According To One Survey, What Trait Did The Greatest Number Of People Report Wanting To Change?

Introduction

Men and women belong to dissimilar species and communications between them is yet in its infancy. – Beak Cosby

Many people, including Bill Cosby, perceive the differences betwixt men and women to be large – and then big, in fact, that communication between genders may be hard. Countless examples from popular culture reinforce this view of extreme differences between the sexes – but is it accurate? Men and women take manifestly different biological roles when it comes to propagation of the species, but how much they differ psychologically is a more controversial question, one that requires empirical research to reply fairly. Whether the underlying causes of psychological gender differences are evolutionary or socio-cultural, understanding how men and women differ in the ways in which they think, feel, and conduct tin can shed calorie-free on the homo status.

The study of personality is particularly useful in attempting to examine psychological differences between genders. Personality is often conceptualized as the extent to which someone displays high or low levels of specific traits. Traits are the consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, motives, and behaviors that a person exhibits across situations (Fleeson and Gallagher, 2009). That is, someone who scores high on a trait will exhibit psychological states related to that trait more often and to a greater extent than individuals who score depression on that trait.

Gender differences in personality traits are oft characterized in terms of which gender has higher scores on that trait, on average. For example, women are often found to exist more agreeable than men (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001). This ways that women, on average, are more than nurturing, tender-minded, and altruistic more often and to a greater extent than men. Even so, such a finding does not preclude the fact that men may as well experience nurturing, tender-minded, and altruistic states, and that some men may even score college in these traits than some women. The goal of investigating gender differences in personality, therefore, is to elucidate the differences among general patterns of behavior in men and women on average, with the agreement that both men and women can experience states across the full range of near traits. Gender differences in terms of mean differences do non imply that men and women only feel states on opposing ends of the trait spectrum; on the contrary, significant differences can exist along with a high degree of overlap between the distributions of men and women (Hyde, 2005).

A core mission of personality psychology has been the development of an acceptable taxonomy of personality traits. Drawing on trait descriptors used in natural language (selected from dictionaries) and in personality questionnaires, a v gene structure has emerged to explain covariation among traits. The five cistron model or Big Five categorizes traits into the broad domains of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness/Intellect (Digman, 1990; John et al., 2008).

Gender differences in personality are frequently examined in terms of the Big 5. However, the Large Five do not exhaust all of the of import distinctions among personality traits. Traits are hierarchically organized such that more specific traits that vary together are grouped within higher-guild factors, similar the Big Five. In the study of gender differences, therefore, one can investigate gender differences in personality traits at multiple levels of resolution. Most trait enquiry has focused on two levels of traits: (1) the broad Big Five domains and (2) many more specific traits, called facets, which are grouped together within the Big 5. Currently, in that location is no consensus as to the identity and number of facets within the Big 5. Unlike approaches have identified unlike sets of facets, based on rational review of psychological constructs (east.g., Costa and McCrae, 1992) or by systematic sampling from the space defined past pairs of Big Five factors (e.g., Soto and John, 2009). In the present study, we utilized an empirically identified level of personality traits that falls between narrow facets and broad domains. This level of personality organization has the potential to characterize gender differences with a finer grain of detail than the Large Five, revealing differences that are obscured in the Big V. Additionally, it provides an empirically based taxonomy of lower-level traits, that is more likely to correspond an acceptable taxonomy of traits than existing facet models.

If the Big Five constituted the level of the personality hierarchy immediately above the facets, but one factor should be necessary to explain the shared variance of the facets within a given Big Five domain. Nonetheless, a large behavioral genetic study revealed that ii distinct factors were necessary to business relationship for the shared genetic variance amongst the facets within each domain (Jang et al., 2002). In a split up written report using factor assay of 15 unlike facets within each domain, 2 phenotypic factors similar to the genetic factors were constitute for each of the Big 5 dimensions (DeYoung et al., 2007). This research indicates that each of the Big Five contains ii separable, though correlated, aspects, reflecting a level of personality below the broad domains merely above the many facet scales. DeYoung et al. (2007) characterized these aspects by examining their cistron-score correlations with over 2000 items from the International Personality Detail Pool (IPIP). The aspects were labeled every bit follows: Volatility and Withdrawal for Neuroticism; Enthusiasm and Assertiveness for Extraversion; Intellect and Openness for Openness/Intellect; Industriousness and Orderliness for Conscientiousness; and Compassion and Politeness for Conjuration. The aspect level of traits may be especially useful for the investigation of gender differences because these differences are sometimes unclear at the Large 5 level and tin be big and in opposite directions at the facet level. The aspects provide a non-arbitrary and parsimonious arrangement for examining gender differences at a level of traits more specific than the Large Five.

Gender differences take been documented for a number of personality traits. Nigh meta-analyses and reviews examine gender differences in cocky-reports of personality on questionnaires that mensurate the Big Five, every bit well as facets within each (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001; Lippa, 2010). To our knowledge, however, no analyses have specifically examined the ii aspects of each Large Five trait.

