Mechanisms of the national character stereotype: How people in six ...

European Journal of Personality 

Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009) 

Published online in Wiley InterScience 

(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/per.719 

Mechanisms of the National Character Stereotype: How 

People in Six Neighbouring Countries of Russia Describe 

Themselves and the Typical Russian 

ANU REALO 1 *,JÜRI ALLIK 1 , JAN-ERIK LÖNNQVIST 2 , 

MARKKU VERKASALO 2 , ANNA KWIATKOWSKA 3 , LIISI KÖÖTS 4 , 

MAIE KÜTT 4 , RASA BARKAUSKIENE 5 , ALFREDAS LAURINAVICIUS 6 , 

KONSTANTIN KARPINSKI 7 , ALEXANDR KOLYSHKO 7 , 

SANDRA SEBRE 8 and VIESTURS RENGE 8 

1 University of Tartu and The Estonian Center of Behavioral and Health Sciences, Estonia 

2 University of Helsinki, Finland 

3 Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland 

4 University of Tartu, Estonia 

5 Vilnius University, Lithuania 

6 Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania 

7 Grodno State University, Belarus 

8 University of Latvia, Latvia 

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. 

INTRODUCTION 

Personality psychologists are interested in individual differences—as, indeed, is the 

average lay person. To function successfully in the social environment, it is important to 

*Correspondence to: Anu Realo, Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78, Tartu 50410, Estonia. 

E-mail: anu.realo@ut.ee 

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 

Received 3 December 2008 

Revised 21 February 2009 

Accepted 21 February 2009

230 A. Realo et al. 

know whether we can trust a salesperson, how a new boss will react to our jokes, and 

what response we could expect from a friend in a critical situation. But people are 

inclined to describe groups of people, a whole nation for example, as if they also had a 

distinctive set of personality traits. For example, it is widely believed that Finns are silent, 

British people are reserved and Italians are emotionally expressive. If such beliefs prevail 

among members of a social group, these viewpoints are usually referred to as stereotypes. 

National stereotypes, either favourable or unfavourable, are often reflected in jokes and 

travellers’ stories; they appear to be most enduring and it is difficult to convince those who 

believe in them that Finns, for instance, are in fact rather talkative or that British people are 

actually quite jovial and outgoing. Thus, nations and ethnic groups, just like individuals, 

are perceived to have a distinct character, which can be described in terms of personality 

traits. 

Researchers have suspected that, although some stereotypes may be unfounded, in 

most cases they exaggerate some personality characteristics that do in fact exist. 

According to the standard definition, ‘a stereotype is an exaggerated belief associated with 

a category’ (Allport, 1978/1954, p. 191). This definition implies that stereotypes, in 

general, have a ‘kernel of truth’. Thus, beliefs about a particular nation being punctual can 

be verified through observations of how accurate public clocks in the country are, or how 

accurate people in the country are in reporting the time on their watches (Levine, West, & 

Reis, 1980). Another possibility is to compare beliefs about the national character with 

assessed personality traits among members of the nation: the typical American is believed 

to be an achiever and Americans indeed score higher than some other nations on an 

achievement scale when they are asked to rate their own personality traits (Abate & 

Berrien, 1967). 

For that reason it was a surprising discovery that beliefs about national stereotypes 

generally do not correspond to aggregated personality traits (Terracciano et al., 2005). In 

Terracciano et al.’s (2005) study, respondents from 49 nations described the personality of a 

typical member of their nation (the ingroup). When mean national character profiles were 

compared with mean personality ratings of members of the same nations, in most cases 

there was no correlation between the two profiles. This result seems to imply that the 

‘kernel of truth’ theory may be not universally applicable, at least in terms of national 

character stereotypes. Clearly troubled by this finding, some researchers have argued that 

national stereotypes cannot be compared with aggregate self-report or observer-report 

data, as it may be the self- or other-ratings, not the stereotype ratings, that are biased and 

invalid (Ashton, 2007; Heine, Buchtel, & Norenzayan, 2008; Perugini & Richetin, 2007). It 

was also proposed, as a theoretical possibility, that stereotypes about the character of other 

nations are accurate, but that stereotypes people hold about their own nation are not 

(Robins, 2005). Although there are many plausible explanations for the fact that 

stereotypes do not reflect aggregated tendencies to think, feel and behave in a characteristic 

way, one obvious consequence of many of these explanations is that exaggeration of typical 

traits may not be the only mechanism through which national stereotypes develop. 

However, knowledge about alternative mechanisms is still very limited, mainly due to the 

lack of empirical studies (McCrae, Terracciano, Realo, & Allik, 2007; Terracciano & 

McCrae, 2007). This study aims to take a step further towards better understanding the 

mechanisms of stereotype formation by studying national character stereotypes in six 

geographically close, yet culturally and historically diverse countries around the Baltic 

Sea. More specifically, we will examine both the stability and consistency of national 

character as well as potential mechanisms of national stereotypes. 

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009) 

DOI: 10.1002/per

National character stereotypes 231 

Stability of stereotypes 

In a seminal study, Princeton University students were asked to select five personality 

traits, from a list of 84, that in their opinion best described 10 different ethnic and national 

groups (Katz & Braly, 1933). The results demonstrated that students held distinct beliefs 

about each of the ethnic groups and that there was a relatively high degree of agreement 

between different judges. Several replications and extensions of the Princeton trilogy 

(Gilbert, 1951; Karlins, Coffman, & Walters, 1969; Katz & Braly, 1933) over the following 

60 years have shown that it takes decades to change the content of national stereotypes 

(Madon et al., 2001). These studies, along with more informal observations, seem to 

suggest that national stereotypes are very stable over time and even significant events in the 

world political landscape do not radically change their content, in the short term, at least. 

For example, perceptions of the ‘typical American’ from 49 cultures around the world 

before and after the Iraq invasion changed very little, even in countries like Lebanon, 

situated very close to the site of the invasion (Terracciano & McCrae, 2007). Except for 

these few studies; however, information about the temporal stability of national stereotypes 

is rather incomplete. One goal of this study is thus to fill the gap in our knowledge and 

provide more detail about the temporal stability of stereotypes. 

