Psychological predictors of geographical relocation: Case study of a plant shutdown

Although there has been considerable research examining how economic and demographic variables predict geographical mobility, there has been little research examining the efficacy of psychological variables. It was hypothesized that personality characteristics, attitudes, and intentions would predict whether or not blue collar workers relocated with their company following a plant shutdown. Discriminant analysis indicated that a number of these variables significantly predicted relocation after controlling for demographic variables. When the analysis compared relocators with non-relocators who were not eligible for a full pension, a smaller and somewhat different cluster of variables significantly predicted relocation. The results are discussed in terms of introducing psychological variables for predicting geographical mobility.This research was supported in part by a research gift from the Western Electric Foundation.The authors would like to thank Susan Dempsey for her assistance in collecting the data, David Lipsky and Jim Dworkin for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and George Foyo for helping make the study possible.