European Journal of Personality
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/per.719
Mechanisms of the National Character Stereotype: How
People in Six Neighbouring Countries of Russia Describe
Themselves and the Typical Russian
ANU REALO1*, JÜRI ALLIK 1, JAN-ERIK LÖNNQVIST 2,
MARKKU VERKASALO 2, ANNA KWIATKOWSKA3, LIISI KÖÖTS 4,
MAIE KÜTT 4, RASA BARKAUSKIENE 5, ALFREDAS LAURINAVICIUS 6,
KONSTANTIN KARPINSKI 7, ALEXANDR KOLYSHKO 7,
SANDRA SEBRE 8 and VIESTURS RENGE 8
1
University of Tartu and The Estonian Center of Behavioral and Health Sciences, Estonia
2
University of Helsinki, Finland
3
Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland
4
University of Tartu, Estonia
5
Vilnius University, Lithuania
6
Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
7
Grodno State University, Belarus
8
University of Latvia, Latvia
Abstract
Altogether, 1448 individuals from six neighbouring countries of Russia in the Baltic Sea
region (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Belarus) described a ‘typical’
member of their own nation and a ‘typical’ Russian, as well as rated their own personality,
using the National Character Survey (NCS). Results suggest that national character
stereotypes are widely shared, temporally stable and moderately related to assessed
personality traits, if all assessments are made using the same measurement instrument.
In all studied countries, agreement between national auto-stereotypes and assessed
personality was positive and in half of the samples statistically significant. Although
members of the six nations studied had a relatively similar view of the Russian national
character, this view was not related with self-rated personality traits of Russians but
moderately with the Russian auto-stereotype. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
INTRODUCTION
Personality psychologists are interested in individual differences—as, indeed, is the
average lay person. To function successfully in the social environment, it is important to
*Correspondence to: Anu Realo, Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78, Tartu 50410, Estonia.
E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 3 December 2008
Revised 21 February 2009
Accepted 21 February 2009
230
A. Realo et al.
know whether we can trust a salesperson, how a new boss will react to our jokes, and
what response we could expect from a friend in a critical situation. But people are
inclined to describe groups of people, a whole nation for example, as if they also had a
distinctive set of personality traits. For example, it is widely believed that Finns are silent,
British people are reserved and Italians are emotionally expressive. If such beliefs prevail
among members of a social group, these viewpoints are usually referred to as stereotypes.
National stereotypes, either favourable or unfavourable, are often reflected in jokes and
travellers’ stories; they appear to be most enduring and it is difficult to convince those who
believe in them that Finns, for instance, are in fact rather talkative or that British people are
actually quite jovial and outgoing. Thus, nations and ethnic groups, just like individuals,
are perceived to have a distinct character, which can be described in terms of personality
traits.
Researchers have suspected that, although some stereotypes may be unfounded, in
most cases they exaggerate some personality characteristics that do in fact exist.
According to the standard definition, ‘a stereotype is an exaggerated belief associated with
a category’ (Allport, 1978/1954, p. 191). This definition implies that stereotypes, in
general, have a ‘kernel of truth’. Thus, beliefs about a particular nation being punctual can
be verified through observations of how accurate public clocks in the country are, or how
accurate people in the country are in reporting the time on their watches (Levine, West, &
Reis, 1980). Another possibility is to compare beliefs about the national character with
assessed personality traits among members of the nation: the typical American is believed
to be an achiever and Americans indeed score higher than some other nations on an
achievement scale when they are asked to rate their own personality traits (Abate &
Berrien, 1967).
For that reason it was a surprising discovery that beliefs about national stereotypes
generally do not correspond to aggregated personality traits (Terracciano et al., 2005). In
Terracciano et al.’s (2005) study, respondents from 49 nations described the personality of a
typical member of their nation (the ingroup). When mean national character profiles were
compared with mean personality ratings of members of the same nations, in most cases
there was no correlation between the two profiles. This result seems to imply that the
‘kernel of truth’ theory may be not universally applicable, at least in terms of national
character stereotypes. Clearly troubled by this finding, some researchers have argued that
national stereotypes cannot be compared with aggregate self-report or observer-report
data, as it may be the self- or other-ratings, not the stereotype ratings, that are biased and
invalid (Ashton, 2007; Heine, Buchtel, & Norenzayan, 2008; Perugini & Richetin, 2007). It
was also proposed, as a theoretical possibility, that stereotypes about the character of other
nations are accurate, but that stereotypes people hold about their own nation are not
(Robins, 2005). Although there are many plausible explanations for the fact that
stereotypes do not reflect aggregated tendencies to think, feel and behave in a characteristic
way, one obvious consequence of many of these explanations is that exaggeration of typical
traits may not be the only mechanism through which national stereotypes develop.
