Revisiting Gender Differences in Personality: New Evidence on Big Five Domains and Facets With Large-Scale Samples From 27 Nations

Numerous studies have documented gender differences in self-reported personality, suggesting that women score higher than men, particularly on the Big Five domains of Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Previous studies also indicate that gender differences can vary across facets of the same personality domain. Findings regarding the cross-cultural generalizability of—or systematic cultural variations in—these gender differences are inconclusive. This has been attributed to methodological differences in the samples and the questionnaire adaptations. We therefore systematically investigated gender differences in scores on the Big Five domains in 27 countries based on comprehensive samples representative of the respective adult populations (total N = 143,313) and on questionnaires adapted using consistent translation methodology. Results revealed gender differences in all domains except Extraversion. The most pronounced differences emerged for Neuroticism and Agreeableness, with effects of .40 and .35, respectively. These differences varied in magnitude across countries and were more pronounced in more individualistic countries. Investigating gender differences in scores on 15 more-specific, facet-level traits in a subset of countries, we found that typically one facet per domain showed the most substantial gender differences. For example, women scored higher than men on all facets of Neuroticism and Agreeableness, but primarily on Anxiety and Compassion, respectively.