Gender Differences in Big Five Personality Traits

The investigation of personality differences is important to our understanding of general human variation, though information technology is non without controversy. Research on individual differences in intelligence, for instance, has sparked years of scientifically and emotionally motivated debate (Neisser et al., 1996). Gender differences research has too proven to be controversial, with much of the fence apropos the causes and precursors of differences. Biological and evolutionary approaches posit that gender differences are due to men and women's dimorphically evolved concerns with respect to reproductive problems, parental investment in offspring (Trivers, 1972; Osculation, 2008). According to these theories, women should exist more than concerned with successfully raising children and should therefore be more cautious, agreeable, nurturing, and emotionally involved. Men, on the other hand, should be more concerned with obtaining feasible mating opportunities and should therefore exhibit more Assertiveness, gamble-taking, and aggression. Other theories suggest that gender norms are shaped by socio-cultural influences, such that women and men are expected to serve different roles in lodge and are therefore socialized to behave differently from one another (Woods and Eagly, 2002; Eagly and Wood, 2005). Of course, it may well exist that both evolutionary and social forces have contributed to gender differences. Interestingly, contempo studies have shown that gender differences in personality tend to be larger in more developed, Western cultures with less traditional sex roles (Costa et al., 2001; Schmitt et al., 2008). In our review, nosotros focus on the patterns that have been found most consistently beyond cultures. The overall pattern for gender differences in personality measured past the Large Five is that existing differences are small to medium in size. For some domains, the gender differences are in the same direction beyond all measured facets; for others, however, the patterns are more divergent.

Neuroticism

Neuroticism describes the tendency to feel negative emotion and related processes in response to perceived threat and punishment; these include anxiety, depression, acrimony, self-consciousness, and emotional lability. Women accept been plant to score higher than men on Neuroticism as measured at the Big 5 trait level, as well equally on most facets of Neuroticism included in a common measure of the Big V, the NEO-PI-R (Costa et al., 2001). Additionally, women also score higher than men on related measures non designed specifically to measure the Big V, such as indices of anxiety (Feingold, 1994) and depression self-esteem (Kling et al., 1999). The one facet of Neuroticism in which women do not always exhibit higher scores than men is Anger, or Aroused Hostility (Costa et al., 2001).

Agreeableness

Conjuration comprises traits relating to altruism, such as empathy and kindness. Agreeableness involves the tendency toward cooperation, maintenance of social harmony, and consideration of the concerns of others (as opposed to exploitation or victimization of others). Women consistently score higher than men on Agreeableness and related measures, such as tender-mindedness (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001).

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness describes traits related to self-discipline, organisation, and the command of impulses, and appears to reverberate the power to exert self-command in club to follow rules or maintain goal pursuit. Women score somewhat higher than men on some facets of Conscientiousness, such as order, dutifulness, and self-subject field (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001). These differences, however, are not consistent across cultures, and no pregnant gender divergence has typically been found in Conscientiousness at the Big 5 trait level (Costa et al., 2001).

Extraversion

Extraversion reflects sociability, Assertiveness, and positive emotionality, all of which take been linked to sensitivity to rewards (Depue and Collins, 1999; DeYoung and Greyness, 2009). Whereas gender differences are small-scale on the overall domain level of Extraversion (with women typically scoring higher), the small effect size could exist due to the being of gender differences in dissimilar directions at the facet level. Women tend to score college than men on Warmth, Gregariousness, and Positive Emotions, whereas men score higher than women on Assertiveness and Excitement Seeking (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001).

Extraversion, together with Agreeableness, can exist used to depict the two dimensions of the interpersonal circumplex (IPC; Wiggins, 1979), which contains descriptions of traits relevant to interpersonal interaction. Though originally posited to describe interpersonal traits using axes of Love and Status/Say-so, the IPC can too be conceptualized equally a rotation of Big Five Extraversion and Agreeableness (McCrae and Costa, 1989). Given the importance of Extraversion to the interpersonal domain, it may be expected that women would consistently score college than men. However the pole of the IPC often called Authorization contains traits such every bit bossy, domineering, and believing. Men tend to exist more than ascendant and agentic than women, and exhibit higher levels of these traits (Helgeson and Fritz, 1999). Gender differences in Extraversion may therefore switch directions depending on whether the specific traits measured fall closer or further from the dominance pole.

Openness/Intellect

Openness/Intellect reflects imagination, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and appreciation of esthetic experiences. Broadly, Openness/Intellect relates to the ability and involvement in attention to and processing complex stimuli. No pregnant gender differences are typically found on Openness/Intellect at the domain level, likely due to the divergent content of the trait. For instance, women have been constitute to score higher than men on the facets of Esthetics and Feelings (Costa et al., 2001), whereas men tend to score higher on the Ideas facet (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001).

Hypotheses Regarding the 10 Aspects

The pattern of gender differences reviewed to a higher place highlights the demand to look beyond the Big V level to traits at lower levels of analysis. Because the domains of the Big Five are so broad and encompass a multifariousness of personality characteristics, greater specificity is needed to uncover where gender differences truly lie. The current research seeks to replicate previous findings regarding gender differences at the Big Five level, besides as to extend investigation into the intermediate sublevel of the two aspects within each domain.

