The Validity and Structure of Culture-Level Personality Scores: Data From Ratings of Young Adolescents

Abstract

We examined properties of culture-level personality traits in ratings of targets (N = 5,109) aged 12 to 17 in 24 cultures. Aggregate scores were generalizable across gender, age, and relationship groups and showed convergence with culture-level scores from previous studies of self-reports and observer ratings of adults, but they were unrelated to national character stereotypes. Trait profiles also showed cross-study agreement within most cultures, eight of which had not previously been studied. Multidimensional scaling showed that Western and non-Western cultures clustered along a dimension related to Extraversion. A culture-level factor analysis replicated earlier findings of a broad Extraversion factor, but generally resembled the factor structure found in individuals. Continued analysis of aggregate personality scores is warranted.The idea that the citizens of different nations have distinctive personalities can be traced to antiquity, and it was a central tenet of early 20th century culture and personality studies (LeVine, 2001). For a number of reasons, including the declining influence of psychoanalysis and ethical concerns about ethnocentrism (see Church, 2001), the topic fell out of favor, and interest has only recently been revived, this time from the perspective of trait psychology (Lynn & Martin, 1995; McCrae, Terracciano, & 79 Members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project, 2005;Schmitt et al., 2007). In this new approach, personality profiles of cultures can be obtained by averaging traits assessed in a sample of culture members, yielding a set of aggregate personality traits. This is an etic approach, in which the same set of traits (usually identified in one culture) are studied across a range of cultures.The validity of these culture-level scores must be established, and there are at least two reasons to be skeptical about their accuracy. The first is that the personality trait scales that NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript are aggregated may not themselves be commensurable across cultures: They may assess different constructs in different cultural contexts, or they may lack scalar equivalence (Nye, Roberts, Saucier, & Zhou, 2008;van de Vijver & Leung, 1997) because of problems in translation or in the relevance of particular items or to cultural differences in response styles. These are theoretical threats to the validity of all cross-cultural measures.The second reason to doubt the validity of aggregate personality scores is that research to date suggests that they do not correspond to national character stereotypes (Perugini & Richetin, 2007). It is widely believed, for example, that the English are reserved-yet their aggregate personality scores suggest that they are in fact quite extraverted (McCrae, Terracciano, & 79 Members, 2005). This finding is not a fluke; analyses of data from 49 cultures suggested that national stereotypes are almost completely unrelated to aggregate personality traits (Terracciano et al., 2005). Many stereot...

BDNF Val66Met is Associated with Introversion and Interacts with 5-HTTLPR to Influence Neuroticism

“…Indeed, cross-cultural studies of personality have consistently found that individuals from Asian populations tend to score slightly lower on Extraversion compared to individuals of European ancestry (McCrae et al, 2005b; McCrae et al, in press; Schmitt et al, 2007). The rs6265 (Val66Met) allele frequencies differ across populations, with the A (Met) allele estimated to be about 20% among Europeans, but about 40% among Asians (Itoh et al, 2004; Tochigi et al, 2006).…”

Acculturation of Personality

“…For example, when compared on “Big Five” personality dimensions, higher levels of Openness to experience, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness and lower levels of Neuroticism have been found to characterize the personality patterns of mainstream European and American societies as compared to those of Asian and African societies (Allik & McCrae, 2004; Bornstein et al, 2007; McCrae et al, 2010; Schmitt et al, 2007). These differences can be explained by greater emphasis on individuality vs. uniformity, assertiveness vs. self-control, and situational consistency vs. appropriateness in the respective cultural contexts (e.g., Heine, 2001).…”

“…This is the central question addressed in the current research. Underlying this question is the idea that culture may shape personality; an idea that is consistent with evidence for cultural differences in personality (Allik & McCrae, 2004; Bornstein et al, 2007; McCrae et al, 2005a, 2005b, 2010; Schmitt, Allik, McCrae, & Benet-Martínez, 2007). If personality were subject to acculturation, this would not only be interesting in its own right, but it would also suggest that concurrent cultural influences are likely to shape personality throughout the life span, thus challenging the claim that personality is an innate and stable characteristic of a person (e.g., Conley, 1985; McCrae & Costa, 1994; Poortinga & van Hemert, 2001; Terracciano, Costa, & McCrae, 2005).…”

Are cross-cultural comparisons of personality profiles meaningful? Differential item and facet functioning in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory.

“…Researchers have begun to draw conclusions about cultural differences in average trait levels by comparing mean profiles on the NEO-PI-R and other measures of the Big Eive dimensions of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (McCrae, 2001McCrae et al, 2010;Schmitt, Allik, McCrae, & Benet-Martínez, 2007;Terracciano et al, 2005). In the present study, we investigated the validity or meaningfulness of such comparisons by testing an important prerequisite, the crosscultural measurement invariance of the NEO-PI-R at the item and facet levels.…”