believing this. However, the South does not lack in education everywhere.

A school called Jefferson County IBS in Alabama, is one of the top five high schools in the United States (Jonsson para 1). Also the year of 2010 the top five public schools were below the Mason-Dixon line (Jonsson para 1). Some states are actually letting high students specialize in what they want to do for a career as soon as freshman year to try and help improve the South's education. South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi are three of the states that are leading a national movement toward mandatory career tracks (Jonsson para 1). For example, South Carolina is hiring 550 career counselors to guide freshman into specialties such as pre-engineering or nursing (Jonsson para 1). Intelligence is not the only stereotype that affects the way people in South act or perform. Another common identity associated with the Southern culture is the South is known to show more emotion than other regions.

In the article, "Stereotypes Of Emotional Expressiveness Of Northerners And Southerners: A Cross-Cultural Test Of Montesquieu's Hypotheses,"research was conducted to investigate Montesquieu's hypothesis that claims a region's climate molds the characteristics and social relationships of residents living there (Pennebaker and Bernard 372). His hypothesis states that warmer climates made individuals more sensitive to emotions such as pain, pleasure, and other sensations, whereas in colder regions they were less attentive to emotion (Pennebaker and Bernard 372). He claimed that cold weather made the nerves less sensitive causing Northerners to feel less emotion (Pennebaker and Bernard 372). However, in warm temperatures the tissue of the skin becomes more relaxed allowing the nerve endings to become more exposed, causing people living in warmer climates to show more emotion (Pennebaker and Bernard 372). To test his hypothesis, a questionnaire was given to people in the North and South that asked them who they thought were more emotionally expressive, Northerners or Southerners (Pennebaker and Bernard 374). The results showed that eleven out of eighteen people thought Southerners were more emotionally expressive (Pennebaker and Bernard 375). Another question on the questionnaire asked the participants if they consider themselves to be emotionally expressive or not (Pennebaker and Bernard 375). The study found that sixty-seven percent of Southerners rated themselves as being emotionally expressive, whereas fifty-four percent of Northerners consider themselves emotionally expressive (Pennebaker and Bernard 376). This study proves Montesquiwu's hypothesis is true and that the South is more emotionally expressive. Another stereotype linked to the South where climate plays a role is aggression.

 There have been many studies and research as to why people link aggression to the South. Several possibilities as to why the South is seen as more aggressive is because of hotter temperatures, poverty, and its history of slavery (Cohen 945). Other reasons date back to the Old South. For example, historians found that men would have to defend themselves against insults or else they would lose their status among family and peers (Cohen 946). Male children were trained at a young age to defend their honor without hesitation even if that included using violence (Cohen 946). Reputation in the South means a lot to people, mainly men, and insulting or threatening their reputation, especially masculinity, causes most people to become angry and act aggressively. Another reason as to why the South is linked to aggression is because back during the Old South there was little proper law enforcement causing people to feel the need to stand up to themselves through the use of violence if needed, proving aggression is a characteristic trait linked to the South (Cohen 946). Another article investigates the stereotype of aggression by giving a survey to people in the North and South. 

In the article, "U.S. Southern And Northern Differences In Perceptions Of Norms About Aggression: Mechanisms For The Perpetuation Of A Culture Of Honor," a questionnaire was given to white male Northerners and Southerners that described aggressive scenarios, asking men to rate the likelihood of them using aggression in the scenarios on a scale from zero to hundred percent (Vandello and Cohen 166). The questionnaire also asked them to predict the percentage of other males that would use aggression in the same situation (Vandello and Cohen 166).  An example of an aggressive situation would include a guy who keeps flirting with another guy's girlfriend, or getting made fun of at a college football game (Vandello and Cohen 166). The results showed that on all campuses, male students predicted that their peers would be more violent than themselves (Vandello and Cohen 167). The likelihood of someone from the South using aggression in the given scenarios was approximately twenty-five percent, whereas approximately twenty-four percent of people from the North said they would use aggression (Vandello and Cohen 167). The results do not show much difference between the two regions when asked about themselves and aggression, but when asked about how likely they believed their peers would use aggression the results varied. About forty-four percent of Southerners thought that their peers would use aggression, where only thirty-eight percent of Northerners predicted their peers would use aggression (Vandello and Cohen 167). Most people believe that they are less aggressive than their peers. According to this study Northerners were three times more likely to believe they were more aggressive than their peers, which is approximately twenty-two percent, where only seven percent of Southerners believed this (Vandello and Cohen 172). Overall, the results show that Southerners do tend to act more aggressive and believe their peers are to act more aggressive in certain situations. Another study was performed that investigated this aggression stereotype, but this study used participants that were unaware of what the actual study was testing. 

