The influence of culture on basic affective systems: the comparison of Turkish and American norms on the affective neuroscience personality scales

Abstract

The affective neuroscience personality scales (ANPS) aims to measure brain affective systems with the help of seven subscales: PLAY, SEEK, CARE, FEAR, ANGER and SADNESS, along with a spirituality subscale. From an affective neuroscience perspective, personality is substantially related to constitutional and developmental strengths and weaknesses in these basic subcortical emotional systems shared by all mammals. This study summarizes the standardization of the Turkish ANPS and its comparison to American ANPS norms. The Turkish translation of ANPS has been completed by 890 participants (245 of these composing an adult group and the remaining composing the university students group). 327 students out of this sample also completed a Goldberg-based Big-Five Scales (B5S), which was included in the validation of the Turkish ANPS. The obtained means and intercorrelations of the subscales on ANPS show both similarities and differences with the results attained from the study of Americans with ANPS. Gender comparisons in both cultures are mostly the same, with females having higher scores on SADNESS, CARE and Spirituality. The intercorrelations between Turkish version of ANPS and the B5S are mostly in line with the intercorrelations obtained in the original American study. Based on the results, the Turkish ANPS has sufficient reliability and construct validity. The similarities among the two ANPS studies are discussed in terms of the universal characteristics of basic affective systems, whereas the differences are discussed in the light of influences of cultural norms—as Turkish culture is more collectivistic than American culture which is more individualistic. The results of our study shows the need of carrying out further cross-cultural affective neuroscience researches to observe the influence of culture on the development of basic affective systems.