However, knowledge about alternative mechanisms is still very limited, mainly due to the
lack of empirical studies (McCrae, Terracciano, Realo, & Allik, 2007; Terracciano &
McCrae, 2007). This study aims to take a step further towards better understanding the
mechanisms of stereotype formation by studying national character stereotypes in six
geographically close, yet culturally and historically diverse countries around the Baltic
Sea. More specifically, we will examine both the stability and consistency of national
character as well as potential mechanisms of national stereotypes.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/per
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Stability of stereotypes
In a seminal study, Princeton University students were asked to select five personality
traits, from a list of 84, that in their opinion best described 10 different ethnic and national
groups (Katz & Braly, 1933). The results demonstrated that students held distinct beliefs
about each of the ethnic groups and that there was a relatively high degree of agreement
between different judges. Several replications and extensions of the Princeton trilogy
(Gilbert, 1951; Karlins, Coffman, & Walters, 1969; Katz & Braly, 1933) over the following
60 years have shown that it takes decades to change the content of national stereotypes
(Madon et al., 2001). These studies, along with more informal observations, seem to
suggest that national stereotypes are very stable over time and even significant events in the
world political landscape do not radically change their content, in the short term, at least.
For example, perceptions of the ‘typical American’ from 49 cultures around the world
before and after the Iraq invasion changed very little, even in countries like Lebanon,
situated very close to the site of the invasion (Terracciano & McCrae, 2007). Except for
these few studies; however, information about the temporal stability of national stereotypes
is rather incomplete. One goal of this study is thus to fill the gap in our knowledge and
provide more detail about the temporal stability of stereotypes.
Mechanisms of stereotypes
Since exaggeration of characteristic traits observed in the nation is not a likely device by
which national stereotypes are created, it is necessary to look for other candidates. So far
the search for a general principle explaining how national stereotypes come into being has
not been very successful. In some cases it is possible to explain stereotypes through an
association between particular aspects of the national character and some external
variables. For example, a pervasive correlation between climatic warmth and perceived
interpersonal warmth seems to suggest a metaphorical link between climate and
personality: other things being equal, people from physically warmer environments are
presumed to be friendlier than those who live in colder climates (McCrae et al., 2007). Such
results, however, leave open the discouraging conclusion that a mechanism common to all
national stereotypes may not exist (Terracciano & McCrae, 2007). Since national
stereotypes are ‘pictures in our heads’ (Lippmann, 1922), they are acquired by individuals
from a number of unpredictable sources, such as gossip, anecdotes, books and films. There
may be multiple sources for the emergence of national stereotypes and their origin may
vary from country to country (Terracciano & McCrae, 2007).
Nevertheless, in some cases it is possible to deduce what the mechanisms of national
character stereotype formation are. For example, Canadians describe themselves as
agreeable, emotionally stable and timid—in direct opposition to how Americans are
perceived by themselves and their neighbours: mostly arrogant, hostile and assertive
(Terracciano et al., 2005). Since Canadians perceive their national character as an almost
mirror image of the American character, it is very likely that Canadians have come up with
this stereotype through opposition to what they think about Americans (cf. Adams, 2003).
It is improbable that Americans define themselves in reference to Canadians; however, so
their views must be of a different origin. It is also clear that neither national stereotype
reflects actually observed personality dispositions, which were virtually identical for
Canadians and Americans (Terracciano et al., 2005). Another well-documented case of
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
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A. Realo et al.
such stereotype polarization concerns beliefs about personality traits in North versus South
Italy (McCrae et al., 2007).
There are several reasons to believe that polarization of stereotypes in neighbouring
cultures is quite common. It has been observed that stereotypes are often compensatory in
nature: the target country is perceived as warmer but less competent when the comparison
country is stereotypically high (vs. low) in competence and low (vs. high) in warmth
(Kervyn, Yzerbyt, Demoulin, & Judd, 2008). In the same way, it can be expected that
Russia, like the United States, has played a significant role in the formation of national
stereotypes in countries bordering it. Besides being a dominant political and cultural force
in the region, Russia is believed to belong to a completely different cultural tradition than
many of its neighbours. Several political scientists, both before and since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, have proposed the view that the cultural distinction between Russia and its
more Western neighbours is insurmountable, rooted in the incompatibility of two different
types of civilization (Huntington, 1993). For this reason, Russia is often perceived by its
neighbours not only as a dominant political power but as a constant threat to the existing
cultural traditions of these countries. In Estonia, one of Russia’s neighbouring nations, for
instance, there is a popularly held belief that Estonians are passionately individualistic
(Realo, 1998, 2003). Such a belief; however, seems to be based on a comparison with
Russians, who are usually portrayed as quite collectivistic (Realo, 1998). In a similar vein,
studies have shown that when asked about the national character stereotypes of six ethnic
groups (Estonians, Jews, Latvians, Germans, Finns and Russians), Estonian students depict
Russians as the antithesis of Estonians—Estonians are seen as selfish, superior, ironic,
conscientious, intelligent and honest, whereas Russians are described as helpful,
sympathetic, friendly, but also less conscientious and not particularly smart (Valk, 1998).
