Mechanisms of the national character stereotype: How people in six neighbouring countries of Russia describe themselves and the typical Russian

Abstract

Altogether, 1448 individuals from six neighbouring countries of Russia in the Baltic Sea region (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Belarus) described a ‘typical’ member of their own nation and a ‘typical’ Russian, as well as rated their own personality, using the National Character Survey (NCS). Results suggest that national character stereotypes are widely shared, temporally stable and moderately related to assessed personality traits, if all assessments are made using the same measurement instrument. In all studied countries, agreement between national auto‐stereotypes and assessed personality was positive and in half of the samples statistically significant. Although members of the six nations studied had a relatively similar view of the Russian national character, this view was not related with self‐rated personality traits of Russians but moderately with the Russian auto‐stereotype. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abate

Berrien

F. K.

(1967).Validation of stereotypes: Japanese versus American students. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7,435–438.

Adams

(2003). Fire and ice: The United States, Canada and the myth of converging values. Toronto: Penguin Canada.

Allik

McCrae

R. R.

(2004).Toward a geography of personality traits: Patterns of profiles across 36 cultures. Journal of Cross‐Cultural Psychology, 35,13–28.

Allik

Mõttus

Realo

Pullmann

Trifonova

McCrae

R. R.

(2009).How national character is constructed: Personality traits attributed to the typical Russian. Psychological Journal of International University of Nature, Society and Human “Dubna”, 2,1–23.

Allport

G. W.

(1978/1954). The nature of prejudice(25th Anniversary ed.). New York: Basic Books.

Ashton

M. C.

(2007).Self‐reports and stereotypes: A comment on McCrae. et al. European Journal of Personality, 21,983–986.

Boster

J. S.

Maltseva

(2006).A crystal seen from each of its vertices: European views of European national characters. Cross‐Cultural Research, 40,47–64.

Brewer

M. B.

(2007).The importance of being we: Human nature and intergroup relations. American Psychologist, 62,728–738.

Costa

P. T.

McCrae

R. R.

(1992). Revised NEO personality inventory (NEO‐PI‐R) and NEO five‐factor inventory (NEO‐FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

10.

Cronbach

L. J.

(1955).Process affecting scores on “understanding others” and “assumed similarity”. Psychological Bulletin, 52,177–193.

11.

Drakokhrust

Furman

(2003). Belarus and Russia: The game of virtual integration. In M. M. Balmaceda, J. I. Clem , & L. L. Tarlow (Eds.), Independent Belarus: Domestic determinants, regional dynamics, and implications for the West(pp.232–255). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

12.

Furr

R. M.

(2008).A framework for profile similarity: Integrating similarity, normativeness, and distinctiveness. Journal of Personality, 76,1267–1316.

13.

Gilbert

G. M.

(1951).Stereotype persistence and change among college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46,245–254.

14.

Griffin

Gonzalez

(1995).Correlational analysis of dyad‐level data in the exchangeable case. Psychological Bulletin, 118,430–439.

15.

Heine

S. J.

Buchtel

E. E.

Norenzayan

(2008).What do cross‐national comparisons of personality traits tell us? The case of conscientiousness. Psychological Science, 19,309–313.

16.

Huntington

S. P.

(1993).The clash of civilizations. Foreign Affairs, 72,22–49.

17.

Ioffe

(2003).Understanding Belarus: Belarusian identity. Europe‐Asia Studies, 55,1241–1272.

18.

Jakobson

Über die phonologischen Sprachbünde. In Selected writings of Roman Jakobson(Vol. 1, Phonological Studies. pp.137–143). The Hague: Mouton.

19.

John

O. P.

Robins

R. W.

(1994).Accuracy and bias in self‐perception: Individual‐differences in self‐enhancement and the role of narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66,206–219.

20.

Karlins

Coffman

T. L.

Walters

(1969).On the fading of social stereotypes: Studies in three generation of college students. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13,1–16.

21.

Katz

Braly

K. W.

(1933).Racial stereotypes of one‐hundred college students. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28,280–290.

22.

Kervyn

Yzerbyt

V. Y.

Demoulin

Judd

C. M.

(2008).Competence and warmth in context: The compensatory nature of stereotypic views of national groups. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38,1175–1183.

23.

