Intelligence 41 (2013) 94–101

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National intelligence and personality: Their relationships and impact on

national economic success
Maciej Stolarski a,⁎, Marcin Zajenkowski a, Gerhard Meisenberg b
a
Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Poland
b
Department of Biochemistry, Ross University School of Medicine, Dominica

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The relationships between national personality traits and intelligence from 51 countries were
Received 18 June 2012 examined. It was found that extraversion, openness to experience and agreeableness measured at
Received in revised form 12 November 2012 the national level were significantly and positively correlated with national IQs; however, in the
Accepted 15 November 2012 regression model only the former two were marginally significant. For openness but not
Available online xxxx
extraversion, this corresponds to observations made at the individual level. It was also shown
that, taken together, Big Five traits and IQs of various cultures statistically explained 70% of a
Keywords: nation's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The most important predictors of economic
Big Five success were intelligence and extraversion, which proved to be strongly positively related to GDP.
GDP
Agreeableness and openness to experience, although significantly correlated with GDP, did not
Intelligence
statistically explain any additional variance of GDP over and above IQ and extraversion. The
National economy
Personality question about causality concerning differential variables and a nation's wealth is discussed. The
results provide new insights into relationships between personality and intelligence at the
country level. However, uncertainty remains about the validity of country-level personality
measures.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction many important correlates of national IQ. These include

The study of cognitive differences between countries is at a
relatively advanced stage. Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) first
presented average population IQs for 81 nations measured from
samples given a variety of intelligence tests, mainly non-verbal
tests such as Raven's Progressive Matrices. In two follow-up
studies (Lynn & Vanhanen, 2006, 2012) the authors calculated
IQs for 113 and finally 137 countries. They also provided
estimates for additional nations, based on measured IQs of
neighboring countries with similar population and culture.
There has been much skepticism of research on national average
IQ levels (e.g., Hunt & Sternberg, 2006). However, both the Lynn
& Vanhanen studies and subsequent work by others described
⁎ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw,
Stawki Str. 5/7, 00-183 Warsaw, Poland. Tel.: +48 22 554 98 06; fax: + 48
22 635 79 91.
E-mail address: mstolarski@psych.uw.edu.pl (M. Stolarski).
relationships with infant mortality, birth weight, educational
level (Barber, 2005), life expectancy (Kanazawa, 2006), religi-
osity (Lynn, Harvey, & Nyborg, 2009; Meisenberg, 2012a),
fertility (Lynn & Harvey, 2008; Meisenberg, 2009), the incidence
of HIV (Rindermann & Meisenberg, 2009), scholastic achieve-
ment (Lynn & Meisenberg, 2010; Meisenberg & Lynn, 2011),
income inequality and economic growth (Meisenberg, 2012b),
and homicide rates (Rushton & Templer, 2009). The high
correlations obtained in many of these studies argue for the
accuracy and predictive validity of national IQ measures. As a
result, some critics changed their point of view, agreeing that
national IQ may be a robust and useful construct (Hunt &
Wittmann, 2008).
There have been few attempts to measure national mean
scores of personality traits. One of the biggest and possibly
most reliable data sets was provided by McCrae et al. (2005) on
Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) scales. In this
study, college students from 51 nations rated an individual