Mechanisms of stereotypes 

Since exaggeration of characteristic traits observed in the nation is not a likely device by 

which national stereotypes are created, it is necessary to look for other candidates. So far 

the search for a general principle explaining how national stereotypes come into being has 

not been very successful. In some cases it is possible to explain stereotypes through an 

association between particular aspects of the national character and some external 

variables. For example, a pervasive correlation between climatic warmth and perceived 

interpersonal warmth seems to suggest a metaphorical link between climate and 

personality: other things being equal, people from physically warmer environments are 

presumed to be friendlier than those who live in colder climates (McCrae et al., 2007). Such 

results, however, leave open the discouraging conclusion that a mechanism common to all 

national stereotypes may not exist (Terracciano & McCrae, 2007). Since national 

stereotypes are ‘pictures in our heads’ (Lippmann, 1922), they are acquired by individuals 

from a number of unpredictable sources, such as gossip, anecdotes, books and films. There 

may be multiple sources for the emergence of national stereotypes and their origin may 

vary from country to country (Terracciano & McCrae, 2007). 

Nevertheless, in some cases it is possible to deduce what the mechanisms of national 

character stereotype formation are. For example, Canadians describe themselves as 

agreeable, emotionally stable and timid—in direct opposition to how Americans are 

perceived by themselves and their neighbours: mostly arrogant, hostile and assertive 

(Terracciano et al., 2005). Since Canadians perceive their national character as an almost 

mirror image of the American character, it is very likely that Canadians have come up with 

this stereotype through opposition to what they think about Americans (cf. Adams, 2003). 

It is improbable that Americans define themselves in reference to Canadians; however, so 

their views must be of a different origin. It is also clear that neither national stereotype 

reflects actually observed personality dispositions, which were virtually identical for 

Canadians and Americans (Terracciano et al., 2005). Another well-documented case of 


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such stereotype polarization concerns beliefs about personality traits in North versus South 

Italy (McCrae et al., 2007). 

There are several reasons to believe that polarization of stereotypes in neighbouring 

cultures is quite common. It has been observed that stereotypes are often compensatory in 

nature: the target country is perceived as warmer but less competent when the comparison 

country is stereotypically high (vs. low) in competence and low (vs. high) in warmth 

(Kervyn, Yzerbyt, Demoulin, & Judd, 2008). In the same way, it can be expected that 

Russia, like the United States, has played a significant role in the formation of national 

stereotypes in countries bordering it. Besides being a dominant political and cultural force 

in the region, Russia is believed to belong to a completely different cultural tradition than 

many of its neighbours. Several political scientists, both before and since the collapse of the 

Soviet Union, have proposed the view that the cultural distinction between Russia and its 

more Western neighbours is insurmountable, rooted in the incompatibility of two different 

types of civilization (Huntington, 1993). For this reason, Russia is often perceived by its 

neighbours not only as a dominant political power but as a constant threat to the existing 

cultural traditions of these countries. In Estonia, one of Russia’s neighbouring nations, for 

instance, there is a popularly held belief that Estonians are passionately individualistic 

(Realo, 1998, 2003). Such a belief; however, seems to be based on a comparison with 

Russians, who are usually portrayed as quite collectivistic (Realo, 1998). In a similar vein, 

studies have shown that when asked about the national character stereotypes of six ethnic 

groups (Estonians, Jews, Latvians, Germans, Finns and Russians), Estonian students depict 

Russians as the antithesis of Estonians—Estonians are seen as selfish, superior, ironic, 

conscientious, intelligent and honest, whereas Russians are described as helpful, 

sympathetic, friendly, but also less conscientious and not particularly smart (Valk, 1998). 

It is likely that most national stereotypes are acquired by word of mouth, through 

everyday experience. When a large nation has played a dominant role in the political and 

everyday life of its neighbours, it is expected that this pre-eminence will have left some 

traces in the way in which neighbours think about themselves as well as their influential 

neighbours. For example, it has been observed that neighbours (Poles, Finns, Hungarians 

and Czechs) who have been invaded by the Russians see them both as less modern and less 

self-controlled than they are seen elsewhere (Boster & Maltseva, 2006). It is not entirely 

improbable, furthermore, that these stereotypes about their powerful neighbour are 

somehow reflected in their own national stereotypes. Indeed, the nations living on shores of 

the Baltic Sea not only share some common attributes between their otherwise very 

different languages, such as vowel harmony (Jakobson, 1931/1962), but also a history of 

sustained contact with the Russians. There are sharp differences among neighbouring 

countries of Russia on the shores of the Baltic Sea in terms of everyday contact with 

Russians; however, due to clear differences in the ethnic composition of the various 

populations. For example, Russians constitute 29 and 26% of population in Latvia and 

Estonia, respectively, while in Poland and Finland the Russian population is less than 1%. 

But of course, contact with Russians in the countries in our study is not limited to their 

share in the population. Poland, for instance, has a long history of shopping and transit 

tourism, with large numbers of sellers and buyers coming mostly from Russia (as well as 

from Belarus and the Ukraine). As for Finland, over 850 000 Russian tourists visited 

Finland in 2007. Finally, Belarus, out of six countries in our study has the closest 

associations with Russia—‘the preponderant Russophile orientation in Belarus stems from 

the Orthodox cultural tradition, Russia being the prime cultural donor of Belarus, and 

Russia’s pre-eminent role in shaping Belarus’ statehood’ (Ioffe, 2003, p. 1267). 


DOI: 10.1002/per


Aims of this study 

The main aim of this study to examine how people in six neighbouring countries of Russia 

describe themselves and the typical Russian. More specifically, we focussed on the following 

research questions: (1) Do national character stereotypes reflect mean personality 

traits? (2) Are stereotypes about the character of other nations accurate? (3) How the intensity 

of contact, both actual and symbolic, has affected the national character stereotypes of 

Russia’s neighbours located around the Baltic Sea? (4) How stable are stereotypes? 

Although results showing that national character stereotypes did not correspond to mean 

personality trait levels in 49 countries are rather convincing (Terracciano et al., 2005), it is 

important to note that in Terracciano et al.’s (2005) study, national character was measured 

by the 30-item National Character Survey (NCS), while personality was rated with the 240- 

item version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992). While 

there is a strong conceptual correspondence between these two instruments, there is no 

information on how comparable the measures are when administered with different 

instructions. In order to eliminate possible biases inherent in particular measurement 

instruments, it would be necessary to measure national character and self-rated personality 

traits with exactly the same instrument. This is one of the main research strategies of this 

study: we use the same measuring instrument, specifically the NCS, to measure how people 

perceive both a typical member of their nation and a typical Russian, as well as how they 

rate their own personality. 