It is likely that most national stereotypes are acquired by word of mouth, through
everyday experience. When a large nation has played a dominant role in the political and
everyday life of its neighbours, it is expected that this pre-eminence will have left some
traces in the way in which neighbours think about themselves as well as their influential
neighbours. For example, it has been observed that neighbours (Poles, Finns, Hungarians
and Czechs) who have been invaded by the Russians see them both as less modern and less
self-controlled than they are seen elsewhere (Boster & Maltseva, 2006). It is not entirely
improbable, furthermore, that these stereotypes about their powerful neighbour are
somehow reflected in their own national stereotypes. Indeed, the nations living on shores of
the Baltic Sea not only share some common attributes between their otherwise very
different languages, such as vowel harmony (Jakobson, 1931/1962), but also a history of
sustained contact with the Russians. There are sharp differences among neighbouring
countries of Russia on the shores of the Baltic Sea in terms of everyday contact with
Russians; however, due to clear differences in the ethnic composition of the various
populations. For example, Russians constitute 29 and 26% of population in Latvia and
Estonia, respectively, while in Poland and Finland the Russian population is less than 1%.
But of course, contact with Russians in the countries in our study is not limited to their
share in the population. Poland, for instance, has a long history of shopping and transit
tourism, with large numbers of sellers and buyers coming mostly from Russia (as well as
from Belarus and the Ukraine). As for Finland, over 850 000 Russian tourists visited
Finland in 2007. Finally, Belarus, out of six countries in our study has the closest
associations with Russia—‘the preponderant Russophile orientation in Belarus stems from
the Orthodox cultural tradition, Russia being the prime cultural donor of Belarus, and
Russia’s pre-eminent role in shaping Belarus’ statehood’ (Ioffe, 2003, p. 1267).
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
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Aims of this study
The main aim of this study to examine how people in six neighbouring countries of Russia
describe themselves and the typical Russian. More specifically, we focussed on the following research questions: (1) Do national character stereotypes reflect mean personality
traits? (2) Are stereotypes about the character of other nations accurate? (3) How the intensity
of contact, both actual and symbolic, has affected the national character stereotypes of
Russia’s neighbours located around the Baltic Sea? (4) How stable are stereotypes?
Although results showing that national character stereotypes did not correspond to mean
personality trait levels in 49 countries are rather convincing (Terracciano et al., 2005), it is
important to note that in Terracciano et al.’s (2005) study, national character was measured
by the 30-item National Character Survey (NCS), while personality was rated with the 240item version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992). While
there is a strong conceptual correspondence between these two instruments, there is no
information on how comparable the measures are when administered with different
instructions. In order to eliminate possible biases inherent in particular measurement
instruments, it would be necessary to measure national character and self-rated personality
traits with exactly the same instrument. This is one of the main research strategies of this
study: we use the same measuring instrument, specifically the NCS, to measure how people
perceive both a typical member of their nation and a typical Russian, as well as how they
rate their own personality.
Finally, as mentioned above, we were interested in studying the temporal stability of
stereotypes. As argued above, it has been shown by several researchers (Madon et al., 2001;
Terracciano & McCrae, 2007) that national character stereotypes appear to be relatively
durable phenomena. Yet, it should be noted that the data collection interval in Terracciano
and McCrae’s study (2007) was only 3–6 months. In this study, we had the opportunity to
examine the stability of stereotypes in two countries—Estonia and Poland—across a time
interval of 5 years, by comparing our data with those reported by Terracciano et al. (2005).
METHOD
Participants
Altogether, 1320 college students in the social sciences and the humanities (933 women,
385 men and 2 participants who did not report their gender, mean age ¼ 22.1, SD ¼ 3.5)
and 128 working adults (77 women and 51 men, mean age ¼ 31.6, SD ¼ 7.3) from six
neighbouring countries in the Baltic Sea region (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Poland and Belarus) participated in this research. All these countries have a border with
Russia: Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Belarus border with mainland Russia, whereas
Lithuania and Poland border with the Russian enclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast. All
participants volunteered for the study. Students were assessed in group sessions in lecture
rooms of their respective university or college, except for the Finnish sample, which
completed the questionnaire online. Working adults were tested individually or in small
groups at their workplace. Data were collected in spring 2008.
Finnish sample
The Finnish sample consisted of 286 undergraduate (social science) students (247 women
and 39 men) from the Universities of Helsinki, Turku, Jyväskylä, Tampere and Joensuu.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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A. Realo et al.
