The intelligence and personality of Finland's Swedish-speaking minority

There is evidence that Finland's Swedish-speaking minority (Finland-Swedes) may have a distinct intelligence-personality profile from the Finnish-speaking Finns (Finns). We test this through an examination of the two groups' PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment) scores (which assesses representative samples of 15 year olds from OECD countries) and their personality scores, drawing upon a representative Finnish sample. We found Finland-Swedes to have slightly lower average intelligence. However, when controlling for gender and age, the Finland-Swedes score significantly higher on Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Emotional Stability. Overall, we found a Jensen Effect whereby most of the personality differences between the two groups could be attributed to the General Factor of Personality (GFP), which reflects the shared variance of lower-order personality traits. The GFP is assumed to reflect general social effectiveness.