People turn to the right when they settle in a Conservative area, study finds. But there is no equivalent effect in Labour areas

Conservatism, it seems, is contagious. Moving to Tunbridge Wells, or a similar Tory heartland, will make you more rightwing, an academic study has found.

A study analysing the political beliefs of the 10% of Britons who move home each year has found that "movers to safe Conservative seats became more economically rightwing and more likely to vote Conservative after the move", whatever their political views before. It also found that the longer someone lives in a Conservative constituency, the more likely an individual is to support the Conservatives. However, there is no equivalent effect on those moving to Labour seats and staying there.

"If you move to Tunbridge Wells from Salford, on average, people become a bit more rightwing over time," said the study's author, Professor Patrick Sturgis of the University of Southampton. "It is the move that is causing the change, because the comparison is with people who don't move. Yet we don't find the same with people moving to Labour areas. We think the reason is that people who move to Labour areas are already pretty leftwing, so there is no space for movement. People who move to Tory areas are more variable in their politics."

The research suggests there may be something distinctive about Tory seats, which are often rural. "Safe Labour seats are mostly located in major urban areas such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool," says Sturgis's report, Places and Preferences: A Longitudinal Analysis of Self-Selection and Contextual Effects. "The social pressure to conform to the local majority may be less strong in socially diverse, urban areas than in more homogeneous rural or suburban areas."

The research analyses the political preferences of more than 17,300 people who moved home between 1991 and 2008. "Individuals who live in safe Conservative constituencies are likely to support the Conservative party even immediately after moving to their new place of residence," the report says.

Sturgis said: "We looked at people's political preferences up to the move and after it … People don't choose their location because of their politics; they choose areas for all the obvious reasons. But the assimilation effect appears to make people more Conservative."

With a general election due next year and the Tories four percentage points behind Labour in the polls, David Cameron will certainly hope so.