0160-2896/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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 M. Stolarski et al. / Intelligence 41 (2013) 94–101
from their country whom they knew well. Raters could choose
anyone they knew well as a target, which resulted in a wider
age and educational range than would normally be obtained in
self-report studies. The mean scores of 51 cultures were
standardized and transformed into T-scores relative to inter-
national means. The authors concluded that the five factors are
universal across age and sex groups as well as cultures.
Although a wide range of individual differences is found within
each culture, variations in the aggregate levels of personality
traits may lead to characteristic features of cultures (McCrae,
2004) and be predictive of important social outcomes.
However, we still know little about the correlates of
national-level personality traits. Significant relationships of
extraversion, openness and agreeableness with well-being,
Gini index, and Human Development Index have been de-
scribed (McCrae et al., 2005). Probably the most impressive
result is a relationship of both personality and IQ with per-capita
gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is not only highly correlated
with national IQ (Pearson's r up to .73, Lynn & Vanhanen, 2002),
but is also predicted by three personality traits: extraversion,
openness to experience and agreeableness predict per-capita
GDP with r values of .44, .47 and .46, respectively (McCrae et al.,
2005). Noteworthy is that analyses conducted at state-level for
the United States resulted in different pattern of results
(Rentfrow, Mellander, & Florida, 2009), suggesting the need
for studies of regions within a country.
Although intelligence–personality associations at the level
of individuals have been widely investigated (cf. Zeidner &
Matthews, 2000), to date no study has been conducted to
examine the relationships between IQ and personality at the
national level. Therefore in the present paper we test how the
national mean scores on these constructs are related and how
they together predict GDP per capita.
1.1. Intelligence and personality associations among individuals
In the studies linking personality and intelligence, most
researchers refer to hierarchical factor models of intelligence
and to the Big Five model of personality (Zeidner & Matthews,
2000). The former is often defined in terms of Cattell's (1971)
distinction between fluid intelligence (gf) which represents
information-processing and reasoning ability, dependent on
the efficient functioning of the central nervous system, and
crystallized intelligence (gc) representing abilities to acquire,
retain, organize, and conceptualize information that is acquired
through experience and education. In the Big Five model of
personality, the following traits are considered as universal
characteristics of human behavior: Neuroticism, Extraversion,
Openness to experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness
(Costa & McCrae, 1992).
The most consistent relationships have been observed
between openness to experience and general abilities. It has
been suggested that openness correlates more specifically with
gc rather than gf (Moutafi, Furnham, & Paltiel, 2005; Zeidner &
Matthews, 2000). High openness may motivate a person to
engage in intellectual pursuits, which in turn increases gc
(Ackerman, 1996; Matthews, Deary, & Whiteman, 2009). On
the other hand, high intelligence may lead to success in a
variety of cognitive activities which may increase person's
openness and interest in trying new things.
95
Neuroticism in most studies proved to be negatively
correlated with intelligence (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997).
It was assumed that the anxiety sub-factor of neuroticism is
especially responsible for the negative sign of the relation-
ship. Eysenck (1994) postulated that anxious individuals'
tendency to worry may impair their cognitive performance.
In this view neuroticism is more related to intelligence test
performance than to actual intelligence. However, one can
also imagine the reversed mechanism: low IQ might be a
cause of test anxiety.
Extraversion in many investigations was positively related
to intelligence (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Austin et al.,
2002); however, several authors report a negative association
(Moutafi, Furnham, & Paltiel, 2004; Wolf & Ackerman, 2005).
Zeidner and Matthews (2000) noted that the relationship
between extraversion and intelligence may be mediated by the
nature of an intelligence test. Because of the differences in
cortical arousal between extraverts and introverts (Eysenck,
1967), the dimension of extraversion may be associated with
certain cognitive styles and intelligence profiles but not
necessarily with actual ability (Robinson, 1985).
For conscientiousness, most results did not reveal signif-
icant correlations with various cognitive abilities (Ackerman
& Heggestad, 1997). Moutafi et al. (2004, 2005), however,
obtained a negative association in a few recent studies. The
authors suggested that less intelligent people may compen-
sate for their lower intellectual capacity by developing a high
level of conscientiousness. People with high intelligence do
not need to be very conscientious as they can rely solely on
their intellect to accomplish most tasks.
Finally, agreeableness is the only factor of the Big Five
model that in correlational studies has been found to be
unrelated to intelligence (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997;
Austin et al., 2002; Moutafi et al., 2005).
Many studies suggest that both personality and intelli-
gence have some impact on life outcomes (Matthews et al.,
2009). Both are important predictors of occupational success.
In particular, general intelligence and conscientiousness were
found to be beneficial for income (Irwing & Lynn, 2006; Sutin,
Costa, Miech, & Eaton, 2009) and job performance (Barrick &
Mount, 1991; Gottfredson, 2004).
1.2. Intelligence and personality at the national level
Much controversy exists about the extent to which country-
level correlations parallel individual-level correlations, a
question that is often labeled the ecological fallacy (Oakes,
2009; Subramanian, Jones, Kaddour, & Krieger, 2009). Lynn and
Vanhanen (2002) consider nations as aggregates of individuals.
Therefore they expect that the relationships between intelli-
gence and other variables that are observed among individuals
should also hold for nations. Lynn's investigations on national
IQs confirmed this assumption in many different fields (cf.
Lynn & Meisenberg, 2010; Lynn & Vanhanen, 2012). Based on
Lynn and Vanhanen's (2002) hypothesis, we expect that most
intelligence–personality associations among countries will be
similar to those among individuals. Openness to experience
should be positively correlated with national IQ, while agree-
ableness and IQ should not be significantly associated.
Neuroticism and extraversion are expected to have negative
and positive relations to intelligence, respectively. However, as
96 M. Stolarski et al. / Intelligence 41 (2013) 94–101

