Does national character reflect mean personality traits when both are measured by the same instrument?

In this study, 3705 participants from across the Russian Federation were asked to rate their own personality traits, those of a typical Russian living in their region, and those of an ideal person, using the National Character Survey (NCS). Another large group of participants (N = 3537) was asked to identify an ethnically Russian college-aged man or woman whom they knew well and rate this target using the NEO PI-R. The mean personality profiles of the typical Russian converged significantly with self-rated personality traits (r = .63, p < .01), but not with observer-ratings (r = .33, p = .08). However, the former correlation lost its significance when the mean ratings of an ideal person ratings were controlled for (r = .35, p = .06). The mean ratings of a typical Russian converged even more substantially with the personality profile of an ideal person (r = .71, p < .001). Overall, the results suggest that the portrait of a typical Russian may to some extent be based on actual personality dispositions of Russians, but it is more likely that this portrait reflects socially desirable personality traits that have been attributed to a typical Russian. The results extend previous findings by demonstrating the importance of using multiple rating conditions at the same time.