National character examples
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Different nationalities really have different personalities
Features correspondent
Each country may have its own unique traits, behaviours, and attitudes – but they rarely match the national stereotypes.
Whether it’s the caricature of the introverted English, the brash Americans or the industrious Japanese, national stereotypes are easy to come by. But do countries really have their own distinct personalities?
When psychologists have given the same personality test to hundreds or thousands of people from different nations, they have indeed found that the average scores tend to come out differently across cultures. In other words, the average personality in one country often really is different from the average personality in another.
Crucially, these average differences in personality between nations are not the same as the stereotypes we hold. Although we tend to agree with each other about what the typical personality type is in a given country, including our own, the research suggests that our assumptions are often wide of the mark.
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National character
Common personality characteristics of a nation
National character refers to a characteristic common personality of the people of a nation.[1][2] National character has been studied within the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology.[3] The question of whether analysis and descriptions of national characters express meaningful content, as opposed to comprising inaccurate stereotypes, is controversial.[4][5] Most of the research on national character has focused on the content, stability, accuracy, and origins of national character stereotypes.[2] A 1985 cross-national study of national character found fundamental differences between the psychological profiles of the respective national populations of France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, and the United States.[2] Some studies comparing national character stereotypes with assessed personality traits find a moderate relationship between stereotype and reality, while others have found perceptions of national character to b
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Published in final edited form as: Science. 2005 Oct 7;310(5745):96–100. doi: 10.1126/science.1117199
A Terracciano
1National Institute on Aging, NIH, DHHS, Gerontology Research Center, 5600 Nathan Shock Drive, Baltimore, MD 21224
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A M Abdel-Khalek
2Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kuwait, P.O. Box 68168, 71962, Kaifan, Kuwait
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N Ádám
3Faculty of Education and Psychology, Lóránd Eötvös University, 1075 Budapest, Kazinczy u. 23-25, Hungary
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L Adamovová
4Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dubravska cesta 9, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 813 64
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C-k Ahn
5Department of Education, Pusan National University, 30 Jangjeon-dong, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 609-735, Republic of Korea
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H-n Ahn
6Department of Psycholog
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