Finally, as mentioned above, we were interested in studying the temporal stability of 

stereotypes. As argued above, it has been shown by several researchers (Madon et al., 2001; 

Terracciano & McCrae, 2007) that national character stereotypes appear to be relatively 

durable phenomena. Yet, it should be noted that the data collection interval in Terracciano 

and McCrae’s study (2007) was only 3–6 months. In this study, we had the opportunity to 

examine the stability of stereotypes in two countries—Estonia and Poland—across a time 

interval of 5 years, by comparing our data with those reported by Terracciano et al. (2005). 

METHOD 

Participants 

Altogether, 1320 college students in the social sciences and the humanities (933 women, 

385 men and 2 participants who did not report their gender, mean age ¼ 22.1, SD ¼ 3.5) 

and 128 working adults (77 women and 51 men, mean age ¼ 31.6, SD ¼ 7.3) from six 

neighbouring countries in the Baltic Sea region (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, 

Poland and Belarus) participated in this research. All these countries have a border with 

Russia: Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Belarus border with mainland Russia, whereas 

Lithuania and Poland border with the Russian enclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast. All 

participants volunteered for the study. Students were assessed in group sessions in lecture 

rooms of their respective university or college, except for the Finnish sample, which 

completed the questionnaire online. Working adults were tested individually or in small 

groups at their workplace. Data were collected in spring 2008. 

Finnish sample 

The Finnish sample consisted of 286 undergraduate (social science) students (247 women 

and 39 men) from the Universities of Helsinki, Turku, Jyväskylä, Tampere and Joensuu. 


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The mean age of participants was 24.4 years (SD ¼ 5.8). The Finnish version of the 

questionnaire was administered over the Internet. 

Estonian sample 

The Estonian sample consisted of two subsamples: students and working adults from an 

Estonian real estate company. Two-hundred and one Estonian undergraduate students (129 

women and 72 men) enrolled in various introductory psychology classes at the University 

of Tartu participated in this project. The mean age of the students was 21.2 years 

(SD ¼ 2.3). The working adult sample consisted of 74 individuals (44 women and 30 men) 

with a mean age of 33.8 years (SD ¼ 7.2). The instructions were given in Estonian and the 

participants completed the Estonian version of the questionnaire. 

Latvian sample 

The Latvian sample consisted of 200 undergraduate students (158 women and 42 men; 

21.0% males; mean age ¼ 22.1 years, SD ¼ 3.0) in the social sciences and the humanities 

from the University of Latvia and of 54 working adults (33 women and 21 men; mean 

age ¼ 28.5 years, SD ¼ 6.5) from the Latvian office of the same (Estonian) real estate 

company used in the Estonian sample. The language of instructions and of the 

questionnaire itself was Latvian. 

Lithuanian sample 

The Lithuanian sample consisted of 204 students (110 women, 93 men and 1 individual 

who did not report his/her gender) from the Mykolas Romeris University. Participants were 

students in the social sciences, with a mean age 20.6 years (SD ¼ 0.9), ranging between 

19 and 24 years. They were instructed, and completed the questionnaire, in Lithuanian. 

Polish sample 

Participants in the Polish sample were 229 undergraduate students (189 women, 39 men 

and 1 respondent who did not report his/her gender) from the Warsaw School of Social 

Sciences and Humanities Psychology and the University of Bialystok. Participants were 

students of psychology and the educational sciences, with a mean age 22.2 years 

(SD ¼ 2.0), ranging between 19 and 32 years. The language of instructions and the 

questionnaire itself was Polish. 

Belarusian sample 

The Belarusian sample consisted of 200 students (100 women and 100 men) from the 

Grodno State University. Participants’ ages ranged between 18 and 26, with a mean age of 

20.9 years (SD ¼ 1.5). Participants were students of the social sciences, linguistics and 

economics. The instructions were given in Russian and the participants completed the 

Russian version of the questionnaire. 

Finally, for purposes of comparison, we used data from the Russian Character and 

Personality Survey (RCPS), which involved 40 universities and colleges from across the 

Russian Federation (Allik et al., 2009). Three thousand seven hundred and five participants 

with a mean age of 20.7 years (SD ¼ 2.9 years, 75% of them women) were asked to rate a 

typical Russian living in their region on the NCS scales. We used data from this and an 

additional group of participants (total N ¼ 10 672) which also used NCS to rate their own 

personality. Both groups of respondents were given similar instructions as in this study. 


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Questionnaire and instructions 

The NCS (Terracciano et al., 2005) consists of 30 bipolar items intended to parallel the 

facets of the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992). For example, the Neuroticism facet, 

depression, was assessed by asking how likely, on a five-point scale, the typical Finn was to 

be depressed, sad and pessimistic versus contented and optimistic. The NCS was already 

available in Estonian, Polish and Russian (Terracciano et al., 2005) and was translated into 

Finnish, Latvian and Lithuanian for the purposes of this study by bilingual colleagues. 

Translators were instructed to choose words or phrases that best conveyed the intended 

construct, using the description of the 30 facets from the NEO-PI-R manual for reference 

(Costa & McCrae, 1992). Robert R. McCrae, one of the two authors of the NCS, examined 

independent back-translations into English, and any items that appeared problematic were 

reconsidered by the translators. 

The questionnaire was administered in three steps to assure that respondents did not 

know that they were rating two target nations and themselves before they started. In each 

sample, we asked respondents to complete the NCS by, firstly, describing a typical member 

of their own nation (e.g. ‘Finns are likely ...’). When everyone had finished, respondents 

were asked to turn to the next page and to write ‘Russians are likely to be ...’ at the top of 

the page and to complete the survey just as they did before. Finally, participants were once 

more asked to turn to the next page, to write ‘Iam...’ at the top of the page and to rate their 

own personality using the same set of 30 NCS items. NCS scores for the five factors were 

calculated as the sum of the six relevant facets. 

