Testing the Replicability of High Jewish Scores on the General Factor of Personality

Abstract

Jewish preeminence is a widely recognized and considered phenomenon (Cochran, Hardy and Harpending, 2006; Lynn, 2011; MacDonald, 1994). While it clearly appears that higher general intelligence is a significant reason for Jewish (i.e., Ashkenazi) achievement (Cochran, Hardy and Harpending, 2006; Dunkel, 2014; Lynn, 2004, 2011; Lynn and Kanazawa, 2008; Lynn and Longley, 2006; MacDonald, 1994; Te Nijenhuis et al., 2014), the level of achievement and the diversity of fields in which success has been attained point to additional causal factors.Dunkel et al. (2015) speculated that in addition to general intelligence, differences between Jewish and non-Jewish populations in personality may be found. They posited that Jews would have a higher general factor of personality (GFP) than other religious groups. The GFP is the positive manifold of personality traits that is thought to represent something akin to social effectiveness (e.g., Dunkel and Van der Linden, 2014; Loehlin, 2012; Van der Linden, Tsaousis and Petrides, 2012; Van der Linden et al., 2014). Using three large samples, each of which employed a different self-report measure of personality, Dunkel et al. (2015) found differences amongst religious groups in the United States with Jews exhibiting higher GFPs. Additionally, it was found that these differences were not simply a function of higher Jewish general intelligence. Using the method of correlated vectors (Jensen, 1998) it was found that the personality traits with the strongest loadings on the GFP were also the traits in which the groups exhibited the strongest differences. The purpose of the current investigation was to further test the replicability of the finding of a higher Jewish GFP using an additional nationally representative sample and a GFP derived from a short 10-item measure of the Big Five personality traits, which include emotional stability (the reverse of neuroticism), openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness (Gosling, Rentfrow and Swann, 2003).MethodThe General Social Surveys (GSS; http://www3.norc.org/GSS+ Website/) are surveys that are presently conducted biennially, by the American National Opinion Research Center. The surveys contain questions on a variety of topics, but not all questions are posed to each participant. Sampling procedures are designed to ensure that participant demographics are representative of the population of the United States. The data for the current investigation was gathered in 2006.Participant's religious orientation was measured by the single item, What is your religious preference? Participants who chose Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or None were included in the analyses. Participant's personality was measured using the Ten-item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling et al., 2003). The TIPI includes two items (one reverse scored) for each of the Big Five personality traits. The totals for each of the Big Five were computed and then standardized (i.e., transformed into z-scores). A unit-weighted GFP was calculated by simply summing the standardized values for each of the Big Five.ResultsThe descriptive statistics for the religious groups for each of the Big Five traits and the GFP can be seen in Table 1. Mean differences in the GFP show a similar pattern as was found by Dunkel et al. (2015). Jews exhibit the highest GFP, the values of Protestants and Catholics vary around the mean, and non-religious individuals have the lowest GFP. A one-way analysis of variance with the religious groups acting as the independent variable and GFP as the dependent variable was conducted to see if the differences were statistically significant. The ANOVA was significant, F(3, 1402) = 2.76, p