National differences in personality

Besides establishing national IQ levels, Richard Lynn also started and inspired studies attempting to find out regularities behind the national differences in personality. Recent large-scale collaborative projects involving hundreds of psychologists from about 50 countries allowed for determination of the aggregate national scores of personality for the most popular personality models, including the Big Five. These studies have already revealed several universal and geographically regular patterns in the global personality trait distributions. The area of the study of national differences in personality has arguably matured to a level where it can start to help solving fundamental problems such as the relationship between genes, culture, and personality.

► Richard Lynn is so tightly associated with IQ research that his equally seminal works on personality has been seriously underestimated.
► Many of the current cross-cultural studies of personality traits were inspired by Richard Lynn’s pioneering research and by the sometimes uncomfortable questions he had the courage to ask.
► Several universal and geographically regular patterns in the global personality trait distributions have been discovered.