Personality and National Character Article

1. What is national character? How does it differ from a national stereotype? What is included and not included in each of these?
      National character is the shared perception of personality characteristics typical of citizens of a particular nation (very similar to national stereotype). The difference being that national stereotypes are shared perceptions across groups. National character is more narrow in that it excludes abilities, physical characteristics, and other features, such as Italians and their pasta. National Character is broader in perception than national stereotypes in that they include obvious, distinctive characteristics, but also personality-related characteristics about which people have a shared opinion.
2. Judgments of national character can come from people within or outside a particular nation. Do these two groups of people agree?
      According to Peabody's research on 20 different countries, he found that, despite ethnocentric biases, in-group and out-group stereotypes generally agree when characterizing personality traits. He found that people hold shared beliefs about national character and that it is the same across cultures.
3. What is the National Character Survey? How is it related to the Five-Factor Model of personality? Can reliable differences between nations be obtained with this survey? If so, what are some of them?
      The National Character Survey (NCS) is a test using 30 scales that measure the facets included on the NEO-PI-R. The facets, or traits were those apart of the Five-Factor Model that is used in the NEO-PI-R. Using the NCS, nearly 4,000 participants in 49 different cultures were asked to describe the national character of their country and subsequently asking them to describe an American. Reliable data was gathered from not only people of different nationalities, but also different age groups. The 30 facets were interrelated in many of the same ways and many people's judgments of other cultures matched what the people of those cultures believed.
4. What do the authors mean in saying "reliability is not validity?" How are personality ratings different from national character ratings? Can we compare the two for various countries? What are the problems that we encounter when we make such comparisons?
        By "reliability is not validity," the author means that although the data proved to be unquestionably similar, should the test be measuring the wrong thing, the data would be wrong. Personality ratings are different from national character ratings in that they use different traits. Research done on the NEO-PI-R has replicable organization of traits across a wide range of cultures despite the differences in cultures.
5. As you can gather from the article, the authors conclude that the problems in measuring personality across cultures can be solved and that they have solved them, at least partially. So what evidence of reliable personality differences across cultures did they find? Do people in neighboring countries tend to have similar average (aggregate) personalities?
       They found that aggregate personality scores were generalizable among the different groups. They found that there were also patterns with countries in a particular geographical area. 
6. How similar are the personalities of Americans and Canadians, on average? How similar are the national character stereotypes of Americans and Canadians?
       The personalities resulting from the NEO-PI-R and NCS found that Canadians see themselves as less neurotic than they really are and more agreeable than they really are. Americans considered themselves less agreeable than they really are and more neurotic than they actually are. The national character stereotypes are somewhat similar being countries with common languages, culture, climate, etc. There were 12 of the 30 facets that were significantly compatible, and six of them were negative.
7. In general, how well do stereotypes about national character agree with ratings of the personalities of individuals from those nations? Are there correlations at the level of the Big Five? Are there correlations at the level of facets within the Big Five? Are national-character stereotypes based upon a kernel of truth about the personalities of people in each nation?
    Objective assessments show Canada and America have similar personality profiles, but different perceived national character. There are few dramatic differences; however, "agreeableness" was negatively correlated. The data shown by fig.1 showed that as far as the NEO-PI-R goes, The U.S. and Canada are fairly similar. When matching the NEO-PI-R with the results from the NCS in fig.2 There is very little correlation between the two within the Big Five or the facets. The national-character stereotypes did not accurately represent the same average of the personality tests, as was expected.
8. How may national-character stereotypes arise? What purposes might they have? What can be their consequences?
     National-character stereotypes are related to economic, geographic, and historical factors. They arise by generalizations and cultural dominance. National-character stereotypes can lead to misleading assumptions and unnecessary prejudices.