Internal consistency 

Analyses of the 1448 individual responses from the total sample indicated that Cronbach’s 

a for the five factor scales of the NCS ingroup ratings were .63, .69, .63, .75 and .73 for 

Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O), Agreeableness (A) and 

Conscientiousness (C), respectively. For the ratings of typical Russians, Cronbach’s a of 

the abovementioned five factor scales were .45, .69, .66, .71 and .76. Finally, the reliability 

coefficients of self-ratings were .67, .74, .56, .63 and .74, respectively. These reliability 

coefficients, except for one, are acceptable for a six-item scale. Only one of the scales— 

Neuroticism in the ratings of typical Russians—had a relatively low internal consistency 

coefficient (a ¼ .45). The main problem occurred with facet N5: Impulsiveness, which had 

a virtually zero-correlation with the other five items on the N scale. As previously found in 

Russian samples using the NEO-PI-R self- and other-ratings (Allik & McCrae, 2004; 

Konstabel, Realo, & Kallasmaa, 2002; Martin, Costa, Oryol, Rukavishnikov, & Senin, 

2002), N5 was more strongly related with Extraversion (r ¼.23, p < .000) and 

Conscientiousness (r ¼ .36, p < .000) than with Neuroticism (r ¼.04, n.s.). 

Factor structure 

A principal components analysis followed by a varimax normalized rotation was 

conducted on the 30 items for the entire sample of 1448 subjects for the (1) ingroup ratings, 

(2) ratings of typical Russians and (3) self-ratings. For ingroup ratings, five factors had 

eigenvalues greater than one, explaining 48.4% of the total variance. For the ratings of a 

typical Russian and self-ratings, six factors had eigenvalues above one but both a scree-test 

and parallel analysis clearly indicated that five factors should be retained. The five-factor 

solution explained 47.8 and 47.9% of the variance for the ratings of typical Russians and 

self-ratings, respectively. In order to examine how well the NCS factor solutions replicated 


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the NCS structure, as found in previous research (Terracciano et al., 2005), exploratory 

principal component analyses were followed by Procrustes targeted rotations and by the 

computation of an index of factorial agreement across the cultural groups (van de Vijver & 

Leung, 1997). More specifically, the varimax normalized factor loadings were targeted 

towards the factor structure of the NCS ingroup ratings obtained on the international 

sample of 3989 respondents from 49 different nations (Terracciano et al., 2005). After the 

target rotations were carried out, the factorial agreement with the international data was 

estimated for all three conditions. The mean coefficients of congruence between the fivefactor 

structures of the international data and our sample for Neuroticism, Extraversion, 

Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were .91, .91, .70, .95 and 

.98 (ingroup ratings), .93, .94, .92, .96 and .96 (ratings of a typical Russian) and .91, .88, 

.90, .96 and .95 (self-ratings), respectively. Thus, nearly all congruence coefficients— 

except for two—were above .90, thereby providing a reasonable replication of the 

expected factor structure. But even these two somewhat lower coefficients of congruence 

do not suggest total randomness as the means of the distributions of factor congruencies 

based on Procrustes rotations of randomly permuted data range from .32 to .34 for the five 

factors of personality (McCrae, Zonderman, Costa, Bond, & Paunonen, 1996). 

Interjudge reliability 

Interjudge reliability between single raters showed modest agreement between individual 

judgments of ingroup national character, with coefficients ranging from .02 (C1: 

Competence) to .38 (Agreeableness) for ingroup ratings with a median value of .14 for the 

30 facets. This coefficient is slightly lower than what was reported by Terracciano and 

colleagues (2005) in their study on national character in 49 countries (median ¼ .17). By 

aggregating the judgments of an average of 181 respondents per sample, reliability coefficients 

ranged from .95 (Conscientiousness) to .99 (Agreeableness). Thus, aggregation 

across a large sample of judges yielded highly reliable values, supporting the perception 

these are shared by the group as a whole. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated 

according to the following formula: reliability of (a) single raters [ICC(1,1) ¼ MS R MS W / 

MS W /MS R þ (k 1) MS W ] and of the (b) culture–average ratings [ICC(1,k) ¼ (MS R 

MS W )/MS R ], where k is the mean number of raters per culture, MS R is the mean square for 

facets and MS W is the mean square for residual sources of variance of an ANOVA model 

with cultures as the independent variable (McGraw & Wong, 1996; Terracciano et al., 2005). 

Analytic strategy 

In this paper we are mostly interested in agreement of cultures across trait profiles, not in 

agreement on traits or in correlations for individual traits across cultures. Any two profiles 

may be similar not only because their distinctive features are well matched but also because 

they both reflect an average profile. In order to eliminate or reduce the component common 

to all ratings irrespective of particular instruction, usually called the concept of 

‘generalized other’ (Cronbach, 1955), all NCS stereotype scores (i.e. mean ratings of a 

typical ingroup member and of a ‘typical Russian’) were converted into T-scores using 

mean scores of national character ratings from 3989 people in 49 different cultures 

(Terracciano et al., 2005). Unfortunately, there are no world norms for self-reports on the 

NCS. Therefore, self-ratings were standardized using the seven-culture unweighted means 

(total N ¼ 12 120) to compensate for the very large Russian sample. Thus, the mean values 

of self-ratings on the NCS items were transformed into a distinctive profile which show 


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how each individual culture is above or below average of the seven studied cultures 

(cf. Furr, 2008). 

Profile agreement, if not otherwise said, was calculated as the intraclass correlation 

(ICC) across the 30 facets, using the double-entry method (Griffin & Gonzalez, 1995). 

Double-entry intraclass correlations are similar to Pearson correlations, but they are 

sensitive to differences in profile elevation as well as shape (McCrae, 2008). The p-value is 

based on the non-doubled n of 30. 

Abbreviations 

Throughout the paper we use the following system of abbreviations: BLR ¼ Belarus; 

EST ¼ Estonia; FIN ¼ Finland; LAT ¼ Latvia; LIT ¼ Lithuania; POL ¼ Poland; RUS ¼ 

Russia; self ¼ self ratings. In abbreviation pairs, the first part indicates the country of the 

judges. Number 2 added to Estonia and Latvia indicates adult samples. The second part 

refers to the target. If this is a country code, then the instruction was to describe a typical 

person from this country. If it is ‘self’ then participants were instructed to evaluate their 

own personality. For example, POL_RUS means that Polish participants rated a typical 

Russian and LAT2_self means that adult Latvians assessed their own personality. 