Though no research has been done previously on gender differences at the aspect level of trait construction, we expect that the likely design of findings can exist deduced from those reported for the Big Five and their facets. Because the aspects are more parsimonious and comprehensive than the facet models, however, they should provide a clearer and more than systematic representation of gender differences in personality.

Our hypotheses were that women should score higher than men in both aspects of Neuroticism, Volatility, and Withdrawal, though the effect is probable to be stronger for Withdrawal, given the inclusion of anger inside Volatility. Similarly, women should score college than men in both aspects of Agreeableness, Compassion, and Politeness. Gender differences in the aspects of Conscientiousness, Industriousness, and Orderliness, may diverge, as research on facets suggests that women should score higher on Orderliness, simply does not allow a clear prediction for Industriousness. The ii aspects of Extraversion, Enthusiasm, and Assertiveness, should diverge considering women should score higher than men in Enthusiasm (which combines sociability and positive emotionality), whereas men should score higher in Assertiveness. Gender differences should also be in contrary directions for the aspects of Openness/Intellect, Openness and Intellect. Women should score higher than men in Openness, whereas men should score college than women in Intellect.

Utilize of the aspects has the additional advantage that 1 can easily examine the unique effects of one aspect while decision-making for the other in each pair. In cases where gender differences on the two aspects diverge, this approach may reveal differences that are ordinarily suppressed past the shared variance of the two aspects within each Large Five domain. We implemented this approach through the use of residualized scores. Regressing one aspect on its complementary aspect and saving the residual produces a score that indicates unique variance in that aspect, without the variance it shares with its complement. For case, the residualized score for Compassion indicates differences in Compassion holding Politeness equal. If women are found, as predicted, to accept higher Compassion residuals than men, that means that fifty-fifty if nosotros have groups of men and women of equal Politeness, the women are yet likely to be college in Compassion on average.

Moderators

Due to the multifariousness of our sample, nosotros performed secondary analyses to investigate potential moderators of gender differences. For example, previous research has shown that gender differences are larger and more than pronounced within Western cultures than Eastern cultures (Costa et al., 2001; Schmitt et al., 2008). Though our sample was collected mostly within Due north America, we were interested if similar patterns would emerge when considering gender differences among people of dissimilar ethnic backgrounds. We were able to test whether the pattern of gender differences was like in participants of European versus Asian indigenous backgrounds.

Additionally, previous research has shown that gender differences in some traits (such as negative touch on) may exist larger in emerging adulthood than in afterward adulthood (Soto et al., 2011). Therefore, we investigated whether age moderated the gender difference in each trait. Finally, an increasing number of studies are using an online method to administer personality measures. Our sample included both laboratory and online methods of administration. Though previous research has not shown significant difference in personality between these 2 methods (Gosling et al., 2004), we investigated whether assistants method moderated gender differences in our sample.

Materials and Methods

Participants

Participants (N = 2643; 892 male, 1751 female) were drawn from a number of inquiry projects, for which they received either budgetary compensation or academy grade credit. Much of the information was nerveless in a large Canadian metropolitan area, either as an online survey or as a part of laboratory studies (North = 1826; 537 male, 1289 female). Some participants (N = 481; 200 male, 281 female) were members of the Eugene-Springfield community sample (ESCS). Lastly, 336 participants were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk; 155 male person, 181 female) and completed the measures online. Participants ranged in historic period from 17 to 85 (M = 27.ii, SD = xiv.4). The majority of participants identified equally White (39.nine%) or Asian (27.five%), with 1% or less identifying as Native American, Hispanic, and Black. 20-five per centum of participants identified as "other," and 5% did not specify ethnicity. The demographic data for a number of our samples allowed participants to choose from only the higher up v ethnicity classifications or specify their ethnicity as "other." Therefore, the classification of "Asian" contains individuals of both S-Asian and East-Asian ethnic backgrounds. Though Due south-Asian and East-Asian cultures are markedly different in many ways, both are more collectivist than Western cultures (Suh et al., 1998) and therefore provide an interesting dissimilarity to the White/European ethnic groundwork.

Personality Measures

The Big Five attribute scales (BFAS) were designed specifically to assess the 10 aspects of the Big V identified by DeYoung et al. (2007). Items were selected from the IPIP based on their correlation with the aspect cistron scores and maintaining balanced keying. Items were called that differentiated the factor in question from all 9 other attribute factors, by selecting items only if they were correlated with the aspect cistron in question with a correlation at to the lowest degree 0.10 greater than the correlation with whatsoever other factor. This procedure has the consequence that the same items remain the all-time markers of each factor fifty-fifty when scores are residualized. Thus, the residualized scores retain the significant of the construct in question. Ten items are used to assess each of the 10 aspects. Participants charge per unit their agreement with how well each statement describes them using a 5-indicate calibration ranging from strongly disagree to strongly concur. Scores for each aspect are computed by taking the mean of the corresponding items. Scores for each domain are computed by taking the mean of the two attribute scores. The scales are all highly reliable (all α > 0.73) and have good test–retest reliability, all r > 0.72 (DeYoung et al., 2007). Internal consistencies for the present data are shown in Tabular array 1.

Table 1. Alpha reliabilities for Big 5 domains and attribute scales by sample.