we discussed earlier, the link between these two personality
traits and level of abilities among individuals may be mediated
by situational factors of test-taking. Because these situational
factors and their effects on performance are likely to be in-
consistent across countries, observed intelligence–personality
relationships at the national level are perhaps more likely to be
related to actual intelligence rather than to the process of test
taking.
As results for conscientiousness are inconsistent, it is
difficult to make strong predictions. However, recent data
suggest that a negative relationship between conscientious-
ness and intelligence may be more likely.
Moreover, as postulated by Meisenberg (2012b), it would
be interesting to see how personality traits and intelligence are
associated with each other and with economic outcomes. We
therefore decided to examine how the two domains act
together in predicting gross domestic product (GDP) per
capita. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident
producers in the economy plus any product taxes minus any
subsidies not included in the value of the products. We have
chosen GDP, despite its limitations (Shostak, 2001), as it is the
most commonly used indicator of national prosperity. Follow-
ing Lynn and Vanhanen's (2002) hypothesis, one may expect
that mainly intelligence and conscientiousness will have a
positive impact on GDP, as they are related to occupational
success and higher income for individuals. This relationship
may be also mediated by such variables as economic freedom
and scientific achievement (see Rindermann & Thompson,
2011). However, the results obtained by McCrae et al. (2005),
who used the same dataset as we do, revealed that only
extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness are
significant correlates of GDP. Thus we will use regression
models aimed at answering the question of which propor-
tion of GDP's variance can be statistically explained with
national personality and IQ scores, and whether these
predictors are redundant with each other or whether each
of them adds a significant incremental variance in explaining
national income.
2. Method
Big Five scores from 51 cultures were taken from McCrae et
al. (2005), and national IQs from Lynn and Vanhanen (2006). It
is worth noting that the IQ score for Switzerland was used
twice, as McCrae et al. (2005) reported two different scores for
German and French Swiss.
Data about per capita GDP for each country was obtained
from the World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/). We
applied a logarithmic transformation because of the highly
skewed nature of GDP worldwide, which approximates to a
normal distribution in the logarithmic form (Meisenberg,
2012b). IQ correlates far better with logGDP than with un-
transformed GDP, most likely because a fixed IQ increment
raises GDP by a predictable fraction or percentile rather than
a predictable amount. The average from the years 2000–
2009 was used. This period was chosen because it was close
(approximately ± 5 years) to the years of crucial publica-
tions to which we refer in our paper. Moreover, GDPs from
these years were available for all countries without any
missing data.
3. Results
Both national IQ and the personality factors were found to be
normally distributed. For IQ, skewness was 1.001 and kurtosis
was .612. For the Big Five, skewness ranged from −0.337
(extraversion) to +1.098 (openness), and kurtosis from −0.828
(conscientiousness) to +1.630 (openness). No outliers were
observed, and therefore all data points were used. We further
observed meaningful differences between world regions, as
shown in Table 1. Some of these differences were statistically
significant when the region was compared with the rest of the
world using the t-test. Differences that were significant at pb .05
were observed for E (English-speaking countries, sub-Saharan
Africa), O (Protestant Europe, Middle East, Africa), A (Protestant
Europe) and C (English-speaking countries), but none for N. Also
six regional IQs (Protestant Europe, Catholic Europe, Latin
America, Middle East, East Asia, Africa) were significant.
However, it should be noted that the sample sizes were rather
small and further empirical evaluation of these results is
necessary.
3.1. Personality and intelligence
Three of the Big Five personality traits appeared to be
positively related to the average IQ score at the national level
(see Table 2). These were extraversion, r = .30, openness to
experience, r =.34, and agreeableness, r = .33 (p b .05 each,
N = 51 countries). However, when taken jointly in one
regression model, none of the Big Five traits proved a
significant (p b .05) predictor of national IQ (see Table 3),
although the whole model revealed a tendency towards
significance, F(5, 45)= 2.39, p = .05, predicting 12% of national

Table 1
Average levels (SD) of IQ and Big Five personality traits in different world regions.

