{"id":3014,"date":"2012-06-07T16:25:32","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T15:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/?p=3014"},"modified":"2012-06-26T13:29:18","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T12:29:18","slug":"personality-psychology-five-factor-model-and-online-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2012\/06\/personality-psychology-five-factor-model-and-online-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"Personality psychology, five factor model and online tests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since hearing about the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Big_Five_personality_traits\">five factor model (FFM)<\/a>, i have had an interest in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Personality_psychology\">personality psychology<\/a>. I&#8217;m very happy that someone has invented <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Revised_NEO_Personality_Inventory\">a proper test<\/a> so that we can finally stop hearing about pseudoscientific tests such as those based on psychoanalytic rubbish, most commonly the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator\">Myers-Briggs Type Indicator tests<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I was re-reading the Wikipedia page about the FFM and noticed an interesting paragraf:<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Gender differences<\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Cross-cultural research has shown some patterns of gender differences on responses to the Big Five Inventory. For example, women consistently report higher Neuroticism and Agreeableness, and men often report higher extraversion and conscientiousness. Gender differences in personality traits are largest in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities that are equal to those of men. Both men and women tend to grow more extraverted and conscientious and less neurotic and agreeable as cultures grow more prosperous and <a title=\"Egalitarian\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Egalitarian\">egalitarian<\/a>, but the effect is stronger for men.<sup id=\"cite_ref-52\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Big_Five_personality_traits#cite_note-52\">[53]<\/a><\/sup><sup id=\"cite_ref-53\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Big_Five_personality_traits#cite_note-53\">[54]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>The citations are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Costa, P.T. Jr.; Terracciano, A.; McCrae, R.R. (2001). &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gender-Differences-in-Personality-Traits-Across-Cultures-Robust-and-Surprising-Findings.pdf\">Gender Differences in Personality Traits Across Cultures: Robust and Surprising Findings<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Schmitt, D. P.; Realo, A.; Voracek, M.; Allik, J. (2008). &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/Why-cant-a-man-be-more-like-a-woman-Sex-differences-in-Big-Five-personality-traits-across-55-cultures.pdf\">Why can&#8217;t a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Abstract of the first paper:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality Inventory data from 26 cultures (N = 23,031) suggest<br \/>\nthat gender differences are small relative to individual variation within genders; differences are replicated<br \/>\nacross cultures for both college-age and adult samples, and differences are broadly consistent with gender<br \/>\nstereotypes: Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Warmth, and<br \/>\nOpenness to Feelings, whereas men were higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to<br \/>\npredictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender differences varied across cultures.<br \/>\nContrary to predictions from the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in<br \/>\nEuropean and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are minimized. Possible explanations for<br \/>\nthis surprising finding are discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine behaviors to<br \/>\nroles rather than traits in traditional cultures.<\/p>\n<p>Table with results from the paper:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/ScreenHunter_38-Jun.-07-10.43.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3015\" title=\"ScreenHunter_38 Jun. 07 10.43\" src=\"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/ScreenHunter_38-Jun.-07-10.43-178x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"178\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, the data <strong>fit<\/strong> with what was mentioned about the job market in the norwegian docu series <a href=\"http:\/\/genusnytt.wordpress.com\/2011\/12\/03\/se-hjernevask-avsloja-genusmyterna\/\"><em>Hjernevask<\/em><\/a> (mentioned in part 1). In that, in the more egalitarian countries, there sex difference in job choice is <strong>more<\/strong> not less salient. Quoting from the paper:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Finally, we examined rank-order correlations between gender<br \/>\ndifferentiation and national statistics in the 22 cultures for which<br \/>\ndata were available. Gender differentiation was positively associ-<br \/>\nated with GDP (r = .47, p &lt; .05) and women&#8217;s life expectancy<br \/>\n(r = .57, p &lt; .01), and negatively associated with fertility rate (r =<br \/>\n\u2014.56, p &lt; .05), women&#8217;s illiteracy rate (r = \u2014.46, p &lt; .05), and<br \/>\nwomen&#8217;s illiteracy rate relative to men&#8217;s (r = \u2014.48, p &lt; .05).<br \/>\nGender differences in self-reported personality traits are largest in<br \/>\nprosperous and healthy cultures where women have greater edu-<br \/>\ncational opportunities.<\/p>\n<p>and<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Cultural Differences in Gender Differentiation<\/strong><br \/>\nOf particular interest in the present study was the puzzling<br \/>\nfinding that self-reported gender differences are more pronounced<br \/>\nin Western, individualistic countries. These countries tend to have<br \/>\nmore progressive sex role ideologies, endorsing such items as &#8220;A<br \/>\nwomen should have exactly the same freedom of action as a man&#8221;<br \/>\nand &#8220;Swearing by a woman is no more objectionable than swear-<br \/>\ning by a man&#8221; (Williams &amp; Best, 1990, p. 89). The social role<br \/>\nmodel would have hypothesized that gender differences would be<br \/>\nattenuated in progressive countries, when in fact they are magni-<br \/>\nfied. Evolutionary theory also appears to be unable to account for<br \/>\nthis pattern; evolved species-wide characteristics ought to be uni-<br \/>\nform across cultures.<br \/>\nAnalyses of cultural variation in gender differences showed that<br \/>\ndifferentiation is both reliable and general. College-age men and<br \/>\nwomen from each culture show the same magnitude of gender<br \/>\ndifferences as do their adult counterparts, and cultures that show<br \/>\nlarge differences on one variable tend to show large differences on<br \/>\nothers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Abstract of the second paper:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and<br \/>\negalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the<br \/>\nauthors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from<br \/>\n55 nations (N \u0001 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of<br \/>\nneuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These<br \/>\nfindings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples<br \/>\nof nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development\u2014including long and healthy life,<br \/>\nequal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth\u2014were the main nation-level predictors<br \/>\nof larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men\u2019s personality traits appeared to be the primary<br \/>\ncause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual<br \/>\ndimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to<br \/>\nnaturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate person-<br \/>\nality differences between men and women may be attenuated.<\/p>\n<p>The most interesting data from the paper is summarized in this picture:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/ScreenHunter_42-Jun.-07-14.19.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3017\" title=\"ScreenHunter_42 Jun. 07 14.19\" src=\"http:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/ScreenHunter_42-Jun.-07-14.19-300x264.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"264\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One thing bugs me about both papers, and that is the lack of focus on differences between populations\/cultures that are due to genetics of those living there. Human populations are not identical. We know that there are genetic intelligence differences, perhaps there are also genetic personality differences? Is there any data on american whites vs. blacks?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since hearing about the five factor model (FFM), i have had an interest in personality psychology. I&#8217;m very happy that someone has invented a proper test so that we can finally stop hearing about pseudoscientific tests such as those based on psychoanalytic rubbish, most commonly the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator tests. I was re-reading the Wikipedia [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1839,1624],"tags":[1903,1902,1901],"class_list":["post-3014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychometics","category-evolutionary-psychology","tag-ffm","tag-five-factor-model","tag-personality","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3014"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3020,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3014\/revisions\/3020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}