CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,222Personality Traits and PsychologyCultural Differences and ValuesPsychological Testing and Assessment

The Geographic Distribution of Big Five Personality Traits: Patterns and Profiles of Human Self-Description Across 56 Nations

Open access
Schmitt, David P., Allik, Jüri, McCrae, Robert R., Benet-Martínez, Verónica·2007·Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
DOI 10.1177/0022022106297299
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, the BFI was translated from English into 28 languages and administered to 17,837 individuals from 56 nations. The resulting cross-cultural data set was used to address three main questions: Does the factor structure of the English BFI fully replicate across cultures? How valid are the BFI trait profiles of individual nations? And how are personality traits distributed throughout the world? The five-dimensional structure was robust across major regions of the world. Trait levels were related in predictable ways to self-esteem, sociosexuality, and national personality profiles. People from the geographic regions of South America and East Asia were significantly different in openness from those inhabiting other world regions. The discussion focuses on limitations of the current data set and important directions for future research.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/0022022106297299

Cites

8 of 8 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The Big 5 model suggests that human beings differ from each other with respect to openness to new experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

    “The Big 5 model of interpersonal variation suggests that human beings differ from each other with respect to the traits of openness to new experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism [51, 52].”

    From Five studies evaluating the impact on mental health and mood of recalling, reading, and discussing fiction (2022) · cites this paper as [52]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Schmitt, D. P., Allik, J., McCrae, R. R., & Benet-Martínez, V.
Affiliations
  • Bradley University (US)
  • University of Tartu
  • National Institute on Aging (US)
  • University of California, Riverside
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2007-03
Volume
38
Issue
2
Pages
173-212
ISSN
  • 0022-0221 (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-5422
DOI
10.1177/0022022106297299
OpenAlex
W2148795955
Cited by
1,222
References
8
Citations by year
2026: 60 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 67 · 2023: 76 · 2022: 91 · 2021: 80 · 2020: 116 · 2019: 92 · 2018: 86 · 2017: 78 · 2016: 56 · 2015: 51 · 2014: 63 · 2013: 60 · 2012: 49
FWCI
37.48
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • OAR@UM (University of Malta) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Institutional Research Information System (University of Udine) (submittedVersion)
  • KOPS (University of Konstanz) (submittedVersion)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Cultural Differences and Values
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
Keywords
Big Five personality traits, cross-cultural replication, factor structure, self-esteem, sociosexuality, openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review