Exploring the stability of HEXACO-60 structure and the association of gender, age, and social position with personality traits across 18 countries.

OBJECTIVES: The present paper tests the cross-national stability of the HEXACO-60 structure across 18 countries from four continents. Gender and age differences across countries will be examined. Finally, this is the first study to explicitly analyze the relationships between the HEXACO and social position. METHOD: Ten thousand two hundred and ninety eight subjects (5,410 women and 4,888 men) from 18 countries and 13 languages were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis techniques were used to test configural, metric and scalar invariance models. Congruence coefficients with the original structure of the HEXACO-60 were computed for every culture. Effect sizes of gender, age, and social position factors across countries were also computed. RESULTS: HEXACO-60 demonstrates configural and metric invariance, but not scalar invariance. Congruence coefficients show a great equivalence in almost all countries and factors. Only Emotionality presents a large gender difference across countries. No relevant effect of age is observed. A profile of high scores on Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience, and low scores on Emotionality increases the likelihood of achieving a higher social position, although the effect sizes are small. CONCLUSIONS: HEXACO-60 is a useful instrument to conduct personality trait research and practice around the world. Implications of gender, social position, and country differences are discussed.

Levels of interpersonal trust across different types of environment: The micro-macro interplay between relational distance and human ecology.

Social and behavioral scientists have long investigated the relationship between interpersonal trust and features of the environment. However, it remains unclear how the microenvironment of relational distance (i.e., social proximity between 2 persons) interacts with the macroenvironment of human ecology (i.e., social and natural environments) to predict people's levels of trusting other persons. In this research, we tackled this puzzle using diverse methodologies (e.g., meta-analysis, experiment, and multilevel analysis) and large, cultural-group samples. Four studies found that, across many countries (e.g., 77 countries in Study 3) and regions within a country (e.g., 28 Chinese provinces in Study 4), members of these social units trusted close others (e.g., family members) more than distant others (e.g., strangers). However, this general effect of relational distance was stronger in societies embedded within more restrictive cultural, sociopolitical, and natural ecologies (e.g., a more collectivistic cultural logic, less developed socioeconomic and political institutions, and a stronger threat of infectious diseases, such as HCV infection). More importantly, people's attitudinal trust of distant others was higher in countries or regions with less restrictive ecocultural features, but such differences often disappeared in the context of trusting close others. Compared with other sociopolitical and natural features, the societal culture of collectivism often was a unique explanatory variable for the micro-macro interplay of current interest. These converging pieces of evidence provide a clear view of how levels of interpersonal trust vary as a function of relational distance and ecocultural environments simultaneously. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Multicultural Validation of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire Shortened Form (ZKA-PQ/SF) Across 18 Countries.

The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire shortened form (ZKA-PQ/SF) in 18 cultures and 13 languages of different African, American, Asian, and European cultures and languages. The results showed that the five-factor structure with 20 facets replicated well across cultures with a total congruence coefficient of .97. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) resulted in adequate fit indices for the five factors based on the comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI; >.90), and RMSEA (.031-.081). A series of CFA to assess measurement invariance across cultures resulted in adequate CFIs and TLIs for configural and metric invariance. However, factors did not show scalar invariance. Alpha internal consistencies of five factors ranged between .77 (Sensation Seeking) and .86 (Neuroticism). The average alpha of the 20 facets was .64 with a range from .43 (SS4) to .75 (AG1). Nevertheless, alpha reliabilities were lower in some facets and cultures, especially for Senegal and Togo. The average percentage of the variance explained based on the adjusted R2 was 2.9%, 1.7%, and 5.1% for age, sex, and, cultures, respectively. Finally, multidimensional scaling suggested that geographically or culturally close cultures share mean profile similarities.

War or Peace? How the Subjective Perception of Great Power Interdependence Shapes Preemptive Defensive Aggression.

Why do great powers with benign intentions end up fighting each other in wars they do not seek? We utilize an incentivized, two-person "Preemptive Strike Game" (PSG) to explore how the subjective perception of great power interdependence shapes defensive aggression against persons from rival great powers. In Study 1, college students from the United States (N = 115), China (N = 106), and Japan (N = 99) made PSG decisions facing each other. This natural experiment revealed that Chinese and Japanese participants (a) made more preemptive attacks against each other and Americans than against their compatriots, and that (b) greater preexisting perceptions of bilateral competition increased intergroup attack rates. In Study 2, adult Americans (N = 127) watched real CNN expert interviews portraying United States-China economic interdependence as more positive or negative. This randomized experiment revealed that the more positive portrayal reduced preemptive American strikes against Chinese (but not Japanese), while the more negative portrayal amplified American anger about China's rise, increasing preemptive attacks against Chinese. We also found, however, that preemptive strikes were primarily defensive and not offensive. Interventions to reduce defensive aggression and promote great power peace are discussed.