science

Minnesota nice

Minnesota nice is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Minnesota nice rather than just read about it. In short: Minnesota nice is a cultural stereotype applied to the behavior of people from the U.S. state of Minnesota, implying residents are unusually courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered compared to people from other states. The phrase also implies polite friendliness, an aversion to open confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a direct fuss or stand out, apparent emotional restraint, and…

Key takeaways

Minnesota nice belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Minnesota nice to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Minnesota nice from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Minnesota nice is a cultural stereotype applied to the behavior of people from the U.S. state of Minnesota, implying residents are unusually courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered compared to people from other states. The phrase also implies polite friendliness, an aversion to open confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a direct fuss or stand out, apparent emotional restraint, and self-deprecation. It is sometimes associated with passive-aggression.

Social norms Playwright and corporate communications consultant Syl Jones suggested that Minnesota nice is not so much about being "nice" but is more about keeping up appearances, maintaining the social order, and keeping people (including non-natives of the state) in their place. He relates these social norms to the literary work of Danish-Norwegian novelist Aksel Sandemose, the fictional Law of Jante, and more generally, Scandinavian culture. Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion discusses "Wobegonics", the supposed language of Minnesotans, which includes "no confrontational verbs or statements of strong personal preference".

Examples The generosity of state citizens has been commented on; the heavily reported influenza vaccine shortage of late 2004 did not strike the state as hard as elsewhere since many people willingly gave up injections for others. The concept has also received some support from the academic community; a national study by Peter Rentfrow, Samuel D. Gosling, and Jeff Potter done in 2008 found that Minnesota was the second most agreeable and fifth most extraverted state in the nation, traits associated with "nice". Since the 1960s and 1970s and continuing into the present, Minnesota has been a leading state in refugee resettlement, which can be linked to the traditions of progressivism and generosity associated with Minnesota nice. Various groups, especially Hmong from Laos and Somalis, as well as large numbers of Vietnamese, Burmese, Ethiopians, Laotians, Tibetans, and Liberians, have found homes in the state, particularly in the Twin Cities. Since 2002, Minnesota has been home to the largest population of Somalis in North America. Minnesota nice was an influence on the Coen brothers movie Fargo, set in both Minnesota and neighboring North Dakota, and a 2015 review of the Fargo TV series described the Minnesota nice attitude as providing a form of cover for some of the show's "darker, more venal" characters. A 2003 documentary about the making of the movie was entitled Minnesota Nice.

Criticism History professor Annette Atkins suggests that the concept is a marketing myth, emerging from the work of Howard Mohr and Garrison Keillor in the 1980s. These authors may have created the myth in order to make Minnesota distinctive from neighboring states like Iowa. Journalist and Minnesota native Michele Norris argued the phrase had acquired "undertones of irony and despair" following the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Minnesota nice

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Minnesota nice claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Minnesota nice before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Minnesota nice ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Minnesota nice

In research: Minnesota nice appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Minnesota nice in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Minnesota nice is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Culture of Minnesota, Kindness, Personality traits, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Minnesota nice outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Minnesota nice in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Minnesota nice means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Minnesota nice out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Minnesota nice in simple terms?

Why does Minnesota nice matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Minnesota nice?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Minnesota nice.