Are Germans dour, Brits reserved, and Americans brash? Popular wisdom says yes - and, even if most people would take these stereotypes with a pinch of salt, few of us could claim to be immune to them. But what does the evidence say?
An international team of psychologists led by Robert McCrae says that it's bunk: The Inaccuracy of National Character Stereotypes To measure perceived national character, citizens of 26 countries were asked to rate the personality of 'typical' people from their culture. To see how accurate these stereotypes were, McCrae et al compared them to published survey data on the personality of individuals from those countries (self-report and also observer-report). All of these measures used the Big Five factor model of personality, or "OCEAN", where the main dimensions are: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. McCrae et al also examined the facets or subcomponents of each of those traits. ...