RESULTS 

Using unstandardized scores, we performed an ANOVA with cultural group as an 

independent variable (with student and adult samples being combined for Estonia and 

Latvia) for each dimension in three different conditions (i.e. ingroup ratings, perceptions of 

typical Russians and self-ratings). To estimate the effect size, we used the partial Eta 

squared (h 2 ), which is computed as the ratio of the effect variance (variance between 

cultures) to the sum of the effect and error variance (variance within cultures). The 

proportion of variance that can be attributed to the effect of culture varied from 8.48% 

(Conscientiousness) to 35.00% (Agreeableness) with a median value of 20.47% for 

ingroup ratings and from 4.18% (Agreeableness) to 17.82% (Openness) with a median 

value of 11.59% for ratings of typical Russians. In case of self-ratings, the proportion of 

variance that is attributable to the effect of culture varied from 0.58% (Openness) to 6.61% 

(Extraversion) with a median value of 3.52%. A similar estimate was found in the 

Personality Profiles of Cultures (PPOC) study of 51 cultures (McCrae & Terracciano, 

2008). Based on those results, it can be concluded that national character stereotypes about 

one’s own nation are particularly sensitive to respondents’ cultural background. In other 

words, differences in ingroup stereotype ratings between six cultural samples were six time 

bigger than differences in self-ratings of personality. 

NCS mean ratings 

NCS mean ratings in T-scores of a typical ingroup member and of a ‘typical Russian’ as 

well as self-report personality ratings for five personality domains are given in Table 1. In 

all eight samples, respondents saw a typical member of their own nation as high in 

Conscientiousness and low in Extraversion as compared to international average 

(cf. Terracciano et al., 2005). Respondents from all nations, except Belarus, also believed 

that their compatriots are open to new experience below the world average. Russians, on the 

other hand, were quite uniformly seen as high in Extraversion and Openness to Experience but 

low in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness as compared to international norms. 


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Table 1. National Character Survey mean ratings of the ingroup, Russians, and self-ratings. Intraclass correlations between ingroup ratings and self-ratings 

and between ingroup stereotype ratings and ratings of the typical Russian 

NCS mean ratings of the ingroup NCS mean ratings of Russians NCS mean self-ratings Intraclass Correlations 

Culture 

N E O A C N E O A C N E O A C ICC 1 ICC 2 ICC 3 ICC 4 

Belarus 45.87 48.63 53.68 57.39 54.59 46.89 51.94 54.69 47.93 50.73 46.98 49.78 51.10 53.03 51.55 .35 .11 .31 .81 

Estonia 

Students 50.41 44.68 46.65 47.81 53.69 51.85 54.68 52.59 47.16 46.86 50.62 49.58 49.80 49.27 48.04 .07 .65 .01 .25 

Working adults 49.25 44.63 46.63 48.34 54.78 51.92 54.99 52.68 49.60 46.36 46.37 49.26 45.43 49.64 51.14 .43 .77 .00 .21 

Finland 49.01 41.65 46.07 53.33 55.73 49.50 50.73 51.43 45.57 46.58 50.40 45.68 49.51 52.59 50.70 .44 .56 .09 .22 

Latvia 

Students 51.65 45.02 48.80 48.46 52.80 48.54 55.94 53.25 45.95 48.20 50.78 49.18 49.42 47.51 47.91 .07 .57 .06 .40 

Working adults 50.86 46.37 49.69 48.64 51.01 48.91 53.51 52.20 45.82 48.08 46.68 49.45 47.71 47.85 50.79 .17 .31 .09 .50 

Lithuania 54.12 46.78 47.50 45.87 51.93 47.70 51.84 48.23 46.51 46.86 50.80 53.24 49.37 46.93 49.53 .13 .13 .27 .06 

Poland 53.48 49.51 47.92 47.16 50.94 50.43 49.97 47.46 44.33 47.57 53.66 52.83 49.93 48.41 49.84 .39 .38 .39 .15 

Russia y 48.30 51.15 53.63 49.86 51.27 — — — — — 48.60 51.29 52.83 51.77 51.26 .52 — — — 

p < .05; 

p < .01; 

p < .001. 

y Data from Allik et al. (2009). 

All stereotype ratings (ingroup ratings and the ratings of a typical Russian) were standardized using international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005), self-ratings were standardized using 

the seven-culture unweighted means for self-reports (this study). N ¼ Neuroticism; E ¼ Extraversion; O ¼ Openness; A ¼ Agreeableness; C ¼ Conscientiousness; ICC 1 ¼ intraclass 

correlation between ingroup stereotype ratings and self-ratings (auto-stereotype accuracy); ICC 2 ¼ intraclass correlation between ingroup stereotype ratings and ratings of a typical 

Russian; ICC 3 ¼ intraclass correlation between Russians’ self-ratings (Allik et al., 2009) and ratings of a typical Russian (this study; hetero-stereotype accuracy); ICC 4 ¼ intraclass 

correlation between Russian ingroup stereotype ratings (Allik et al., 2009) and ratings of a typical Russian (this study). 


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Consistency and stability of stereotypes 

The following analysis demonstrates that national stereotypes are beliefs shared by 

different groups in the population and that they are relatively enduring. In Estonia and 

Latvia, samples of working adults were used as raters in addition to university students and 

yielded fairly similar profiles of both ingroup ratings and perceptions of typical Russians. 

In Estonia, the ICCs across the 30 facet profile elements were .94 and .95 for ingroup 

stereotype ratings and perceptions of Russians, respectively. In Latvia, the respective ICCs 

were .84 and .88 (all correlations significant at p < .001). These high correlations indicate 

that national character stereotypes of one’s own nation and of typical Russians are 

consistent across samples and not restricted to college students alone. 

Next, we had the opportunity to test the temporal stability of stereotypes for a period of 

5 years in two countries, namely Estonia and Poland. Both countries had participated in 2003 in 

the previous study in which auto-stereotypes were collected (Terracciano et al., 2005). The ICCs 

between the student samples from 2003 and 2008 (this study) were .93 and .80 for Estonia and 

Poland, respectively (p < .001). These relatively high correlations show that profiles of national 

character are relatively stable and have not changed considerably during the last 5 years. 

