How does your nationality shape your personality?

Australia celebrates its national day in late January. Many people oppose Australia Day being held on January 26, because that is the day when the first European settlement was established at Sydney Cove. Indigenous Australians have argued that the date marks the start of their hardships and dispossession. It is also interesting to note that January 26 was first known as Foundation Day and originally celebrated only in New South Wales, not the other Australian states. It was a New South Wales-only celebration.  For decades, the other states commemorated their Australian-ness on Regatta Day (Tasmania), Proclamation Day (South Australia), Empire Day (Victoria), and several other days. The January 26 public holiday was only declared in 1994. That information is for your general knowledge! I’m not going to devote today’s blog to a discussion about when the national day should be held – as worthy as that debate is – instead Australia Day got me thinking about how nationality influences personality.

Are their national personality types?

If you are French are you bound to be romantic? If you are American are you confident and extroverted? Are all British people reserved? There have been numerous academic studies into how nationality influences personality and every study has concluded that nationality, or rather national culture, does have some bearing on who you become – your personality. One of the reasons I love writing these blogs for you, is that it gives me a reason to do some research into my areas of interest. I found a great paper on culture, nationality and personality by Harry S Triandis, a professor emeritus from the University of Illinois.

Here is a link to that paper:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-6494.696169/abstract

Professor Triandis focused on people who grew up in tribes or small remote villages (collective cultures) and compared them to people in large cities in America and Europe (individualists).  He found people who grew up in collective cultures were more likely to define themselves as aspects of the group and to give priority to in-group goals. They shaped their behaviour around what was ‘normal’ for their group, but individualist (city) people are more autonomous and give priority to their own goals, not community goals. He said not everyone in the groups strictly adhered to these personality types but there were definite trends. Did you grow up in a big city or a small rural community? Do you think this has influenced your personality or outlook? According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in June 2015, 71 percent of Australians lived in major cities, meaning most of us are individualists, autonomous and focused on our individual goals.

Personality is defined by our DNA and our environment

Another academic who has devoted his career to studying personality is Robert McCrae from the US Institute of Ageing. He believes that our personality is primarily defined by our DNA (our biology) and also how that interacts with external influences, including our national culture. Dr McCrae and 79 other psychologists did an extensive study on the personalities of different countries in 2005, and yes, they did find some personality traits were more pronounced in some countries. You might want to have a look at his book, The Five-Factor Model of Personality Across Cultures. For extroversion, the Brazilians, French Swiss and the Maltese scored highest, while the lowest scoring were Nigerians, Moroccans and Indonesians. Of course, these are only general trends. There are introverts in Brazil and extroverts in Indonesia. The highest scoring for Openness to Experience were German-speaking Swiss, Danes and Germans, while the lowest scoring for embracing new experiences were Hong Kong Chinese, Northern Irish and Kuwaitis.

Another big personality and national study was carried out by David Schmitt at Bradley University in 2007. It involved more than 17,000 people from 56 countries. Again national personality traits emerged.  His book is called Cultural Differences in a Globalizing World.

Neuroticism (seeing the world as hostile and difficult) is high in Japan and Argentina while the lowest level of neuroticism is in Slovenia. The highest scoring nations for agreeableness were the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Jordan, while Japan and Lithuania have the lowest. Conscientiousness (the trait of being vigilant or careful) was highest in Africa, and lowest in East Asia. Dr Schmitt found that the British are more extroverted than the Americans, but only slightly. Britain, the US, New Zealand and Australia also showed similar personality traits and came out about average for factors such as agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism, open to new experiences. These countries share language, culture and history. Dr Schmitt did argue that emigrants take their national culture with them and transmit it to the next generation, so of course I’ve always felt myself to have some Italian traits.

Small towns tend to be conservative

A 2013 study, again led by Robert McCrae, involving over 3,000 participants in 26 nations found that isolated populations are likely to become more introverted and inward perhaps because bolder individuals are more likely to emigrate. Thus the notion that small towns are conservative holds true. People inclined to risk-taking and openness are more likely to migrate, so these traits are likely to be over-represented in regions that are historically on the frontier of exploration, perhaps this is the case in some mining towns in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

A new study conducted on Italians living on outlying islands put this to the test. Andrea Ciani at the University of Padova and his colleagues found that islanders are less extroverted and open-minded, but more conscientious (careful) and emotionally stable, than their mainland neighbours located just 20 to 50 km away. This is likely because, over time, bolder more open-minded individuals have chosen to emigrate away from the islands. I like to think of my family as open-minded, bolder Italians who made it all the way to Australia!

The individual always has freedom of choice!

As fascinating as these studies are, I am still a believer that the individual has choice. You can choose to be agreeable, you can choose to be brave and open to new experiences, you can choose to overcome your bias or neurotic traits and greet other people with love and friendship. I am not going to deny that our DNA or our culture or nationality predisposes us to certain traits. It is harder for some people to be open and agreeable because they are naturally shy. It is harder for some people to embrace new experiences because they are naturally cautious or have come from cultures, perhaps small towns, which recoil from deviation or change. But at the end of the day you only have one life, and YOU must choose how to live it. I say go for it, live large, pursue your dreams and love the people around you who will show varying degrees of agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, caution but, hey, that is true of all of us, including me!