Results

Table ii summarizes the mean scores for men and women on each of the ten aspects and the 5 domains. Because the 2 aspects within each domain are correlated (correlations range from r = 0.39–0.62), analyses on the aspects were performed on both raw scores and residualized scores. Residualized scores were created by regressing 1 aspect within a domain on the other, and saving the residuals, thus creating an index of the variance of each aspect not associated with its complement in the same domain. For example, the residualized scores for Enthusiasm are the residuals resulting from the regression of Enthusiasm on Assertiveness, effectively partialing out the full general Extraversion variance shared between Enthusiasm and Assertiveness. Tabular array 3 presents the intercorrelations betwixt aspects, analyzed separately for men and women.

Table 2. Hateful and SD for Large Five domains and raw and residualized aspect scores.

Tabular array 3. Correlations among aspects (raw scores).

Gender differences were analyzed using contained samples t-tests. Effect sizes are summarized in Table ii. Results were consistent with previous analyses, with significant effects establish at the level of the Large V domains of Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Extraversion, but not Conscientiousness or Openness. The largest effect sizes were plant for Neuroticism and Agreeableness. Unsurprisingly, Neuroticism and Conjuration are the domains for which gender differences were significant and in the aforementioned direction for both underlying aspects.

Using the raw scores, gender differences were found in all of the aspects with the exception of Industriousness. Women scored college than men on Enthusiasm, Compassion, Politeness, Orderliness, Volatility, Withdrawal, and Openness. Men scored higher than women on Assertiveness and Intellect. This indicates that the two aspects of Extraversion (Enthusiasm and Assertiveness) and the two aspects of Openness/Intellect display gender differences in reverse directions. Such difference in gender differences at the aspect level helps to elucidate the small-scale effect of the gender difference in overall Extraversion and the lack of a significant gender difference in Openness/Intellect. As in previous research, effect sizes were small to moderate (range: 0.06–0.48 in absolute value).

Results for the residualized scores differed from those on the raw scores in 2 ways. Offset, the gender difference in Industriousness was now significant, with men scoring higher than women. Since this is a residualized score, it indicates a gender deviation in Industriousness among people with equal levels of Orderliness. Second, at that place was not a significant gender divergence in residualized scores of Volatility. This indicates no difference betwixt the average scores of men and women in Volatility when they are at equal levels of Withdrawal.

Moderators

We performed regression analyses to come across if ethnicity, age, and survey method moderated the gender differences we had found. Previous research suggests that gender differences are robust beyond cultures (Costa et al., 2001; McCrae et al., 2005), and may differ with age for some traits (Soto et al., 2011). Considering the majority of the participants in our sample were White and Asian, we were able to make comparisons only for these two groups.

Ethnicity (coded as White or Asian) significantly moderated gender differences in the Big Five domain of Conjuration, F(ane, 1759) = 5.42, p = 0.02, with a more pronounced gender difference establish among Whites than amid Asians (come across Figure one). Similar patterns were found for ethnicity moderating the gender difference in Pity in both the raw scores, F(1, 1759) = 7.97, p < 0.001, (come across Figure 2) and the residualized scores, F(1, 1759) = 6.64, p = 0.01, (see Effigy 3). When Politeness was partialed out of the Compassion scores, there was no difference between White men and Asian men and a significant difference between White women and Asian women, such that the gender difference was more pronounced for Whites than for Asians.

Effigy ane. Ethnicity moderates gender differences in Agreeableness.

Effigy 2. Ethnicity moderates gender differences in Compassion.

Effigy 3. Ethnicity moderates gender differences in Compassion (residualized). Residualized scores are depicted as the scores plus ane, for ease of interpretation.

Ethnicity also moderated gender differences in the residualized scores for Volatility, F(1, 1759) = 5.09, p = 0.02, though this blueprint was somewhat different. The gender difference was meaning for Asian participants such that women scored higher than men. Withal, for White participants, men scored higher than women (encounter Effigy 4). No other moderations by ethnicity were observed.

Figure 4. Ethnicity moderates gender differences in Volatility (residualized). Residualized scores are depicted as the scores plus 1, for ease of estimation.

Age significantly moderated gender differences in the Big Five domains of Agreeableness, F(1, 2576) = 4.88, p = 0.03, Neuroticism, F(one, 2576) = eleven.35, p < 0.001, and Openness, F(i, 2576) = 4.26, p = 0.04. The gender departure in Agreeableness was larger for older ages, and the gender departure in Neuroticism was larger for younger ages. In improver, the gender difference seemed to reverse for Neuroticism, such that men had college scores than women in older ages. For Openness/Intellect, the gender deviation was non-real at younger ages, and larger favoring women at older ages. These patterns were driven by specific aspects, every bit evidenced by age's moderating the gender difference in Compassion, F(i, 2576) = 7.64, p = 0.01 (see Figure five), Volatility, F(1, 2576) = 19.79, p < 0.001 (run into Figure vi), and Intellect, F(ane, 2576) = 3.96, p = 0.05 (run across Figure 7). The pattern for Intellect is such that in that location is a larger gender difference for younger ages than for older, favoring men. At older ages, the gender departure is non-existent or slightly favors women.

Effigy 5. Historic period moderates gender differences in Pity.

