No abstract

Sex differences in personality have been shown to be larger in more gender equal countries. We advance this research by using an extensive personality measure, the IPIP-NEO-120, with large country samples (N > 1000), from 22 countries. Furthermore, to capture the multidimensionality of personality we measure sex differences with a multivariate effect size (Mahalanobis distance D). Results indicate that past research, using univariate measures of effect size, have underestimated the size of between-country sex differences in personality. Confirming past research, there was a strong correlation (r = .69) between a country's sex differences in personality and their Gender Equality Index. Additional analyses showed that women typically score higher than men on all five trait factors (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness), and that these relative differences are larger in more gender equal countries. We speculate that as gender equality increases both men and women gravitate towards their traditional gender roles.

In the past decade, extensive interest has been directed toward the Dark Triad (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), popularly assessed by the Short Dark Triad (SD3). Nevertheless, relatively little research has been conducted on the SD3's factor structure. We investigated the SD3's psychometric properties in three studies with three independent samples, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses ( N = 1,487; N = 17,740; N = 496). In all three studies, Machiavellianism and psychopathy items displayed large general factor loadings, and narcissism larger specific factor loadings. In subsequent studies, two- and three-factor models fitted the data similarly, with the best fitting model being a bifactor model with items from Machiavellianism and psychopathy modelled as one specific factor, and narcissism as a second specific factor. On this basis, we suggest that the SD3 does not seem to capture the different mental processes theorized to underlie the similar behaviors generated by Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Additionally, we recommend the use of a single SD3 composite score, and not subscale scores, as subscales contain small amounts of reliable variance beyond the general factor.