No abstract

Most people hold beliefs about personality characteristics typical of members of their own and others' cultures. These perceptions of national character may be generalizations from personal experience, stereotypes with a “kernel of truth,” or inaccurate stereotypes. We obtained national character ratings of 3989 people from 49 cultures and compared them with the average personality scores of culture members assessed by observer ratings and self-reports. National character ratings were reliable but did not converge with assessed traits. Perceptions of national character thus appear to be unfounded stereotypes that may serve the function of maintaining a national identity.

Although many scholars have argued that individual differences in proneness to envy can have wide-ranging implications for social interactions, the empirical testing of these claims is largely undeveloped. We created a single-factor Dispositional Envy Scale (DES) to measure individual differences in tendencies to envy, and examined some of the implications of such differences. Study 1 indicated that the DES is a reliable, stable measure, containing items suiting theoretical criteria for the makeup of dispositional envy. Study 2 supported the construct validity of the DES by showing that it is correlated with other individual difference measures in theoretically compatible ways. Studies 3 and 4 supplied diverse ways of establishing the criterion-related validity of the DES by showing that it moderated envious responses to another person’s superiority and that it predicted envy beyond other correlated individual measures of neuroticism, self-esteem, cynical hostility, and socially desirable responding.

The authors tested for cross-cultural difference in predictors of life satisfaction. In Study 1 (39 nations, N = 54,446), they found that financial satisfaction was more strongly associated with life satisfaction in poorer nations, whereas home life satisfaction was more strongly related to life satisfaction in wealthy nations. In Study 2 (39 nations, N = 6,782), the authors found that satisfaction with esteem needs (e.g., the self and freedom) predicted global life satisfaction more strongly among people in individualist nations than people in collectivist nations. The present investigation provides support for the needs and valuesas-moderators model of subjective well-being at the cultural level. The need for theories that account for culture-specific as well as universal predictors of life satisfaction will be discussed.

Used a Monte Carlo study to investigate the magnitude of various relations among behaviors and traits in the context of a multiple-determinant framework. It was found that when only 3 traits determined each of 2 behaviors and the 2 behaviors were influenced by only 1 common trait, there was an upper bound correlation of about .30 between the 2 behaviors; there was also an upper bound correlation of about .50 between measures of the common trait and the behaviors. When only 4 traits determined each of the 2 behaviors with both behaviors being influenced by 1 common trait, there was an upper bound correlation of about .25 between the 2 behaviors and an upper bound correlation of about .45 between measures of the common trait and the behaviors. Given these findings, it is argued that researchers should abandon the implicit assumption of a one-to-one relation between traits and behavioral consequences and instead make explicit the adoption of a multiple-determinant framework in the study of behavior, focusing not only on the additive effects of multiple determinants but also on the interactions between these determinants.There has been much discussion in recent years regarding the magnitude of trait-behavior correlations and the relative importance of the underlying relationships based on the magnitude of these coefficients (Funder & Ozer, 1983;Ozer, 1985;Rosenthal & Rubin, 1979, 1982). An entire literature has developed around the issue of effect sizes and includes articles that compare the magnitude of effect sizes found in personality and social psychological studies (Funder & Ozer, 1983;Sarason, Smith, & Diener, 1975); discussions of the importance of effects given moderate correlations between a variable and some criterion (Rosenthal & Rubin, 1982); and a method for increasing the magnitude of correlations found between personality variables and behavioral criteria (Epstein, 1979(Epstein, , 1980(Epstein, , 1983.Whether intentional or not, the discussions of effect size have worked under an implicit assumption of a one-to-one relationship between some behavioral determinant and the behavioral criterion. However, it is likely that behaviors are complex and are influenced by multiple determinants. To expect any psychological variable to correlate with some behavioral criterion on the order of .5 or greater is to deny the complexity of human behavior. It is a simple property of effect sizes that as the number of independent determinants of some behavior increases, the magnitude of correlations between any one of the determinants and the behavior must decrease.

No abstract

Objective To evaluate the microfoundations of a personality-inspired public health campaign's influence on minors. Participants 1223 trick-or-treaters in New Haven over three years; on average, 8.5 years old and 53% male (among children whose gender was identifiable). Eligibility Trick-or-treaters over the age of three that approached the house.

Two field studies explored the relationship between self-awareness and transgressive behavior. In the first study, 363 Halloween trick-or-treaters were instructed to only take one candy. Self-awareness induced by the presence of a mirror placed behind the candy bowl decreased transgression rates for children who had been individuated by asking them their name and address, but did not affect the behavior of children left anonymous. Self-awareness influenced older but not younger children. Naturally occurring standards instituted by the behavior of the first child to approach the candy bowl in each group were shown to interact with the experimenter's verbally stated standard. The behavior of 349 subjects in the second study replicated the findings in the first study. Additionally, when no standard was stated by the experimenter, children took more candy when not self-aware than when self-aware.