Am I THAT Quiet?
Even though I have considered myself to be quiet for most of my life, it was not until recently that I have felt I may be ‘too’ quiet. I always knew I was a quiet person and it did not bother me at all. However, things began to change two years ago — since I left Korea and came here to Canada. Being quiet seemed to act like a barrier. I felt awkward in social situations and wondered whether the awkwardness was stemming from my quietness. To find out what this was all about, I took a personality test –NEO-PI-R — and surprise surprise, I scored low on the extraversion scale. However, the test was comparing me to the North American norm and I wondered if I would score higher if my scores were compared to the Korean norm. I decided to find out.
There already was a paper that compared the different mean scores of the NEO-PI-R across different cultures. McCrae (2001) compared 26 different cultures of their scores on the personality test. I was mainly interested in extroversion between Korea and North America so I focused on those two scores. The Korean mean for extroversion was one standard deviation below the norm, so the American mean (they did not have one for Canada) — which is quite a big difference. It was as I had expected. Other personality traits on the NEO-PI-R — such as Neuroticism, Openness to experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness — were different from the norm as well, but extroversion was significantly different compared to others.
Some people may wonder whether the difference in the scores is due to errors from the translated scale (Koreans used the translated version of NEO-PI-R) or actual culture differences. Another study existed to find out. A group of bilingual people took two tests — everything was the same in the two tests except the language. It turned out that the bilingual people scored similarly on both versions, implying the difference in scores may be due to actual culture differences. The same article also tested for the reliability and validity of the translated test, and the results were fairly high for both reliability and validity.
In conclusion, there is a difference in the mean scores of extroversion between Koreans and Americans. According to a past study, it can be said that the difference may be due to real cultural differences rather than errors of the test.
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McCrae, R. R. (2001). Trait psychology and culture: Exploring intercultural comparisons. Journal of personality, 69(6), 819–846.
Piedmont, R. L., & Chae, J.-H. (1997). Cross-cultural generalizability of the five-factor model of personality development and validation of the NEO PI-R for Koreans. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28(2), 131–155.
