Different Nationalities Really Have Different Personalities

文/克里斯琴·贾勒特 译/唐一辰 审订/肖维青

Different Nationalities Really Have Different Personalities

文/克里斯琴·贾勒特 译/唐一辰 审订/肖维青

Each country may have its own unique traits, behaviours, and attitudes—but they rarely match the national stereotypes.各国人在性格、行为和态度上都有独特之处，但这些独特之处与民族成见却少有关联。

Whether it’s the caricature1caricature夸张性描述。of the introverted2introverted性格内向的。English, the brash3brash自以为是的。Americans or the industrious4industrious勤劳的。Japanese,national stereotypes are easy to come by5come by得到；获得。. But do countries really have their own distinct personalities?

[2]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.

[3]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 mark6be/fall wide of the mark远离目标，离谱。. Several large international studies have now documented cross-cultural differences in average personality. One of the most extensive was published in 2005 by Robert McCrae and 79 collaborators around the world, who profiled more than 12,000 college students from 51 cultures. Based on averaging these personality profiles,the researchers were able to present an“aggregate”7aggregate总和的，合计的。trait score for each of the cultures.

[4]The highest scoring cultural groups for Extraversion8extraversion外向性。on average were Brazilians, French Swiss and the Maltese,while the lowest scoring were Nigerians,Moroccans and Indonesians. The highest scoring for Openness to Experience were German-speaking Swiss, Danes and Germans, while the lowest scoring on average were Hong Kong Chinese, Northern Irish and Kuwaitis. The study also uncovered variation between countries in the three other main personality traits of Neuroticism9neuroticism神经质；具有不稳定、焦虑及有侵略性等特征。, Conscientiousness10conscientiousness尽责；凭良心办事。and Agreeableness.

[5]Of course, it’s important to remem-ber that these are averages and there is a lot of overlap11overlap（范围方面的）重叠部分。between countries; there are undoubtedly a lot of people in Indonesia who are more extraverted than some from Brazil. There are also complications12complication使更复杂化（或更困难）的事物。and controversies around how to interpret these kind of results, such as the huge challenge of ensuring that personality questionnaires are translated to mean exactly the same thing to participants in all the different cultures, and that the samples in each culture are truly representative of that culture. In addition, there are risks of inferring too much about an entire country from a single sample.

[6]Consider another huge study of cross-cultural personality differences, led by David Schmitt at Bradley University and published in 2007, that involved over 17,000 people from 56 different nations around the world. Again, between-nation variation emerged in average personality.For example, the highest average scores for trait Neuroticism were found in Japan and Argentina while the lowest were found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Slovenia. Meanwhile, the highest scoring nations for Agreeableness,on average, were the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Jordan, while Japan and Lithuania scored the lowest.

[7]But while differences in personality do exist between cultures and nations,they often don’t match up with the wide-ly held stereotypes of national character.You probably have an idea in your head of what the average personality profile is of people from the various cultures that you’re familiar with. Take the trait of Extraversion. Here in the UK most of us would probably say that the average English person is far more reserved than the average American. But these kinds of national personality stereotypes are rarely accurate. In fact, the 51-culture study described above found that average Extraversion was higher in England than in the USA; the 56-culture study found that Americans edged13edge险胜。it, but with very little difference between the two countries.

[8]What could explain these national differences in average personality? The reasons are likely partly genetic, perhaps to do with historic migration patterns. For example, people strong on traits related to risk-taking and openness might be more likely to migrate, so these traits are likely to be over-represented in regions that were historically on the frontier of exploration; conversely, an isolated population is likely to become more introverted and inward focused through the generations as bolder individuals are more likely to choose to emigrate.

[9]A recent series of studies conducted with islanders resident in several isolated Italian archipelagos put these principles to the test. Andrea Ciani at the University of Padova and his colleagues found that islanders are less extraverted and openminded, but more conscientious and emotionally stable, than their mainland neighbours located 10 to 40 miles away.This is likely because, over time, bolder more open-minded individuals have chosen to emigrate away from the islands.

[10]Undoubtedly environmental factors also play a part: for instance,there’s evidence that traits associated with extraversion and openness are lower in regions where risk of infection is greater,which makes evolutionary sense in terms of reducing the spread of disease. Experts have also speculated that differences in climate could in fl uence regional differences in personality, such as cold regions with a lack of sunlight contributing to greater emotional instability.

[11]Even population density could play a part. Recent evidence suggests that living in a crowded environment leads us to adopt a more future-oriented mindset, such as investing more in longterm relationships, perhaps in part as a way to deal with increased competition with other people.

[12]Given how important personality traits are to life outcomes at the individual level—from wellbeing to career success—this issue of national differences in personality is arguably more than a lively conversation topic for a dinner party. Any cross-cultural differences in trait levels at the national level might contribute to, or at least re fl ect, international differences in such things as wealth, happiness, corruption, innovation, and health.

[13]Personality differences around the world might even have contributed to the emergence of different political systems.Last year, Joan Barceló at Washington University in St Louis compared countries’average personality trait levels with their political systems and found a correlation14correlation 关联，相互关系。:countries with higher average trait Openness tended to have more democratic institutions, an association that held even after factoring out other relevant in fl uences such as economic development. Although we can’t conclude that more of this personality trait in a national population causes democracy (the causal direction could fl ow the other way, for example), Barceló believes this is certainly plausible and that part of the reason is that open-minded citizens are more motivated by selfexpression and less by traditional values.

