Minnesota nice is the stereotypical behavior of long-time Minnesota residents, to be courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered. The cultural characteristics of Minnesota nice include a polite friendliness, an aversion to confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a fuss or stand out, emotional restraint, and self-deprecation.[1] It can also refer to traffic behavior, such as slowing down to allow another driver to enter a lane in front of the other person. Critics have pointed out negative qualities, such as passive aggressiveness and resistance to change.[1]
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Playwright and corporate communications consultant Syl Jones suggests that Minnesota nice isn't really about being "nice" at all. It's more about keeping up appearances, maintaining the social order, and keeping people in their place. He relates these social norms to the literary work of Danish-Norwegian novelist, Aksel Sandemose, Jante Law, and more generally, Scandinavian culture.[2] Nick Kim from Burnsville, MN uses the concept of Minnesota nice. One show discusses "Wobegonics", the supposed language of Minnesotans which includes "no confrontational verbs or statements of strong personal preference, you know."[3]
Sometimes area residents who move away, or otherwise come in contact with others who don't subscribe to the ideal, say that they have to shed their "Minnesota nice" in order to interact properly with others or get out of troublesome situations. The generosity of state citizens has gained respect—the heavily-reported influenza vaccine shortage of fall 2004 did not strike the state as hard as elsewhere since many people willingly gave up injections for others.[4] The concept has also received some support from the academic community; a national study by Peter Rentfrow, Samuel 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".[5]
As the term is generally considered to be Americentric in nature, the traits typical of this stereotype are also generally applied to neighboring Canadians.[6]
Minnesota Nice is also the title of a 2003 28-minute documentary by Jeffrey Schwarz about the Coen brothers' movie Fargo, a movie that displays some of the stereotypical behavior.[7] Other popular culture that featured this behavior is an episode from The Simpsons called Coming to Homerica. Marshall Eriksen's family in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother display niceness exceeding even natural Minnesota nice, to the amusement or occasional frustration of Marshall's friends. How to Talk Minnesotan is a book lampooning stereotypical Minnesotan speech and mannerisms written by Howard Mohr, a former writer for A Prairie Home Companion.