Figure 6. Age moderates gender differences in Volatility.

Figure 7. Age moderates gender differences in Intellect.

Historic period also moderated gender differences in the residualized scores for Compassion, F(one, 2576) = 6.76, p = 0.01, Orderliness, F(i,2576) = 5.02, p = 0.03 (encounter Figure 8), and Volatility F(1, 2576) = 20.21, p < 0.001. The blueprint for Compassion was similar to that constitute for the raw scores, such that the gender difference in residualized Compassion increased with age. The gender difference in residualized Orderliness was pocket-sized and favored women at younger ages, however it decreased to not-existence and nigh reversed to favor men in older ages. Finally, the blueprint for Volatility was similar to that found for the raw scores, such that the gender departure favored women at younger ages and men at older.

Figure 8. Age moderates gender differences in Orderliness (residualized). Residualized scores are depicted as the scores plus 1, for ease of interpretation.

The format of the administration of the surveys moderated gender differences in Pity on both the raw, F(1, 2115) = 6.xiv, p = 0.01 (see Figure 9), and residualized, F(1, 2115) = 6.63, p = 0.01, metrics. Womens' Compassion scores did non differ between the online and laboratory format. Men who completed the survey in the lab had higher average Compassion scores than did men who completed the survey online. The results for the residualized Compassion scores were most identical to those for the raw scores, depicted in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Assistants method moderates gender differences in Compassion.

Discussion

Gender differences were more pervasive at the attribute level of trait arrangement immediately below the Big Five than for the Large V themselves. At the level of the Large Five our findings were similar to the typical pattern: gender differences were plant only for Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Extraversion. However, gender differences were found for every one of the 10 aspects, considering analyses of both raw and residualized scores. Even when examining raw scores alone, differences were pregnant in 9 out of 10 traits. Clearly, analysis of the aspects reveals the extent of gender differences beyond the whole spectrum of traits encompassed by the hierarchical Big Five model.

Neuroticism

Consistent with previous findings, women scored higher than men in Neuroticism and in both of its aspects, Withdrawal and Volatility, when measured in terms of raw scores. This difference replicates previous findings for Neuroticism (e.g., Costa et al., 2001). Because Withdrawal and Volatility are correlated (r = 0.62 in our sample as a whole) but distinct traits, it is important to consider the unique variance that each does non share with the other. Nosotros therefore additionally examined gender differences in Withdrawal with Volatility partialed out, and vice versa. The gender difference remained for Withdrawal but was eliminated for Volatility. This contrast for the unique variance in these ii aspects is not surprising if one considers the more specific content of each. At the facet level of Neuroticism, women have been establish to show higher levels of anxiety, low, self-consciousness, and vulnerability than men (Costa et al., 2001). All of these facets load primarily on Withdrawal rather than Volatility (DeYoung et al., 2007). This pattern is consistent with the fact that clinical diagnoses of depression and feet are considerably more mutual in women than men (Weissman et al., 1996).

In contrast, the lack of a pregnant gender difference in Volatility, when decision-making for Withdrawal, is most probable due to the fact that an important component of Volatility is the tendency to be irritable and hands angered. Men have sometimes been constitute to score higher than women on traits such equally Anger or Hostility (Scherwitz et al., 1991).

The gender difference in Neuroticism was chastened by historic period, such that the gender deviation decreased with age. Neuroticism increases during emerging adulthood amongst females, just not males (Soto et al., 2011), which may explain this blueprint of results. The gender difference in Volatility was moderated by both age and ethnicity. For age, the pattern was the same as for the overall domain of Neuroticism, and was seen for both Volatility on the raw scale metric and when controlling for Withdrawal. The moderating effect ethnicity had on residualized scores for Volatility was dissimilar, showing gender differences in reverse directions amid White and Asian participants. Men scored higher in Volatility than women amid White participants, whereas women scored higher among Asian participants. Given the fact that Volatility partly reflects traits related to irritability and anger, this difference may be due to cultural differences in social norms related to the expression of acrimony (Matsumoto and Fontaine, 2008).

Agreeableness

Replicating previous findings, there was a significant gender divergence in Agreeableness such that women tend to score college than men, and this pattern was the same for the aspects, Pity and Politeness, when measured in terms of raw scores or residualized scores. Compassion nigh clearly represents a tendency to invest in others emotionally and affiliate on an emotional level, encompassing traits such as warmth and empathy. Politeness describes the trend to prove respect to others and refrain from taking advantage of them, and is related to traits such every bit cooperation and compliance. Our findings that women score higher than men on both aspects are consistent with previous research showing women are more trusting and compliant than men (Costa et al., 2001).

Gender differences in Agreeableness may be related to gender differences in cocky-construal. Men tend to take an independent self-construal, or a sense of cocky that is dissever from cognitive representations of others. Women have a more interdependent self-construal, in which their sense of cocky includes others (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). This gender difference is associated with motivational and behavioral differences, such every bit women having more interconnected and affiliative social groups (Cross and Madson, 1997). Women, therefore, may be more than motivated than men to maintain social and emotional bonds by enacting more agreeable traits.

Age moderated gender differences in Agreeableness and Pity on both the raw and residualized metric, such that gender differences were larger amongst older individuals.