Region IQ N E O A C N countries

Prot. Europe 99.8(1.5) 49.1(1.0) 50.5(1.3) 54.4(2.2) 52.7(0.8) 50.6(2.0) 4

Cath. Europe 98.4(2.2) 51.1(1.9) 49.9(2.0) 50.5(1.4) 50.2(1.2) 50.0(1.9) 7
English 98.8(0.8) 48.8(0.9) 52.9(0.8) 50.6(1.8) 49.9(0.4) 48.4(0.8) 5
Excommunist 95.5(3.9) 50.0(1.2) 49.3(1.9) 49.2(1.5) 49.7(2.0) 50.4(1.3) 8
Latin America 87.8(3.3) 49.9(2.5) 50.9(1.7) 49.3(1.9) 49.4(1.3) 51.0(1.5) 6
Middle East 85.2(3.0) 50.4(1.4) 50.0(3.5) 48.5(1.0) 48.6(2.4) 49.4(3.0) 5
South Asia 87.6(4.0) 49.8(1.3) 48.1(1.6) 48.9(1.2) 49.9(1.8) 51.5(2.1) 5
East Asia 106.0(1.4) 49.0(2.0) 48.2(2.2) 49.9(1.8) 48.7(1.4) 48.9(0.8) 4
SS-Africa 68.8(3.3) 49.6(2.0) 46.7(1.6) 48.8(0.7) 48.3(1.8) 47.5(1.5) 5
World 91.9(10.3) 49.9(1.7) 49.7(2.4) 49.9(2.1) 49.7(1.9) 49.8(2.0) 49
 M. Stolarski et al. / Intelligence 41 (2013) 94–101 97

Table 2
Means, standard deviations and Pearson's correlation coefficients between national IQ, aggregate national personality traits and logGDP (N = 51 countries; 50 for
GDP).

M SD IQ N E O A C logGDP

1. IQ 92.45 9.84 –
2. Neuroticism 49.90 1.76 −.01 –
3. Extraversion 49.79 2.55 .30⁎ .08 –
4. Openness 49.89 2.22 .34⁎ −.16 .01 –
5. Agreeableness 49.80 1.93 .33⁎ .29⁎ .39⁎⁎ .42⁎⁎ –
6. Conscientiousness 49.78 2.04 .16 .17 .20 .14 .35⁎ –
7. logGDP 3.94 .63 .78⁎⁎ .09 .55⁎⁎ .36⁎⁎ .44⁎⁎ .15 –
⁎ p b .05.
⁎⁎ p b .01.