Similarity of profiles 

One of the most elegant ways to summarize similarities between different profiles is 

through multidimensional scaling (MDS). Figure 1 was created from pairwise distances 

Figure 1. Multidimensional scaling plot of stereotype and assessed personality profiles. BLR ¼ Belarus; EST ¼ 

Estonia; FIN ¼ Finland; LAT ¼ Latvia; LIT ¼ Lithuania; POL ¼ Poland; RUS ¼ Russia; N ¼ Neuroticism; 

E ¼ Extraversion. 


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between profiles, defined as one minus Cohen’s correlation across the 30 facet scores using 

the ordinal MDS algorithm (Roskam & Lingoes, 1981). Although the stress value was .14, 

increasing the number of dimensions did not alter the original two-dimensional 

representation. Since the actual orientation of axes in MDS is arbitrary, we rotated the 

whole configuration into the position that maximized the correlation of the dimensions 

with Neuroticism and Extraversion (cf. Allik & McCrae, 2004). 

The most conspicuous feature of Figure 1 is that personality profiles produced by ratings 

of the typical Russian (triangles) occupy the right side of the plain which corresponds to 

Extraversion. All other national character auto-stereotypes (squares), except for Russian 

sample, are on the left side of the figure. The average self-ratings circles tend to occupy the 

space between the profiles of national auto-stereotypes and the profiles of the typical 

Russian. Arrows connect self-ratings in each sample to the ratings of their typical ingroup 

member. In some cases the arrows are rather short (e.g. Belarus, Finland, Estonian adult 

sample and Russia) which demonstrates that there is a considerable similarity between selfrated 

personality and national character profiles. Except for the Belarusian and Russian 

samples, the average vector of arrows points to the left-upper corner of the figure which 

corresponds to higher levels of Introversion and/or Neuroticism. This indicates that a common 

feature of most national character stereotypes was that a typical ingroup member was 

perceived as more neurotic and/or less extraverted than their rating of their own personality. 

To what extent do NCS ingroup ratings correspond to the outgroup ratings of a typical 

Russian? The ICCs between NCS ingroup ratings and ratings of Russians ranged from 

.77 (p < .001) to .38 (p < .05) for Poland (see Table 1; ICC 2 ), the latter being the only 

positive correlation. Averaged across the eight samples, the median ICC between NCS 

ingroup ratings and ratings of a typical Russian was .44. As predicted, Estonians (both 

samples) but also Latvians (students) and Finns described their nation as a mirror image of 

Russians (or the other way around: that is, they described a typical Russian as a mirror 

image of a typical member of their own nation), perhaps in an effort to differentiate 

themselves and establish an independent national identity. To illustrate these findings, 

Figure 2a shows the ingroup ratings and ratings for Russians in the Estonian sample of 

working adults. Estonians, when compared to Russians, are seen as very introverted, low in 

openness and highly conscientious. A typical Pole, on the other hand (Figure 2b), is 

thought to be not so different from a typical Russian, especially in terms of Extraversion 

and Openness to Experience. As for the remaining three main personality traits, Poles see 

themselves as more neurotic, agreeable and conscientious compared to Russians. 

Do national character stereotypes reflect mean personality traits? 

To answer this question we compared national character ratings (auto-stereotypes) with 

mean self-ratings in the same culture. ICCs between national character auto-stereotypes 

and self-report profiles were all positive, ranging from .07 (Estonian and Latvian students) 

to .52 (Russia) with a median value of .35 (see Table 1; ICC 1 ). In four countries—Russia, 

Finland, Estonia (working adults) and Poland did people perceive a typical ingroup 

member similarly to how they rated their own personality ( p < .05). In Belarus, Latvia, 

Lithuania and among Estonian students there was no statistically significant correlation 

between auto-stereotypes and self-rated personality. Figure 3 provides an example of 

Finland where national character stereotypes appeared to be relatively accurate. Finns 

described themselves, as well as a typical Finn, as average in Neuroticism and high in 

Agreeableness. At the same time, a typical Finn was seen as introverted, closed to 

experience, yet more conscientious as compared to self-ratings. 


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Figure 2. National Character Survey ratings, T-scores for NCS factor and facet scales. (a) Solid lines show the 

NCS profile of a typical Estonian as judged by Estonians (working adults); dotted lines show the NCS profile of a 

typical Russian as judged by Estonians (working adults). The ICC between ingroup and outgroup ratings ¼ .77 

(p < .001). (b) Solid lines show the NCS profile of a typical Pole as judged by Polish students; dotted lines show 

the NCS profile of a typical Russian as judged by Poles. The ICC between ingroup and outgroup ratings ¼ .38 

(p < .05). Scores were standardized using international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005). 


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Figure 3. National Character Survey ratings, T-scores for NCS factor and facet scales. Solid lines show the NCS 

profile of a typical Finn (ingroup ratings); dotted lines show mean self-rated NCS profiles of the Finnish sample 

(self-ratings). The ICC between ingroup ratings and self-ratings ¼ .44 (p < .05). Ingroup rating scores were 

standardized using international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005), self-ratings were standardized using the sevenculture 

unweighted means for self-reports (this study). 

Are stereotypes about the character of other nations accurate? 

If stereotypes about the character of one’s own nation are sometime moderately accurate, 

how about the stereotypes about the character of other nations (Robins, 2005)? In this 

study, we were directly able to examine this question. How accurate are stereotypes of 

Russians in these six neighbouring countries of Russia? To answer this question, we first 

examined the degree of agreement between our samples on their perceptions of the 

character of a typical Russian. The ICCs across the 30 facet profile elements between 

samples were all positive, ranging from .13 (Belarus vs. Poland) to .95 (two Estonian 

samples). Only six correlations did not reach statistical significance and the median of the 

28 ICCs was high at .58 ( p < .001). This suggests that, in spite of some disagreement, there 

is a common belief about the Russian national character shared by the members of these 

six particular neighbouring countries of Russia. 

