Secondary analyses of Revised NEO Personality Inventory data from
26 cultures (N = 23,031) suggest that gender differences are small
relative to individual variation within genders; differences are
replicated across cultures for both college-age and adult samples,
and differences are broadly consistent with gender stereotypes:
Women reported themselves to be higher in Neuroticism,
Agreeableness, Warmth, and Openness to Feelings, whereas men were
higher in Assertiveness and Openness to Ideas. Contrary to
predictions from evolutionary theory, the magnitude of gender
differences varied across cultures. Contrary to predictions from
the social role model, gender differences were most pronounced in
European and American cultures in which traditional sex roles are
minimized. Possible explanations for this surprising finding are
discussed, including the attribution of masculine and feminine
behaviors to roles rather than traits in traditional cultures.
gender differences are modest in magnitude, consistent with gender
stereotypes, and replicable across cultures ; most of the gender
differences we found can be grouped in four categories: Women tend
to be higher in negative affect, submissiveness, and nurturance,
and more concerned with feelings than with ideas ; Researchers in
the United States have failed to find evidence that men are more
reluctant than women to report distress ; men were found to be
higher in assertiveness and women higher in nurturance ;
self-reported gender differences are more pronounced in Western,
individualistic countries ; Analyses of cultural variation in
gender differences showed that differentiation is both reliable and
general ; Differences across cultures in the frequency of
psychiatric diagnoses might be due to differential access to health
care ; gender stereotypes were most differentiated in Western,
individualistic cultures ; personality traits in general are less
relevant to members of collectivist cultures
The range of cultures is limited, with only one Latin American and
two Black African cultures ; women are overrepresented ; The
subsamples differ in age distributions ; data analyzed were
collected at different times
