A sociocultural norm perspective on Big Five prediction.

Abstract

The Big Five predict numerous preferences, decisions, and behaviors—but why? To help answer this key question, the present research develops the sociocultural norm perspective (SNP) on Big Five prediction—a critical revision and extension of the sociocultural motives perspective. The SNP states: Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness predict outcomes positively if those outcomes are socioculturally normative. Openness, by contrast, predicts outcomes negatively if they are socioculturally normative. Moreover, the SNP specifies unique mechanisms that underlie those predictions. Two mechanisms are social (social trust for Agreeableness, social attention for Extraversion) and two are cognitive (rational thought for Conscientiousness, independent thought for Openness). The present research develops the SNP by means of three large-scale experiments (Ntotal = 7,404), which used a new, tailor-made experimental paradigm—the minimal norm paradigm. Overall, the SNP provides norm-based, culture-focused, and mechanism-attentive explanations for why the Big Five predict their outcomes. The SNP also has broader relevance: It helps explain why Big Five effects vary across cultures and, thus, dispels the view that such variation threatens the validity of the Big Five. It suggests that the psychology of norms would benefit from attention to the Big Five. Finally, it helps bridge personality, social, and cross-cultural psychology by integrating their key concepts—the Big Five, conformity, and sociocultural norms.

Big Five facets and religiosity: Three large-scale, cross-cultural, theory-driven, and process-attentive tests.

“…Second, evidence for the SMP is not limited to religiosity, but extends to partner preferences (Gebauer, Leary, & Neberich, 2012) and to prosociality (Gebauer, Sedikides, et al, 2014). Finally, the SMP has recently been tested in experimental settings (Eck & Gebauer, 2020a, 2020b). Due to the specific experimental setup, it was impossible that the criteria (e.g., preferences for Chinese characters) differentially exerted an effect on personality as a function of the (experimentally manipulated) normative preferences of those characters in one’s culture.…”

“…As we describe later on, those approximated BFI-2 facets yielded results comparable to our BFI results (see Footnote 16). Finally, we had the opportunity to analyze data of a set of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) studies, which include our religiosity measure (see Study 1 Method section) and the BFI-2 (Eck & Gebauer, 2020a). The present research is the first that used those studies’ data to investigate how much religiosity variance the BFI-2 facets explain.…”

“…Thus, the 15 approximated BFI-2 facets explained hardly any more variance in religiosity than did the 10 BFI facets (Δ = 0.4%). Second, we had the opportunity to analyze data of a set of MTurk studies which include our religiosity measure (see Study 1 Method section and S1 of the ) and the BFI-2 (Eck & Gebauer, 2020a; see Footnote 3). Compared with our three main studies, that set of MTurk studies were small-scale and monocultural (100% U.S. residents).…”

Person-Culture Personality Fit: Dispositional Traits and Cultural Context Explain Country-Level Personality Profile Conformity

“…The sociocultural norm perspective predicts that several of Big Five personality traits are differentially linked to numerous preferences, decisions, and behaviors according to what is socioculturally normative (Eck & Gebauer, 2022). Prior research has not, however, specifically addressed how each of the Big Five traits correspond to conforming to the average personality profile within one's country.…”

“…Our study was designed to fill some specific knowledge gaps in the social and personality sciences. First, while prior evidence shows that some personality traits are linked to motivations to fit in or deviate away from others (Bleidorn et al, 2016; Eck & Gebauer, 2022; Gebauer et al, 2020), it is currently unknown how each Big Five personality trait may correspond to conforming to county-level standards in personality profiles. Furthermore, although many studies have revealed links between culture and mean levels of personality traits (Church, 2016), it is currently unknown how culture may be associated with variation in county-level personality profile conformity.…”