IQ variance. Two Big Five dimensions reached a threshold of However, this control left both extraversion and openness
significance of .10: extraversion, β = .25, p = .10, and openness significant (p = .012 for both). To test for regional peculiarities
to experience, β =.28, p = .08. The model had low collinearity. that could produce the observed relationships, we next created
The highest variance inflation factor (for agreeableness) was regional dummies for culturally defined world regions:
1.8. Interestingly, when taken together with other Big Five Protestant Europe, Catholic Europe, English-speaking coun-
traits in a regression model, agreeableness did not prove to be a tries, Latin America, Muslim Middle East, South & Southeast
significant predictor of IQ, β = .11, p = .56. It is worth Asia, East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. These regional controls
mentioning here that, although none of the Big Five dimensions left the effects of extraversion and openness essentially
proved a significant predictor of national IQ in the model with unchanged with two exceptions: The sub-Saharan Africa
five predictors, when we introduced only the two predictors dummy eliminated the effect of extraversion (β=.01, p=.96),
which were significant at the .10 level (extraversion and and the East Asia dummy enhanced it (β=.38, pb .01).
openness), the parameters of the new model were much Similarly, when the regression was performed without the
improved in comparison to the previous one (see Model 2 in African countries, extraversion became non-significant (β=.01,
Table 3). p=.93); and with the East Asian countries omitted, it became
The two-factor model statistically explained even more more significant (β=.43, pb .001).
variance than the five-factor, with a corrected R-squared of .17.
This time both extraversion, β = .30, p b .05 and openness to 3.2. Intelligence and personality as predictors of gross domestic
experience, β = .33, p b .05, proved significant predictors of product per capita
national IQ.
In order to test the robustness of these effects, we Analysis of relationships between psychological measures
introduced several controls into Model 2. Communist history and logGDP per capita for the years 2000–2009 revealed the
was used as a categorical variable because communist and following correlations: IQ, r = .78; neuroticism, r = 0.09;
ex-communist countries are known for low life satisfaction, but extraversion, r = .55; openness, r = .36; agreeableness, r =
also relatively high intelligence. Therefore it is a priori possible .44; and conscientiousness, r = 0.15, N = 49 countries each.
that a unique combination of intelligence and personality traits With the exception of neuroticism and conscientiousness,
in these countries could lead to the observed relationships. other coefficients were significant at least at the p = .01 level. A
difference in N between the previous analyses is a result of a
fact that the World Bank does not report GDP per capita for
Table 3 Puerto Rico.
Regression analysis predicting national IQ Level with Big Five personality A regression model with national IQ and Big Five scores as
traits. N = 51 countries.
predictors of logGDP (2000–2009 average) was significant, F(6,
Variable B SE B β t p Regression 43) =20.40, p b .001, accounting for 70% of GDP variance (see
Table 4). Once again, agreeableness proved non-significant
Model 1: Big Five traits
Neuroticism −0.127 0.825 −.02 −0.15 .879 R=.46 when taken together with other Big Five dimensions, β = .05,
Extraversion 0.965 0.570 .25 1.69 .097 R2 = .21 p = .67. Only two predictors were significant in this model: IQ,
Openness 1.247 0.699 .28 1.78 .081 Adjusted β = .62, p b .01, and extraversion, β = .34, p b .01. When com-
Agreeableness 0.548 0.920 .11 0.60 .555 R2 = .12 munist history was introduced into the regression model of
Conscientiousness 0.153 0.686 .03 0.22 .824 F(5, 45) =
Table 4 as a control variable, extraversion remained significant
2.39,
p = .052 at p = .010. Conversely, when the analysis was restricted to
countries without communist history, extraversion remained
Model 2: Extraversion and openness significant at p = .025 (N = 40 countries). Likewise, when the
Extraversion 1.142 0.498 .30 2.29 .03 R = .45
dummy-coded world regions were introduced one at a time,
Openness 1.479 0.572 .33 2.59 .01 R2 = .20
Adjusted the extraversion effect remained significant with p values
R2 = .17 below .025 in each case. Virtually the same result was obtained
F(5, 45) = in models from which one world region was omitted. In each
6.05, case, the p value remained below .025. No other significant
p = .005
effect of personality factors emerged in these models. This
98 M. Stolarski et al. / Intelligence 41 (2013) 94–101

Table 4
Regression analyses predicting log(10-year average GDP) with national IQ and Big Five personality traits. N = 50 countries.

Variable B SE B β t p Regression

Model 1 (IQ and Big Five)

IQ .04 .01 .62 7.00 .000 R = .86
Neuroticism .03 .03 .09 1.07 .291 R2 = .74
Extraversion .09 .02 .34 3.80 .000 Adjusted R2 = .70
Openness .05 .03 .16 1.65 .107 F(6, 43) = 20.40,
Agreeableness .02 .04 .05 .43 .671 p b .001
Conscientiousness −.03 .03 −.09 −1.06 .293

Model 2 (IQ and Big Five without Extraversion)

IQ .05 .01 .71 7.27 .000 R = .81
Neuroticism .02 .04 .06 .61 .549 R2 = .65
Openness .02 .03 .06 .57 .571 Adjusted R2 = .61
Agreeableness .07 .04 .20 1.79 .080 F(5, 44) = 16.53,
Conscientiousness −.03 .03 −.08 −.85 .398 p b .001

Model 3 (Big Five traits only)

Neuroticism .03 .05 .08 .65 .522 R = .67
Extraversion .13 .03 .51 4.07 .000 R2 = .44
Openness .10 .04 .34 2.53 .015 Adjusted R2 = .38
Agreeableness .03 .05 .09 .57 .570 F(5, 44) = 7.03,
Conscientiousness −.01 .04 −.05 −.37 .712 p b .001