Konstabel

Realo

Kallasmaa

(2002). Exploring the sources of variations in the structure of personality traits across cultures. In R. R. McCrae , & J. Allik (Eds.), The five‐factor model of personality across cultures(pp.29–52). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

24.

Krueger

(1998).Enhancement bias in descriptions of self and others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24,505–516.

25.

Lehtonen

(1993). Suomalaisuus, Suomi‐kuva ja kansainvälistymisen haasteet [Finnishness, image of Finland, and challenges for internationalization]. In J. Lehtonen (Ed.), Kultuurien kohtaaminen. Näkokulmia kultuurienväliseen kanssakäymiseen [Meeting of cultures. Perspectives on intercultural communication](pp.7–30). Jyväskyl: Kopi‐Jyvä Oy.

26.

Levine

R. V.

West

L. J.

Reis

H. T.

(1980).Perception of time and punctuality in the United States and Brazil. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38,541–550.

27.

Lippmann

(1922). Public opinion. New York: Harcourt Brace.

28.

Madon

Guyll

Aboufadel

Montiel

Smith

Palumbo

(2001).Ethnic and national stereotypes: The Princeton trilogy revisited and revised. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27,996–1010.

29.

Martin

T. A.

Costa

P. T.

Oryol

V. E.

Rukavishnikov

A. A.

Senin

I. G.

(2002). Applications of the Russian NEO‐PI‐R. In R. R. McCrae , & J. Allik , (Eds.) The five‐factor model of personality across cultures(pp.261–277). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

30.

McCrae

R. R.

(2008).A note on some measures of profile agreement. Journal of Personality Assessment, 90,105–109.

31.

McCrae

R. R.

Terracciano

(2008). The five‐factor model and its correlates in individuals and cultures. In F. Van de Vijver D. A. van Hemert , & Y. H Poortinga (Eds.), Multilevel analysis of individuals and cultures(pp.249–283). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

32.

McCrae

R. R.

Terracciano

Realo

Allik

(2007).Climatic warmth and national wealth: Some culture‐level determinants of national character stereotypes. European Journal of Personality, 21,953–976.

33.

McCrae

R. R.

Zonderman

A. B.

Costa

P. T.

Bond

M. H.

Paunonen

S. V.

(1996).Evaluating replicability of factors in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory: Confirmatory factor analysis versus Procrustes rotation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70,552–566.

34.

McGraw

K. O.

Wong

S. P.

(1996).Forming inferences about some intraclass correlation coefficients. Psychological Methods, 1,30–46.

35.

Peabody

(1985). National characteristics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

36.

Peabody

Shmelyov

A. G.

(1996).Psychological characteristics of Russians. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26,507–512.

37.

Perugini

Richetin

(2007).In the land of the blind, the one‐eyed man is king. European Journal of Personality, 21,977–981.

38.

Realo

(1998).Collectivism in an individualist culture: The case of Estonia. Trames, 2,19–39.

39.

Realo

(2003).Comparison of public and academic discourses: Estonian individualism and collectivism revisited. Culture & Psychology, 9,47–77.

40.

Robins

R. W.

(2005).The nature of personality: Genes, culture, and national character. Science, 310,62–63.

41.

Roskam

E. E.

Lingoes

J. C.

(1981). MINISSA. In S. S. Schiffman , & M. L. Reynolds (Eds.), Introduction to multidimensional scaling(pp.362–371). New York: Academic Press.

42.

Stephan

W. G.

Stephan

C. W.

Stefanenko

Ageyev

Abalakina

Coates‐Shrider

(1993).Measuring stereotypes: A comparison of methods using Russian and American samples. Social Psychology Quarterly, 56,54–64.

43.

Tajfel

Turner

J. C.

(1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations(pp.33–48). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

44.

Terracciano

Abdel‐Khalek

A. M.

Adam

Adamovova

Ahn

H. N.

(2005).National character does not reflect mean personality trait levels in 49 cultures. Science, 310,96–100.

45.

Terracciano

McCrae

R. R.

(2007).Implications for understanding national character stereotypes. Journal of Cross‐Cultural Psychology, 38,695–710.

46.

Valk

(1998).Determinants of national attitudes. Language and Cultural Contact, 25,51–70.

47.

van de Vijver

Leung

(1997). Methods and data analysis for cross‐cultural research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.