Ethnicity chastened the gender differences in Agreeableness and its Pity aspect, such that differences were larger amidst White participants than among Asian participants. This finding is consistent with previous inquiry, which shows larger gender differences among more western and industrialized cultures (Costa et al., 2001; McCrae et al., 2005; Schmitt et al., 2008). Asian participants in full general rated themselves every bit less agreeable than white participants, which may indicate a reference group effect. A reference group effect would occur if participants are comparing themselves to their ain culture and there is a divergence in Conjuration between cultures. For case, someone who is more agreeable than the norm for Whites may exist less agreeable than the norm for Asians. Asian participants could be comparison themselves to an allocentric cultural norm, in which consideration for others is central and therefore higher Conjuration is normative (Triandis, 2001).

Method of administration of the measure out as well moderated the gender deviation in Compassion on both the raw and residualized metric. The gender difference was larger in online administration than for laboratory administration. This is considering men scored college in Compassion on average when they completed the measure in the laboratory than when they completed information technology online. This may exist due to social desirability effects' causing men to report being higher in Compassion when they are in the laboratory, and not when they are completing the measure online.

Conscientiousness

Consequent with previous enquiry, we did not discover a pregnant gender difference in Conscientiousness at the level of the Big Five domain. When measuring the aspects of Industriousness and Orderliness in terms of raw scores, however, we plant a significant gender difference for Orderliness, such that women score higher than men. The Orderliness aspect reflects traits related to maintaining order and arrangement, including perfectionism (DeYoung et al., 2007). Given the positive correlation between perfectionism and components of Neuroticism such as anxiety and low (Dunkley et al., 2006; Sherry et al., 2007), and the well-established gender differences in Neuroticism, one possibility is that Neuroticism accounts for the gender difference in Orderliness. However, when we regressed Orderliness (either raw or residualized) on Neuroticism and gender, gender remained a significant predictor, indicating that gender differences in Orderliness are non simply due to differences in Neuroticism.

Age moderated the gender difference in residualized Orderliness, such that the gender difference favoring women seen at younger ages decreased to non-being and reversal at older ages. The age tendency for women indicated a turn down in Orderliness relative to Industriousness, whereas the trend for men indicated an increment.

Though no gender difference was found for Industriousness when using the raw scores, nosotros found a gender divergence in Industriousness when using the residualized score that removed whatever variance shared with Orderliness. This gender deviation was such that men scored higher than women in Industriousness. This difference in residualized scores but not raw scores can be interpreted as follows: if one examines a group of people with equal levels of Orderliness, the men in that group will on average score college in Industriousness than the women.

Extraversion

We found a small but significant gender difference in overall Extraversion such that women score higher than men. Even so, the design was more complicated for the aspects, Enthusiasm and Assertiveness. Enthusiasm reflects sociability, gregariousness, and experiences of positive emotion. Our finding that women score higher than men in Enthusiasm was consistent with previous research showing similar patterns in Big Five facets of Gregariousness and Positive Emotions (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001). Assertiveness, on the other hand, reflects traits related to agency and dominance. Consistent with previous research showing a gender difference favoring men for facets such equally Assertiveness and Excitement Seeking (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001), we found that men score higher than women in Assertiveness. This pattern of gender differences in opposite directions at the aspect level was also establish for scores on the residualized metric.

Openness/Intellect

Consistent with previous research, we did not notice a meaning difference in Openness/Intellect at the level of the Big 5 domain. Still, nosotros found significant gender differences in both aspects of the Big V domain (Intellect and Openness). On both the raw and residualized scores women scored college than men in Openness. In contrast, on both types of score, men scored higher than women in Intellect. This design is consistent with previous reports of gender differences at the facet level, where women score college than men on facets marking Openness (such as Esthetics and Feelings), but men score higher than women on the Ideas facet, which is a marker of Intellect (Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001).

Although Intellect includes perceptions of cognitive power and is more strongly associated with IQ scores than Openness (DeYoung et al., submitted), the fact that men score higher than women in Intellect should not be taken as indicative of greater intelligence for men than women. Gender differences in full general intelligence are negligible, although men are typically plant to evidence more variance in scores than women (Deary et al., 2007; van der Sluis et al., 2008). However, our findings are consistent with the finding that men bear witness higher self-estimates of intelligence than women, beyond cultures (von Stumm et al., 2009). This pattern has been described as 1 of male hubris and female humility in relation to intelligence. The gender deviation in Intellect probably reflects these biases related to confidence in intellectual abilities.

Age moderated the gender difference in Intellect such that the gender difference was smaller at higher ages. The design suggests that the difference in Intellect betwixt older and younger women is larger than that between older and younger men. Since gender differences in intelligence are negligible across the lifespan, this design near likely indicates that women proceeds in perceptions of their ain intelligence, perhaps reflecting increases in cocky-esteem or self-confidence (Orth et al., 2010).

Limitations and Time to come Directions

Our investigation was express to ane measure out of personality, the BFAS. Although the Big Five organization of personality that information technology employs is reasonably comprehensive, at that place are traits that may not have skillful representation among the items in the BFAS, such as adult attachment way (Hazan and Shaver, 1987). It would be worthwhile for future research to investigate gender differences in these additional traits besides as how they relate to gender differences in the Big Five.