shows that the relationship between extraversion and GDP
cannot be attributed to the influence of a single world region in
which an unusual constellation of GDP and extraversion is
observed.
McCrae et al. (2005) report factor structures of the NEO-PI-
R facet scales, which suggest that some agreeableness facets
load strongly on the extraversion factor. To test whether the
loss of significance by agreeableness when treated jointly with
other Big Five traits is caused mainly by its association with
extraversion, we conducted the analysis once again, but
without extraversion. In this case (see Model 2), agreeableness
reached a tendency level of significance as a predictor of GDP
(β = .20, p b .08). Analogically, IQ may be responsible for the
loss of significance by openness (see Model 3), thus it is
probable that the openness–GDP relationship is mediated by
intelligence.
4. Discussion
4.1. Relationships between national intelligence and personality
One aim of the present study was to examine the
relationships between Big Five personality traits and intel-
ligence measured at the national level. Openness, extraver-
sion and agreeableness proved to be positively correlated
with IQ. However, regression analyses showed that only
extraversion and openness were marginally significant pre-
dictors of intelligence.
Our observation that the country-level relationship be-
tween IQ and openness is robust to regional controls is
consistent with meta-analytic studies conducted among in-
dividuals showing that the correlation between openness and
general intelligence is around .30 and is the highest among all
Big Five traits (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; DeYoung, 2011).
Therefore the prediction by Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) that
individual-level correlations, if robust, will also be observed at
the country level is supported for the relationship between IQ
and openness.
The nature of the IQ–openness relationship is being debated.
As Zeidner and Matthews (2000) noticed, the analyzed relation-
ship may relate to the “liberal” aspect of openness, namely
willingness to question social, political and religious values, and
the rejection of traditional, “conservative” beliefs. Low openness
is strongly correlated with authoritarianism — a value system
that includes political conservatism, antidemocratic sentiments,
and ethnic prejudice (Trapnell, 1994). Authoritarianism, on the
other hand, is negatively related to intelligence (Altemeyer,
1996). Moreover, McCourt, Bouchard, Lykken, Tellegen, and
Keyes (1999) suggest that “Intelligence drives attitude forma-
tion. That is, when considering social, moral, and political
situations, those with greater cognitive skill are able to form
more individualistic and open-minded (i.e., antiauthoritarian)
attitudes than those of lesser cognitive ability” (p. 987). McCrae
et al. (2005) found that national openness is highly and
negatively correlated with one of the Schwartz values, conser-
vatism. Therefore it is possible that similar mechanisms account
for differences between nations. It seems that societies with
higher intelligence are also less conservative and perhaps more
pluralistic and democratic (Rindermann, 2008).
We also found that national IQ is positively related to
extraversion, although regional factors play a role in this
correlation. The most important regional factors are the co-
occurrence of very low IQ and very low extraversion in the
countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, the rather
low extraversion of East Asians, despite high IQ, may distort a
“normal” pattern of a positive IQ–extraversion association. This
result is in agreement with findings of a positive association at
the individual level in some studies (e.g., Ackerman &
Heggestad, 1997) and a negative correlation in others (Wolf
& Ackerman, 2005). Some researchers attribute the link be-
tween extraversion and abilities to contextual factors (Zeidner
& Matthews, 2000). One hypothesis proposes that extraversion
 M. Stolarski et al. / Intelligence 41 (2013) 94–101
may be related to some aspects of IQ test taking, rather than to
actual intelligence (DeYoung, 2011).
One may try to understand the aforementioned associa-
tion referring to the nature of extraversion. In comparison to
introverts, extraverts are characterized as active, outgoing,
with many social contacts, and they are more emotionally
expressive (Eysenck, 1994). Extraversion is strongly related
to positive affect (Watson, 2000), trait emotional intelligence
(Vernon, Villani, Schermer, & Petrides, 2008), and a more
desirable mood profile (Matthews et al., 2009; Zajenkowski,
Goryńska, & Winiewski, 2012). Generally, high levels of
extraversion seem to be related to a range of behaviors that
could be regarded as adaptive in terms of personal and social
adjustment. Austin et al. (2002) noticed that at the individual
level, personality correlates of intelligence could be divided
into two groups. The first group is positively linked with
abilities and consists of traits which could be described as
adaptive, while the traits classifiable as maladaptive are
usually negatively correlated with intelligence. Taking this
classification into account together with the claim that higher
intelligence helps people to deal with the demands of the
environment (Gottfredson, 1997), it is possible that more
intelligent societies developed adaptive aspects of extraver-
sion, so that they are able to easily express their emotionality
and tend to experience positive mood, which could be seen
as a subjective manifestation of adaptation to the environ-
ment (Jankowski & Zajenkowski, 2012; Thayer, 1989). The