In the article, "Insult, Aggression, And The Southern Culture Of Honor: An 'Experimental Ethnography,'" participants were told that the experiment had to do with people's performance on tasks under various conditions, which involved taking blood sugar levels of the participants throughout the experiment (Cohen 948). Participants were also told to fill out a demographic questionnaire and put it on a table at the end of a hallway (Cohen 948). This information was used to keep the participants from knowing what the actual study was so the results were accurate. The actual experiment examined the way someone for the North and South would react when someone ran into them walking down the hallway and insulted them (Cohen 947). The first experiment resulted in Southerners having an increase in testosterone and cortisol levels, showing that they were angrier and more upset with the insult than Northerners (Cohen 952). The cortisol levels, which is hormone associated with stress, in Northerners actually went down when they were insulted, whereas Southerners levels nearly doubled (Cohen 952). The testosterone levels in Southerners more than doubled compared to Northerners, whose testosterone levels only slightly increased (Cohen 952). When the experiment was performed again except in front of others, Southerners were more likely to believe their reputation was being hurt in the eyes others causing them to have higher levels of aggression than before, where Northerners were hardly affected (Cohen 952). Overall, this study found that Southerners were to become more aggressive when insulted, especially when in front of others. This may be because Southerners are not accustomed to rudeness with the Southern culture known for being more polite than the Northern culture (Cohen 957). Another reason for Southerners being more aggressive is because of the stereotype that the South tend to be more aggressive, causing them to think it is normal or okay to become aggressive in certain situation that would not affect Northerners (Cohen 955). The South also puts an emphasis on masculinity and male toughness making Southerners believe it is okay to use aggression in situations that they see as hurting their reputation (Cohen 946). Overall, the studies show that the stereotype of aggression linked to the South is true. Similar research was done on investigating the stereotype of aggression being associated with the South, except these studies looked at the South's high crime rates.

The South is known for having unusually high crime rates compared to the rest of the United States ( Doucet and Julia 807). Again, scientist believe hotter temperatures have to do with the higher crime rates in the South just as they believed with aggression (Pennebaker and Bernard 372). These studies are different from other studies because they investigate the use of violence in both Southern males and females. The studies suggest that girls raised in the South are influenced by the more violent or aggressive Southern subculture, causing them to be more aggressive (Doucet and Julia 807). Southern women share similar characteristics as men do in regards to the use of violence because they adhere to similar values (Doucet and Julia 810). Another reason for violence being a common characteristics of men and women in the South, again, goes back to the South's history. In the Old South it was typical for the father to protect the family, however, if there were no males in the household to fulfill the role, the women were allowed to take on the task (Doucet and Julia 818). With women having to take on the role of protecting the family it is likely they relied on the Southern values of violence for confrontational situations (Doucet and Julia 818). This research has shown that violence is associated with both Southern males and females, proving that violence or aggression is an identity trait linked to the Southern culture. 

The South has many stereotypes associated with people living there that form an identity of their culture. Most of these stereotypes were proven true such as education, aggression, and expression of emotion, but racism was proven to be a false stereotype. These stereotypes have also been proven to affect the way Southerners act or believe is normal. People need to realize these stereotypes should not have an effect on who they are or the way they act because they are not true for everyone. It is important to understand these stereotypes do not apply to every individual because most people cannot look past these stereotypes based on the South's history or their warm climate, however, the South's identity is changing. Most of the stereotypes dealing with the South come from its history, however, the article, "Declining Dixie: Regional Identification in the Modern American South," contradicts most of the reasons as to where the identity of the South comes from. One of the reasons found as to why the South has the identity it has is because of certain traits in the Old South being passed down through generations, such as aggression. However, "Declining Dixie: Regional Identification in the Modern American South," shows that the Old South is declining, and the South's identity is changing claiming that these identity traits cannot be associated with the Old South. Overall, the sources prove that the South is becoming more diverse, reshaping its identity, and improving in its education as seen by Jefferson County. The stereotypes of Southerners should not be applied to every individual, because it all depends on the individual and their values. 