[14]At the very least, the fi ndings on international differences in personality could be another reason for us to question our assumptions about other countries’ attitudes and behaviours. ■

我们说英国人含蓄内向、美国人自以为是、日本人勤劳肯干，诚然有一定夸张的成分，但像这样的民族成见还是俯拾皆是的。各民族当真有其独特的性格吗？

[2]心理学家对来自不同国家的人进行了统一的性格测试，各国人数少则数百，多则数千，结果显示，不同文化的人群平均得分的确不同。换言之，一个民族的普遍性格确实有别于其他民族。

[3]重要的是，民族之间所存在的这些普遍个性差异并非与我们固有的民族成见完全相同。我们往往会在一些民族的典型性格定位上达成共识，这些民族当然也包括我们自己的民族，然而研究却表明，我们的这些臆断多半错得离谱。国际上一些大型研究已经证实了文化间的个性差异，其中包括由罗伯特·麦克雷与全球各地79位合作者共同完成的一项研究，该研究样本容量极大，发表于2005年，描述了来自51个文化区域的12000多位大学生的性格特征。通过计算这些性格特征的平均值，研究人员最终得出各文化的“总体”个性分值。

[4]在外向性格方面，平均得分最高的文化群体是巴西人、法裔瑞士人和马耳他人，而平均得分最低的则是尼日利亚人、摩洛哥人和印度尼西亚人。在经验开放性方面，得分最高的是讲德语的瑞士人、丹麦人和德国人，而得分最低的则是中国香港人、北爱尔兰人和科威特人。此外，在神经质、责任感以及随和性方面，该研究也显示了各国所存在的差异。

[5]当然，不要忘了，这些结果都是基于平均值。各国民众的性格也存在交集，不少印度尼西亚人肯定要比某些巴西人更为外向。另外，对于结果的阐释，也存在一些复杂因素与争议，例如，多语版本的个性测试问卷要确保不同文化背景的测试者得到完全相同的信息，并确保测试者真正能代表自身所在的文化，达到这两点很难。再者，如果仅靠单一样本便对某国的国民性妄加推断，研究结果未必准确。

[6]再看另一项关于文化间的个性差异的大型研究，该研究发表于2007年，由布拉德利大学的戴维·施密特主导，涉及全球56个国家，调查人数超过17000人。研究结果依然显示，民众普遍的个性特点反映出民族差异。例如，针对神经质人格所做的测试中，平均分最高的是日本人和阿根廷人，而平均分最低的人群则集中于刚果民主共和国和斯洛文尼亚。而在随和性上，刚果（金）人和约旦人平均得分最高，而日本人和立陶宛人的平均得分则最低。

[7]尽管在不同文化下，不同民族之间，人们的性格存在差异，但这些差异往往并非大家固有的民族成见。对于一些你所熟悉的文化，你脑海中或许已经可以勾勒出该文化人群特有的性格形象。以外向型性格为例，大多数英国人可能会觉得自己国家的人一般都比美国人要保守得多。然而这些关于民族性格的成见很少准确。实际上，在上文所提及的涉及51种文化的研究中，英国人的外向程度普遍比美国人高。而涉及56种文化的那项研究则显示，美国人的外向程度略微高于英国人，但两国间的总体差异并不大。

[8]如何解释各民族群体在性格上所存在的差异？也许这在一定程度上与遗传有关。民族个性也可能与历史上的民族迁徙方式有关。举例来说，喜欢冒险、性格开放的人更有移民的倾向，因此在一些历史上处于边界的地区，开朗、敢于冒险的性格往往表现得比较突出。反之，正因为胆大的人都移居他所，在原本相对封闭的内陆地区，剩下的人群世代定居，性格也会变得更加内向保守。

[9]最近，帕多瓦大学的安德里亚·恰尼与同事开展了一系列研究来考证这种观点，他们选择了一些与大陆隔绝的意大利群岛，对岛上的居民进行了测试。结果发现，岛上居民的性格并不如10—40英里之外的大陆邻居外向开放，但他们做事更认真负责，而且情绪波动较少。这可能是因为，长期以来，那些敢于冒险、思想开放的人都已经离岛移居了。

[10]当然，环境因素也有一定的作用。有证据表明，在传染病多发的地区，外向开放的性格特征较不明显，从物种进化角度看，这有助于减少疾病的传播。专家推测，气候差异也可能造成不同地区人群的性格差异，例如，光照稀少的寒冷地区更容易导致人们情绪上的波动。

[11]甚至连人口密度也有一定的作用。近期有证据表明，如果生活在人口密集的环境中，我们更容易放眼未来，例如会更努力维系长期关系，或许是为了应对愈加激烈的竞争。

[12]性格特征不容小觑，关乎一个人的幸福乃至事业的成功。因此，关于民族间个性差异的探讨可能不仅仅是一个茶余饭后的热门话题。在国家层面，任何文化间的个性差异都可能促进或至少反映了国与国之间在财富、幸福感、腐败、创新以及健康等方面的差异。

[13]世界各国人的性格差异还可能催生不同的政治制度。去年，华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校的琼·巴塞洛对比了各国民众的普遍个性与其政治体系，她发现：开放个性特征较显著的国家，其制度往往更为民主。即使排除了经济发展等其他相关影响因素，这一关联依然成立。虽然我们不能就此断定，思想开放的国民越多，国家的制度就越民主（两者之间的因果关系也可能倒置：国家制度越民主，国民就越开放），然而巴塞洛所提出的这种关联多多少少有些道理，她觉得思想开放的公民会更多地表达自己内心的想法，而很少受到传统价值的约束。

[14]最起码，关于这种全球范围的个性差异的发现可以让我们反思之前对别国行为和态度的臆断吧。 □

不同民族，不同个性

ByChristian Jarrett

（译者单位：上海外国语大学）