latter assumption is also supported by McCrae et al. (2005),
who found a strong positive association between extraver-
sion and well-being.
We could also consider an opposite direction of the
discussed relationship. Eysenck (1994) postulated that a free,
easygoing atmosphere accords with the extraverted tempera-
ment. Moreover, extraversion is a substantial predictor of social
behavior (Matthews et al., 2009). We may hypothesize that
extraverted cultures have created more open and friendly
environments which in turn helped people to improve their
abilities. In such conditions intellectual potential might have
had a better chance to be expressed and by that could have
been developed more freely (Ziegler, Danay, Heene, Asendorpf,
& Buhner, 2012). This is consistent with the finding that
national extraversion is associated with national value of
self-expression and the dimension of individualism (McCrae
et al., 2005).
Finally, a common genetic basis of extraversion and IQ may
be in part responsible for the obtained relationship. Allelic
variation in the catechol-O-methyltransferase gene was found to
be associated with both extraversion and intelligence (Wacker,
Mueller, Hennig, & Stemmler, 2012). However, the most likely
relationship between intelligence and extraversion is indirect,
being mediated by per-capita GDP. Prosperous countries have
higher average intelligence than poor countries, both because
intelligence promotes economic growth (Meisenberg, 2012b)
and because prosperity leads to higher intelligence, as demon-
strated by the rise in IQ during the 20th century (Flynn, 1987).
Prosperous countries also have higher average extraversion
scores, as shown in our data. Indeed, in regression models that
predict IQ with extraversion and logGDP, or with extraversion
and variables that are highly correlated with logGDP (schooling,
freedom/democracy, freedom from corruption), extraversion is
not an independent predictor of IQ. The same is observed when
99
extraversion is predicted by IQ and one or more of the
development indicators. Therefore the observation that extra-
version, like intelligence, has increased in western countries
during the 20th century, (Smits, Dolan, Vorst, Wicherts, &
Timmerman, 2011; Twenge, 2001) is most likely caused by the
common relationship of these two variables with economic
development.
The likely reasons for the “disappearance” of the relation-
ship between agreeableness and IQ are the substantial
correlations of agreeableness with extraversion (r = .369, p =
.009) and with openness (r = .427, p = .002). Extraversion and
openness are not significantly correlated (r = .100, p = .496).
Therefore overlap between the constructs of agreeableness,
openness and extraversion may be responsible for the
association. A likely reason why all three are related to IQ and
to economic development is that they all appear to describe
positive interpersonal relations.
Of all Big Five traits, openness has the most robust country-
level relationship with IQ. Because openness is also the per-
sonality trait that is most often found to be related to IQ at the
individual level, it is plausible that in this case, the observed
country-level relationship results from a direct relationship
between these two traits at the individual level. The nature of
this individual-level relationship is uncertain, but it most likely
is bidirectional.
Ziegler et al. (2012) tested a hypothesis which states that
openness leads to more exploration of the environment and
social interactions, and thus to the experience of an enriched,
stimulating, varied, and challenging environment. People living
in such conditions more frequently deal with situations in
which the rules are unknown and therefore have to be inferred.
On the other hand, one may wonder whether intelligence plays
some role in the development of openness. Highly intelligent
individuals master unknown situations more easily and ef-
fectively. This experience in turn may stimulate interest in new
situations and thus facilitate the development of openness
(Ziegler et al., 2012). Although the explanation refers only to
intelligence and openness, it could be extended also to extra-
version, since as DeYoung, Peterson, and Higgins (2005) no-
ticed, openness and extraversion share the tendency toward
positive response to novelty.
The idea of interplay could be especially significant because
we discuss here whole nations. For example, a person growing
up in a highly extraverted and intelligent culture will adapt by
becoming extraverted and intelligent himself, more so than
might otherwise be predicted from his individual genetic
constitution. This individual will influence others in the same
direction, resulting in a classic feedback reinforcing the prevalent
cultural traits. Such developmental feedback, described fre-
quently in psychological studies of family and peer groups
(e.g., Zeidner, Matthews, Roberts, & MacCann, 2003), may be
responsible for the observation that the correlations between IQ
and personality obtained at the national level are higher than
those obtained in cross-sectional individual differences research.
Finally, additional factors may influence both IQ and
personality. When thinking in terms of general adaptation,
the same environmental factors may influence both cognitive
development (e.g., Chen & Ziegler, 2000) and personality
traits (cf. Zajenkowska & Zajenkowski, in press). For instance,
the availability of education, information and easy access to
media might result in higher IQ (Tong, Baqhurst, Vimpani, &
100 M. Stolarski et al. / Intelligence 41 (2013) 94–101
McMichael, 2007). High levels of safety and medical care
co-occur with higher extraversion (see the map in McCrae,