Further, the personality scores used in our investigation were obtained via self-report. Our findings could therefore indicate gender differences in how men and women perceive and study on themselves, which do not necessarily reflect how they are perceived by others or their actual behavioral tendencies. Time to come research should explore gender differences in peer-reports of these personality traits. This might be especially interesting when the perceiver is of the opposite gender from the target. Additionally, behavioral or implicit measures of personality could exist used to investigate whether the same blueprint of gender differences exist when one moves beyond measuring personality through questionnaires.

Previous research has investigated gender differences among many unlike ethnicities, cultures, and types of societies (McCrae et al., 2005; Schmitt et al., 2008). Such an investigation is across the telescopic of the current research. The electric current sample was mainly Northward American, and sample sizes within each ethnic group were express, such that nosotros were only able to perform analyses comparing White participants to Asian participants. It would exist benign for time to come enquiry to investigate gender differences in personality at the attribute level in additional ethnicities and cultures.

Similarly, our research indicated that age moderated gender differences in a number of traits. Our sample was cross-sectional rather than longitudinal, hence our results may not accurately reflect the trajectories of personality alter in men and women over time. Taken along with previous findings on age trends in personality (e.1000., Roberts et al., 2006; Soto et al., 2011), our results suggest the utility of further investigation of how gender differences in personality may differ with increasing age.

Finally, though this and other studies have shown the existence of gender differences in personality, the question remains as to why these differences exist. Although the general consistency of gender differences across cultures may advise evolutionary reasons for the existence of gender differences in personality traits, cross-cultural variation in gender differences for some trait may suggest that culture of origin or social roles and norms influence gender differences. Exactly how culture impacts personality is a complex question, worthy of futurity study.

Conclusion

Past examining personality at the level of the x aspects of the Big Five, we demonstrated that gender differences in personality traits are even more pervasive than has typically been reported. In every ane of the 10 traits assessed, pregnant gender differences were evident. For some Big Five domains, the aspect level traits showed gender differences in opposite directions, which helps to explain why gender differences are not typically evident for the Large V domains of Conscientiousness and Openness/Intellect, and why the gender divergence for Extraversion is typically very small.

Clearly the average personalities of men and women are systematically different. Does this mean, however, that Bill Cosby's metaphor, that men and women are from "different species," is apt? We would caution against adopting such a dramatic interpretation of the pervasive gender differences in personality that we report in this report. All of the mean differences we found (and all of the differences that have been constitute in the past – eastward.one thousand., Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001) are minor to moderate. This ways that the distributions of traits for men and women are largely overlapping. To illustrate this fact, in Figure x we present the male and female distributions from our sample for the trait which showed the largest gender departure, Conjuration. 1 tin see that both men and women can be found across a similar range of Conjuration scores, such that, despite the fact that women score higher than men on average, at that place are many men who are more amusing than many women, and many women who are less agreeable than many men. Given that Agreeableness showed the largest gender deviation in our study, all other traits for which we reported significant gender differences would show even greater overlap in men's and women's distributions. Although the mean differences in personality between genders may exist important in shaping human feel and human culture, they are probably not so large as to preclude effective communication between men and women. Unlike Bill Cosby, nosotros are optimistic that any difficulties in communication between men and women are due primarily to cultural norms that are amenable to change, rather than to differences in basic personality traits, which are much more than difficult to change.

Figure 10. Overlapping distributions of Agreeableness for men and women. Vertical axis indicates density, or the proportion of the sample in a given expanse nether the curve.

Disharmonize of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed equally a potential conflict of interest.

References

Buss, D. M. (2008). Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Listen, 3rd Edn. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Costa, P. T. Jr., and McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Deary, I. J., Irwing, P., Der, 1000., and Bates, T. C. (2007). Brother-sister differences in the 1000 factor in intelligence: analysis of full, opposite-sex siblings from the NLSY1979. Intelligence 35, 451–456.

CrossRef Total Text

DeYoung, C.G., and Gray, J.R. (2009). "Personality neuroscience: explaining individual differences in bear on, beliefs, and noesis," in The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology, eds P. J. Corr and G. Matthews (New York: Cambridge University Printing), 323–346.

Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality construction: emergence of the five-gene model. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 41, 417–440.

CrossRef Total Text

Dunkley, D. M., Sanislow, C. A., Grilo, C. Chiliad., and McGlashan, T. H. (2006). Perfectionism and depressive symptoms iii years later: negative social interactions, avoidant coping, and perceived social support as mediators. Compr. Psychiatry 46, 106–115.

CrossRef Full Text

Eagly, A. H., and Wood, Due west. (2005). Universal sex differences across patriarchal cultures ≠ evolved psychological dispositions. Behav. Brain Sci. 28, 281–283.

CrossRef Full Text

Fleeson, W., and Gallagher, P. (2009). The implications of Big Five continuing for the distribution of trait manifestation in beliefs: fifteen feel-sampling studies and a meta-assay. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 97, 1097–1114.

