Obviously the concept of imagery lends itself to visualisation.  The majority of respondents clearly see Scotland in terms of its natural landscape and its symbolism, a situation in which it is not alone. Very few of the responses to the Nature question were specific places.  When it came to symbolism as a first image, bagpipes proved most popular (26, equating to 22% of the number of people who answered this question) followed by the Saltire and kilts, tied on 16% then tartan 12%, and whisky and the thistle (each 7%).  In the other categories, popular first level images were Edinburgh Castle, and ‘The Highlands’.
 

 Scottishness

Participants were also asked to try and quantify their definition of “Scottishness”.  Again these results were categorised to aid analysis.  Personal traits were the largest category, with “positive” traits those such as pride, patriotism and honesty.  “negative” traits included stubbornness, oppression, second class.  There are other traits which could go either way.  In this case their category was determined on what exact wording was used.  So, ‘frugal’ and ‘thrifty’ are seen as positive traits, where as ‘tight’ or ‘mean’ would be seen as a negative trait.  Symbolism, as well as bagpipes and music were concepts of independence and freedom.  History encompassed heritage, culture and tradition, and nature was again identified with Scotland’s geography. 

 The results show a clear difference between how Scotland is symbolised, and how her identity is perceived.  Nature, by far the largest category of imagery, is easily the smallest category when it comes to identity.   Within the positive category of identity, “pride” was easily the largest component.  If we look at those who chose pride as their first response to this question, we find that 104 respondents (40% of those who answered this question) thought pride/proud was the word they associated with Scottish the most. 

Famous Scots

Participants were also asked to name three famous Scots in order of importance.    The top ten were:

 From this two rough patterns emerge – historic and literary figures decline over the three stages, whilst actors and inventors seem to increase over the categories.   Mary Queen of Scots is by far the most notable female, and the list is very heavily weighted towards males – out of a total of 1397 responses over the three categories, famous Scottish females accounted for only 6%.   

 Furthermore, whilst numerous male Scottish sporting figures were named, including Alex Ferguson, Alan Wells, Stephen Hendry, Kenny Dalgleish, David Coulthard and Jackie Stewart, no sportswomen were mentioned.  A couple of women were mentioned as entertainers, namely Sheena Easton and Annie Lennox, and in particular two female Scottish folk singers were mentioned (Belle Stewart / Jeanie Robertson) but again, they were outnumbered by the men, and no Scottish actresses were listed.  Four respondents did list Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, the Late Queen Mother as a Scot.   

As you would expect, famous Scots are largely geographically distinguished.  For example, looking at the first famous Scot named, no one in Australia or New Zealand mentions Andrew Carnegie, whilst eight American residents do to one Scot and one Canadian.  No one resident in Scotland mentions Mary Queen of Scots or Rob Roy in comparison to seven each in the US.  Conversely, no-one in the USA mentions Billy Connolly, but two Scots and four Australians do. Interestingly residents in Australia buck the trend regarding Wallace and Bruce.  Wallace is more popular almost everywhere else, but in Australia is outnumbered 13:1.  Only one person resident in Scotland mentions John Knox in their (third) famous Scot list.

 Interestingly, given the importance of films in presenting Scotland’s history, Rob Roy is not featured in the top ten “famous Scots”, particularly when this was the second most popular film amongst respondents, as we will see next. 
Favourite films, books and TV series about Scotland 

 Home Page     Demographics    Scottish Identity    Images of Scotland and Scottishness   
Favourite films, books and TV series about Scotland    
Respondents own websites about Scotland 

Thank you for your interest. If you have any specific questions you can  contact me  here.