Having established agreement between our samples in the perception of the Russian 

national character, we next examined whether national character ratings of the typical 

Russian converged with the average self-reported personality scores of Russians. ICCs 

between Russian NCS self-report profiles (Allik et al., 2009) and perceptions of a typical 

Russian from the six different nations ranged from .39 (Poland, p < .05) to .31 (Belarus, 

ns) (see Table 1; ICC 3 ). Out of eight correlations, five were positive (median, .01), only one 

of them statistically significant at p < .05. Thus, we can conclude that, although 

representatives of the six nations have a relatively similar perception of the Russian 

national character, this perception does not converge with self-assessed personality traits of 


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Russians. In other words, stereotypes about the character of other nations appear to be less 

accurate than the character stereotypes about one’s own nation. 

If stereotypes about the Russian national character in these six neighbouring countries 

do not reflect the mean personality traits of Russians, we can pose a slightly different 

question: do perceptions of a typical Russian from the six countries converge with what 

Russians think about their own national character? Figure 4 shows mean NCS ingroup 

ratings by Russians and by the respondents in our study. The ICC across the 30 facet profile 

elements was positive and statistically significant, ICC ¼ .40, p < .05. Both sources depict 

a typical Russian as rather emotionally stable and extraverted, but there were notable 

differences in the case of the other three personality traits. In support of the ethnocentric 

bias hypothesis, Russians rated themselves as higher in Openness to Experience, and 

especially in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, than others rated them. In other words, 

members of the six neighbouring countries had a less favourable view of Russians than 

Russians had of themselves. The degree of agreement with the ingroup profile of Russians 

(see Table 1, ICC 4 ) varied significantly across the samples in our study (median ¼ .24). 

Belarusians and Latvians (both working adults and students) showed the highest degree of 

agreement (ICCs ¼ .81, .50., 40, respectively, all significant at p < .05), Finns and 

Estonians (students and adults) showed weak agreement (ICCs ¼ .22, .25 and .21, 

respectively), whereas Lithuanians and Poles showed no agreement at all (ICCs ¼ .06 and 

.15). The degree of agreement clearly reflects the ethnic composition of the six countries. 

In Latvia and Belarus—where people have a relatively similar view of Russians to that 

Figure 4. National Character Survey ratings of Russians by Russians (solid lines; Allik et al., 2009, Table 1) and 

by members of six other nations (dotted lines; this study). ICC ¼ .40 (p < .05). Scores were standardized using 

international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005). 


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which people from Russia have—Russians (or Russian speakers) form a sizeable part of 

the population (Latvia—29%, Belarus—ethnic Russians constitute about 12% of Belarus’ 

total population but for most Belarusians, Russian is the only language in which they are 

fluent (Ioffe, 2003). Of course, one cannot rule out the possibility that the very high 

similarity between the Russian auto-stereotype and the Belarusians’ perception of Russian 

national character is due to the fact that in both samples respondents completed the Russian 

version of the NCS. But more likely, the high degree of agreement reflects the cultural and 

linguistic closeness of Russians and Belarusians as has been emphasized repeatedly by 

historians and political scientists (Drakokhrust & Furman, 2003; Ioffe, 2003). In Lithuania 

and Poland; however, where perceptions of a typical Russian do not converge with what 

Russians themselves think about their national character, Russians constitute a relatively 

minor percentage of the population (Lithuania—5%; Poland—less than 1%). Thus, with 

increased first-hand experience and contact with Russians as well as with cultural, 

linguistic and economic closeness, the perceptions of Russian national character seem to 

become more similar to the Russian auto-stereotype. 

GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 

In this article we sought to contribute to the existing literature on national character 

stereotypes by examining the mechanisms of national character stereotype formation. 

More specifically, we studied the temporal stability of stereotypes, the spread of 

stereotypes among different groups of the population and the degree of agreement between 

self-rated personality and ingroup ratings as well as between ingroup and outgroup ratings 

of Russians. As opposed to similar previous studies (e.g. McCrae et al., 2007; Terracciano 

et al., 2005; Terracciano & McCrae, 2007), all assessments were made using the same 

measure—the NCS—which should exclude the possibility of the method effect in the 

comparison of the ratings of personality and national character. 

The first major conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that people assess the 

personality traits of their typical ingroup or outgroup member rather similarly to how they 

describe their own tendencies to feel, think and behave in a consistent way. Since the factor 

structures of both self-rated personality and national character were remarkably similar, if 

somebody described a typical Russian as high in Neuroticism, for example, the same 

meaning appeared in the self-descriptions. 

Our data from Estonia and Poland showed that perceptions of national character 

stereotypes appear to be indeed quite stable, even over a period of 5 years (2003 vs. 2008). 

During those 5 years, some politically and economically crucial events took place in both 

countries, such as joining the European Union and NATO in 2004, which brought about 

considerable changes in public opinion. For example, the percentage of people in Estonia 

who said that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their life increased more than 20% 

from 2003 (53%) to 2008 (76%) (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm). The 

perceptions of the typical Estonian or Pole; however, remained unchanged. Moreover, 

these national character stereotypes appear to be shared by different groups of the 

population—in Estonia and Latvia, samples of adults were used as raters in addition to 

college students and both yielded very similar profiles of the national character. 

One of the most interesting and innovative findings of this study, we believe, was the 

direct comparison of self-ratings of personality with perceptions of national character. Our 

findings do not support the conclusion made by Terracciano et al. (2005) that, as a general 


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rule, national character ratings do not converge with assessed traits. When the same 

instrument was used for the evaluation of national stereotypes and the rater’s own 

personality, the relationship between national stereotypes and observed personality traits 

was positive in all studied seven countries. Among Russians (Allik et al., 2009), Finns, 

Estonian working adults and Poles, mean self-rated personality profiles were in a relatively 

good agreement with perceptions of their national character. In other four samples, profiles 

of the self-rated personality and national character were similar but did not reach statistical 

significance. This seems to imply that in some places, such as Finland, for instance, 

respondents may base their assessment of a typical ingroup member on themselves, that is, 

on their own personality traits. In some other cultures (e.g. Lithuania), however, people 

portray a typical ingroup member differently from what they think about themselves. It is 

worth noting here that the significant positive correlation found for Poland in this study 

replicates one of the few positive correlations found by Terracciano et al. (2005). 

Stereotypes about the character of other nations appear; however, to be less accurate than 

stereotypes about one’s own nation: although the representatives of the six nations had a 

relatively similar perception of the Russian national character, this perception did not 

converge with the self-assessed personality traits of Russians. 