Pubmed Abstruse | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Total Text

Gosling, S. D., Vazire, S., Srivastava, S., and John, O. P. (2004). Should we trust spider web-based studies? A comparative analysis of half-dozen preconceptions about internet questionnaires. Am. Psychol. 59, 93–104.

Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text

Helgeson, Five. South., and Fritz, H. L. (1999). Unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion: distinctions from bureau and communion. J. Res. Pers. 33, 31–158.

CrossRef Full Text

Jang, K. Fifty., Livesley, W. J., Angleitner, A., Reimann, R., and Vernon, P. A. (2002). Genetic and environmental influences on the covariance of facets defining the domains of the five-factor model of personality. Pers. Individ. Dif. 33, 83–101.

CrossRef Full Text

John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., and Soto, C. J. (2008). "Image shift to the integrative Big Five trait taxonomy: history, measurement, and conceptual issues," in Handbook of Personality Psychology: Theory and Research, third Edn, eds O. P. John, R. W. Robins and L. A. Pervin (New York: Guilford Press), 114–158.

Lippa, R. A. (2010). Gender differences in personality and interests: when, where, and why? Social and personality psychology compass. iv, 1098–1110.

Markus, H., and Kitayama, South. (1991). Civilization and the self: implications for knowledge, emotion, and motivation. Psychol. Rev. 98, 224–253.

CrossRef Full Text

Matsumoto, D., and Fontaine, J. (2008). Mapping expressive differences around the earth: the relationship between emotional display rules and individualism versus collectivism. J. Cross Cult. Psychol. 39, 55–74.

CrossRef Full Text

McCrae, R. R., Terracciano, A., 79 members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project. (2005). Personality profiles of cultures: aggregate personality traits. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 89, 407–425.

Pubmed Abstruse | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text

Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard, T., Boykin, A., Brody, Northward., Ceci, S. J., Halpern, D. F., Loehlin, J. C., Perloff, R., Sternberg, R. J., and Urbina, Due south. (1996). Intelligence: knowns and unknowns. Am. Psychol. 51, 77–101.

CrossRef Full Text

Orth, U., Trzesniewski, K. H., and Robins, R. West. (2010). Self-esteem development from young machismo to sometime age: a cohort-sequential longitudinal written report. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 98, 645–658.

Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text

Roberts, B. Westward., Walton, 1000. E., and Viechtbauer, Westward. (2006). Patterns of mean-level alter in personality traits beyond the life course: a meta analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychol. Balderdash. 132, 1–25.

Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text

Scherwitz, L., Perkins, Fifty., Chesney, M., and Hughes, G. (1991). Cook- Medley Hostility scale and subsets: relationship to demographic and psychosocial characteristics in young adults in the CARDIA study. Psychosom. Med. 53, 36–49.

Pubmed Abstruse | Pubmed Full Text

Schmitt, D. P., Realo, A., Voracek, M., and Allik, J. (2008). Why can't a man be more similar a woman? Sex differences in Big 5 personality traits across 55 cultures. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 94, 168–182.

Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Total Text

Sherry, S. B., Hewitt, P. L., Flett, Grand. L., Lee-Baggely, D. L., and Hall, P. A. (2007). Trait perfectionism and perfectionistic self-presentation in personality pathology. Pers. Individ. Dif. 42, 477–490.

CrossRef Full Text

Soto, C. J., and John, O. P. (2009). Using the California psychological inventory to assess the Big Five personality domains: a hierarchical approach. J. Res. Pers. 43, 25–38.

CrossRef Full Text

Soto, C. J., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., and Potter, J. (2011). Age differences in personality traits from 10 to 65: Big Five domains and facets in a large cross-sectional sample. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100, 330–348.

Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text

Suh, Due east., Diener, E., Oishi, S., and Triandis, H. C. (1998). The shifting basis of life satisfaction judgments across cultures: emotions versus norms. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 74, 482–493.

CrossRef Full Text

Trivers, R. 50. (1972). "Parental investment and sexual selection," in Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man, ed. B. Campbell (Chicago: Aldine), 136–179.

van der Sluis, S., Derom, C., Thiery, E., Bartels, Chiliad., Polderman, T. J. C., Verhulst, F. C., Jacobs, N., van Gestel, Southward., de Geus, E. J. C., Dolan, C. V., Boomsma, D. I., and Posthuma, D. (2008). Sex activity differences on the WISC-R in Kingdom of belgium and the Netherlands. Intelligence 36, 48–67.

CrossRef Full Text

Weissman, One thousand. M., Bland, R. C., Canino, G. J., Faravelli, C., Greenwald, Due south., Hwu, H. K., Joyce, P. R., Karam, E. G., Lee, C. Chiliad., Lellouch, J., Lépine, J. P., Newman, S. C., Rubio-Stipec, One thousand., Wells, J. E., Wickramaratne, P. J., Wittchen, H., and Yeh, E. K. (1996). Cantankerous-national epidemiology of major depression and bipolar disorder. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 276, 293–299.

CrossRef Full Text

Wiggins, J. S. (1979). A psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: the interpersonal domain. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 37, 395–412.

CrossRef Total Text

Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00178/full

Posted by: pratherfiefultoothe.blogspot.com

Share this post