SEX DIFFERENCES IN JEALOUSY IN EVOLUTIONARY AND CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE:

Abstract— As predicted by models derived from evolutionary psychology, men within the United States have been shown to exhibit greater psychological and physiological distress to sexual than to emotional infidelity of their partner, and women have been shown to exhibit more distress to emotional than to sexual infidelity. Because cross-cultural tests are critical for evolutionary hypotheses, we examined these sex differences in three parallel studies conducted in the Netherlands ( N = 207), Germany ( N = 200), and the United Slates ( N = 224) Two key findings emerged First, the sex differences in sexual jealousy are robust across these cultures, providing support for the evolutionary psychological model Second, the magnitude of the sex differences varies somewhat across cultures—large for the United States, medium for Germany and the Netherlands Discussion focuses on the evolutionary psychology of jealousy and on the sensitivity of sex differences m the sexual sphere to cultural input.     

Personality in Germany and Minnesota: an IRT-based comparison of MPQ self-reports

We compared personality across cultures to explore the extent of cultural differences. This study used samples matched on gender and age from Germany and Minnesota to compare traditional scale scores and IRT-based parameters for Tellegen's (1982) Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire scales. Because the samples consisted of twins, we were able to replicate the findings from the subsamples consisting of one member of each pair with the subsamples consisting of their co-twins. When the full scales were considered, Germans were higher in Aggression and Absorption and Minnesotans were higher in Well-being, Control, and Traditionalism, but, except for those in Traditionalism, different item-difficulty parameters explained most of these differences. IRT highlighted less than optimal scale properties as well as differentially functioning items. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings.     

The five‐factor personality inventory: cross‐cultural generalizability across 13 countries

In the present study, we investigated the structural invariance of the Five‐Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) across a variety of cultures. Self‐report data sets from ten European and three non‐European countries were available, representing the Germanic (Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, USA), Romance (Italy, Spain), and Slavic branches (Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia) of the Indo‐European languages, as well as the Semito‐Hamitic (Israel) and Altaic (Hungary, Japan) language families. Each data set was subjected to principal component analysis, followed by varimax rotation and orthogonal Procrustes rotation to optimal agreement with (i) the Dutch normative structure and (ii) an American large‐sample structure. Three criteria (scree test, internal consistency reliabilities of the varimax‐rotated components, and parallel analysis) were used to establish the number of factors to be retained for rotation. Clear five‐factor structures were found in all samples except in the smallest one (USA, N = 97). Internal consistency reliabilities of the five components were generally good and high congruence was found between each sample structure and both reference structures. More than 80% of the items were equally stable within each country. Based on the results, an international FFPI reference structure is proposed. This reference structure can facilitate standardized communications about Big Five scores across research programmes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding the Immediacy of Other Minds

In this paper we address the epistemological debate between emerging perceptual accounts (PA) of knowing other minds and traditional theory of mind (ToM) approaches to the problem of other minds. We argue that the current formulations of the debate are conceptually misleading and empirically unfounded. Rather, the real contribution of PA is to point out a certain ‘immediacy’ that characterizes episodes of mindreading. We claim that while the intuition of immediacy should be preserved for explaining the nature and function of some cognitive processes of mindreading, the notion of immediacy should apply for describing a particular epistemic attitude and not a particular type of epistemic access. We draw on Wittgenstein's discussions of one's relation to other minds to elaborate our claims and to move the epistemological discussions beyond stalling debates between ToM and PA.     

Sources of structure: genetic, environmental, and artifactual influences on the covariation of personality traits

The phenotypic structure of personality traits has been well described, but it has not yet been explained causally. Behavior genetic covariance analyses can identify the underlying causes of phenotypic structure; previous behavior genetic research has suggested that the effects from both genetic and nonshared environmental influences mirror the phenotype. However, nonshared environmental effects are usually estimated as a residualterm that may also include systematic bias, such as that introduced by implicit personality theory. To reduce that bias, we supplemented data from Canadian and German twin studies with cross-observer correlations on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. The hypothesized five-factor structure was found in both the phenotypic and genetic/familial covariances. When the residual covariance was decomposed into true nonshared environmental influences and method bias, only the latter showed the five-factor structure. True nonshared environmental influences are not structured as genetic influences are, although there was some suggestion that they do affect two personality dimensions, Conscientiousness and Love. These data reaffirm the value of behavior genetic analyses for research on the underlying causes of personality traits.     

Covariance structure of neuroticism and agreeableness: a twin and molecular genetic analysis of the role of the serotonin transporter gene

The Revised NEO Personality Inventory domains of Neuroticism and Agreeableness are considered factorially distinct despite several intercorrelations between these domains. The genetic correlation, an index of the degree to which these intercorrelations are caused by genetic influences, was estimated using data from 913 monozygotic and 562 dizygotic volunteer twin pairs from Canada, Germany, and Japan. The serotonin transporter gene, 5-HTTLPR, was assayed in a sample of 388 nontwin sibling pairs from the United States to determine the contribution of the serotonin transporter locus to the covariation between the Neuroticism and Agreeableness scales. In all four samples, genetic influences contributed to the covariance of Neuroticism and Agreeableness, with the serotonin transporter gene accounting for 10% of the relationship between these domains.     

The cross-cultural generalizability of Zuckerman's alternative five-factor model of personality

The aim of this study was to analyze the cross-cultural generalizability of the Alternative five-factor model (AFFM; Zuckerman, Kuhlman, & Camac, 1988). The total sample was made up of 9,152 subjects from six countries: China, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. The internal consistencies for all countries were generally similar to those found for the normative American sample. Factor analyses within cultures showed that the normative American structure was replicated in all cultures; however, the congruence coefficients were slightly lower in China and Italy. A similar analysis at the facet level confirmed the high cross-cultural replicability of the AFFM. Mean-level comparisons did not always show the hypothesized effects. The mean score differences across countries were very small.     

Happiness Prospers in Democracy

An econometric analysis of a happiness function, based on a surveyof 6,000 persons in Switzerland, indicates that:(1) the more developed the institutions of direct democracy, the happier the individuals are;(2) people derive procedural utility from the possibility of participating in the direct democratic process over and above a more favorable political outcome;(3) the unemployed are much less happy than the employed, independent of income;(4) higher income is associated with higher levels of happiness.The consideration of institutional differences in cross-regional data offers important new insights into happiness research.     

Vom Geistigen in der Musik

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