2004). In terms of causal effects, perhaps the most likely
relationships are that high intelligence leads to prosperity,
and prosperity leads to openness and extraversion.
4.2. National intelligence and personality as predictors of
national wealth
The second aim of this paper was to determine what impact
national intelligence and personality have on national economic
outcomes. The correlation analysis revealed that IQ is most
strongly and positively correlated with GDP, followed (in that
sequence) by extraversion, agreeableness and openness. How-
ever, in the regression model, only intelligence and extraversion
were significant predictors of GDP. Once again agreeableness
lost its significance in the presence of other predictors. The main
cause of this may well be the same as in the prediction of
national IQ: the overlap between the constructs of agreeable-
ness and extraversion (McCrae et al., 2005). Additionally, it
seems that IQ may mediate the openness–GDP relation since
openness was a (marginally) significant predictor of GDP only
when IQ was excluded from the model.
The model with intelligence and personality accounted
for 70% of the GDP variance, whereas IQ alone accounted for
65%. This suggests that personality explains at least some
additional variance in GDP, net of the IQ effect.
Extraversion proved to be the only statistically robust
predictor of GDP in the presence of IQ, but the direction of
causality is uncertain. The first possibility is that high GDP, or
aspects of “development” that are strongly correlated with
GDP, make people more extraverted. The second possibility is
that extraversion raises GDP because extraversion is associated
with social skills. Thanks to their frequent and rewarding
interactions with other people, extraverts are likely to acquire
greater social skills than introverts. Social skills are not
measured directly by IQ tests and are only mildly linked to IQ,
as evidenced by the observation that people with autism-
spectrum disorders can have high IQ and can excel in subjects
such as mathematics, physics and computer science despite
their poor social skills (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Stone, &
Rutherford, 1999). “High-functioning” (non-retarded) forms of
autism-spectrum disorders are best understood as the expres-
sion of extremely low levels of extraversion. Social skills are
likely to be economically important, especially for managerial
skills, and therefore are expected to predict economic success
for countries as well as individuals.
From a theoretical point of view (Costa & McCrae, 1992) one
might have expected economic payoffs of openness and
conscientiousness. Indeed, in the case of the former we observed
a significant relationship with GDP. However, the relationship
disappears when IQ is also included in the model. This suggests
that common variance of the two variables (which could have
been labeled a general intellect factor) is responsible for this
relationship. Conscientiousness, in turn, did not appear to be
significantly related to GDP. The result is in line with the
compensation explanation proposed by Moutafi et al. (2004,
2005): an influence of conscientiousness may be somehow
suppressed by IQ. Both these post hoc hypotheses may and
should be verified in further studies, applying interaction
analyses, mediation models (e.g., including education as a
potential mediator) and/or continuous parameter estimation
(Gorsuch, 2005).
The important unresolved question that arises from the
results discussed here is the direction of causality. One may
argue that higher GDP leads to better life conditions which, in
accordance with Maslow's (1943) hierarchy of needs, allow
higher-level needs to take center stage, as basic physiological
and safety needs are already fulfilled. Therefore individuals
and entire societies begin to strive for love and social support
or for self-actualization. The fulfillment of the former was
found to be important for positive feelings across diverse
regions of the world (Tay & Diener, 2011) and therefore may
be reflected in higher extraversion. The rise in extraversion
that has been measured in Western countries during the last
three to four decades (Smits et al., 2011; Twenge, 2001) can
be explained by this mechanism. For some individuals,
self-actualization includes, at least to some degree, intellec-
tual interests and cognitive development. In addition to
massive expansion of school systems, this could play a role in
the observed secular increases in intelligence that became
known as the Flynn effect (Flynn, 1987).
The attempt to predict GDP per capita using personality
traits in addition to IQ proved successful. Future studies will
have to define the direction of the causal relationships.
Moreover, the general factor of personality (GFP) may be a
fruitful topic to study at the national level. It was already shown
that the GFP is moderately correlated with individuals' IQ
(Irwing, Booth, Nyborg, & Rushton, 2012). Therefore one may
expect a similar relationship among countries. However, the
most immediate need is for studies of average national levels of
personality traits that are based on representative population
samples rather than university undergraduates. The challenge is
the creation of a world map of Big Five and related personality
traits that rivals “national IQ” in reliability and validity. The
observation that even GDP appears to be influenced by country-
level differences in personality suggests that other differences
between countries, especially those that are commonly attrib-
uted to “culture,” might be explainable by personality traits as
well.
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