Thus, it seems that the agreement between self-rated personality judgments and 

perceptions of a typical ingroup member is a variable in itself, the magnitude of which can 

vary across nations from being close zero to highly positive. Thus, instead of a fixed 

relationship, we seem to have a variable relationship which could be used as a basis for a 

typology of cultures. It is possible to speculate that some cultures appear to be ‘realistic’, 

where personality traits attributed to a typical member of the nation accurately reflect the 

personality traits of these members. On a two-dimensional plot of stereotype and 

personality profiles (such as Figure 1, for instance), the aggregate self-rated personality 

profiles of such nations or cultural groups would be located very near to the profiles of their 

ingroup national character. In some other cultures, the portrait of a typical ingroup member 

has no resemblance to the actual personality traits of members of this culture. With this 

present level of understanding, we may only speculate how meaningful this typology could 

be and how well it could predict other aspects of culture. 

How do national character stereotypes arise? If they are not always based on observable 

personality traits of the members of a nation, there must be some other mechanisms 

underlying their formation. The results of this study provide one of the first insights into the 

mechanism that makes stereotypes different from an average self-rating. As shown in 

Figure 1, a typical member of a culture is perceived as more neurotic and introverted 

compared to the average self-description. Thus, in a certain sense, people perceive 

themselves more positively than they perceive others (John & Robins, 1994; Krueger, 

1998). Yet, this does not mean that people perceive their own nation (ingroup) more 

positively than they perceive other nations or other outgroups (Brewer, 2007), as would be 

predicted by social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In some cases people’s opinions 

about their own nation were even more critical than those concerning their neighbours. In 

this study we saw, for example, than in nearly all samples a typical compatriot was seen as 

less extraverted and less open to experience than a typical Russian. Latvians, Lithuanians 

and Poles also described their typical ingroup member as more maladjusted and distressed 

than they perceived a typical Russian. 

There appears to be a common belief about the Russian national character shared by the 

six neighbour countries in this study. As said above, Russians were seen as high in 

Extraversion and Openness but low in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Yet, the 


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degree of agreement between auto- and hetero-stereotype ratings of a typical Russian in our 

study (ICC ¼ .40) was at a much lower level than in a similar study by Terracciano and 

McCrae (2007) which examined perceptions of the typical American from 49 cultures 

around the world. In Terracciano and McCrae’s (2007) study, a relatively strong agreement 

was found between ingroup and outgroup ratings on the American profile, ICC ¼ .71, 

p < .001. Our findings do, however, seem to support other previous studies which have 

demonstrated a substantial difference between ingroup and outgroup judgments of 

Russians (Peabody, 1985; Peabody & Shmelyov, 1996; Stephan et al., 1993). Most 

commonly, Russians are judged as impulse-controlled and conscientious (e.g. disciplined, 

hardworking, serious, active) in outgroup judgments (mostly by Americans or Western 

Europeans), whereas ingroup ratings are more in the opposite direction: impulsive, 

inactive, generous, impractical and very likeable (Peabody & Shmelyov, 1996). In our 

study, in contrast, Russians see themselves as above average on Conscientiousness, 

whereas their six neighbours see them as low in Conscientiousness. As found in earlier 

studies (Boster & Maltseva, 2006), our findings seem to indicate that people in 

neighbouring countries of Russia see Russians differently than people in other parts of the 

world. In Estonia and Finland, for instance, Russians are often depicted as lazy and lacking 

conscientiousness (Lehtonen, 1993; Realo, 2003; Valk, 1998). Also in other neighbouring 

countries of Russia, (e.g. Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic), Russians are typically 

seen as less modern (e.g. bound by tradition, devoutly religious, old-fashioned) and less 

self-controlled (e.g. easily lose their tempers, know how to have fun, lazy, sexually active, 

generous) than how they are seen by people in Southern and Western Europe, or in other 

parts of the world (Boster & Maltseva, 2006). It is possible that we have another foundation 

for a cultural typology: cultures which have national stereotypes strongly (e.g. United 

States) or only weakly (e.g. Russia) resembling the perception of their neighbours, 

irrespective whether these stereotypes resemble assessed personality traits or not. 

In conclusion, the obtained data provided some insight into the mechanisms of national 

stereotype construction. National character stereotypes about one’s own nation are indeed 

widely shared and temporally stable and, most importantly, moderately related to self-rated 

personality traits if all assessments are made using the same measurement instrument. 

Furthermore, national character stereotypes about one’s own nation appear to be formed, at 

least to a certain extent, in reference to a dominant neighbouring nation (e.g. USA, Russia) 

or to people’s self-rated personality traits: a typical ingroup member is often portrayed as 

less extraverted and emotionally stable than people’s rating of their own personality. As for 

the latter, it remains to be proved whether this is a mere consequence of the selfenhancement 

which accompanies social comparison, in which people perceive themselves 

more positively than they perceive others (John & Robins, 1994; Krueger, 1998), or is, 

indeed, a separate mechanism. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Anu Realo, Jüri Allik, University of Tartu and the Estonian Center of Behavioral and 

Health Sciences, Estonia; Jan-Erik Lönnqvist, Markku Verkasalo, University of Helsinki, 

Finland; Anna Kwiatkowska, Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland; 

Liisi Kööts, Maie Kütt, University of Tartu, Estonia; Rasa Barkauskiene, Vilnius University, 

Lithuania; Alfredas Laurinavicius, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania; 


DOI: 10.1002/per


Konstantin Karpinski, Alexandr Kolyshko, Grodno State University, Belarus; Sandra 

Sebre, Viesturs Renge, University of Latvia, Latvia. 

This project was supported by grants from the Estonian Ministry of Science and 

Education (SF0180029s08) and the Estonian Science Foundation (ESF7020) to the second 

author. The writing of this article was supported by a Primus grant, number 3-8.2/60 from 

the European Social Fund to the first author. Portions of this article were presented at the 

14th European Conference on Personality, July 2008, Tartu, Estonia. We are grateful to 

Robert R. McCrae (NIA, NIH), Antti Hulsi, Anneli Portman (University of Helsinki), Gints 

Malzubris (University of Latvia) and Delaney Michael Skerrett (University of Queensland) 

for their assistance at different stages of this project. We also thank anonymous reviewers 

for constructive remarks and suggestions which helped us to improve the quality of the 

manuscript to a great extent. 

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