The mean age of participants was 24.4 years (SD ¼ 5.8). The Finnish version of the
questionnaire was administered over the Internet.
Estonian sample
The Estonian sample consisted of two subsamples: students and working adults from an
Estonian real estate company. Two-hundred and one Estonian undergraduate students (129
women and 72 men) enrolled in various introductory psychology classes at the University
of Tartu participated in this project. The mean age of the students was 21.2 years
(SD ¼ 2.3). The working adult sample consisted of 74 individuals (44 women and 30 men)
with a mean age of 33.8 years (SD ¼ 7.2). The instructions were given in Estonian and the
participants completed the Estonian version of the questionnaire.
Latvian sample
The Latvian sample consisted of 200 undergraduate students (158 women and 42 men;
21.0% males; mean age ¼ 22.1 years, SD ¼ 3.0) in the social sciences and the humanities
from the University of Latvia and of 54 working adults (33 women and 21 men; mean
age ¼ 28.5 years, SD ¼ 6.5) from the Latvian office of the same (Estonian) real estate
company used in the Estonian sample. The language of instructions and of the
questionnaire itself was Latvian.
Lithuanian sample
The Lithuanian sample consisted of 204 students (110 women, 93 men and 1 individual
who did not report his/her gender) from the Mykolas Romeris University. Participants were
students in the social sciences, with a mean age 20.6 years (SD ¼ 0.9), ranging between
19 and 24 years. They were instructed, and completed the questionnaire, in Lithuanian.
Polish sample
Participants in the Polish sample were 229 undergraduate students (189 women, 39 men
and 1 respondent who did not report his/her gender) from the Warsaw School of Social
Sciences and Humanities Psychology and the University of Bialystok. Participants were
students of psychology and the educational sciences, with a mean age 22.2 years
(SD ¼ 2.0), ranging between 19 and 32 years. The language of instructions and the
questionnaire itself was Polish.
Belarusian sample
The Belarusian sample consisted of 200 students (100 women and 100 men) from the
Grodno State University. Participants’ ages ranged between 18 and 26, with a mean age of
20.9 years (SD ¼ 1.5). Participants were students of the social sciences, linguistics and
economics. The instructions were given in Russian and the participants completed the
Russian version of the questionnaire.
Finally, for purposes of comparison, we used data from the Russian Character and
Personality Survey (RCPS), which involved 40 universities and colleges from across the
Russian Federation (Allik et al., 2009). Three thousand seven hundred and five participants
with a mean age of 20.7 years (SD ¼ 2.9 years, 75% of them women) were asked to rate a
typical Russian living in their region on the NCS scales. We used data from this and an
additional group of participants (total N ¼ 10 672) which also used NCS to rate their own
personality. Both groups of respondents were given similar instructions as in this study.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
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National character stereotypes
235
Questionnaire and instructions
The NCS (Terracciano et al., 2005) consists of 30 bipolar items intended to parallel the
facets of the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992). For example, the Neuroticism facet,
depression, was assessed by asking how likely, on a five-point scale, the typical Finn was to
be depressed, sad and pessimistic versus contented and optimistic. The NCS was already
available in Estonian, Polish and Russian (Terracciano et al., 2005) and was translated into
Finnish, Latvian and Lithuanian for the purposes of this study by bilingual colleagues.
Translators were instructed to choose words or phrases that best conveyed the intended
construct, using the description of the 30 facets from the NEO-PI-R manual for reference
(Costa & McCrae, 1992). Robert R. McCrae, one of the two authors of the NCS, examined
independent back-translations into English, and any items that appeared problematic were
reconsidered by the translators.
The questionnaire was administered in three steps to assure that respondents did not
know that they were rating two target nations and themselves before they started. In each
sample, we asked respondents to complete the NCS by, firstly, describing a typical member
of their own nation (e.g. ‘Finns are likely . . .’). When everyone had finished, respondents
were asked to turn to the next page and to write ‘Russians are likely to be . . .’ at the top of
the page and to complete the survey just as they did before. Finally, participants were once
more asked to turn to the next page, to write ‘I am . . .’ at the top of the page and to rate their
own personality using the same set of 30 NCS items. NCS scores for the five factors were
calculated as the sum of the six relevant facets.
Internal consistency
Analyses of the 1448 individual responses from the total sample indicated that Cronbach’s
a for the five factor scales of the NCS ingroup ratings were .63, .69, .63, .75 and .73 for
Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O), Agreeableness (A) and
Conscientiousness (C), respectively. For the ratings of typical Russians, Cronbach’s a of
the abovementioned five factor scales were .45, .69, .66, .71 and .76. Finally, the reliability
coefficients of self-ratings were .67, .74, .56, .63 and .74, respectively. These reliability
coefficients, except for one, are acceptable for a six-item scale. Only one of the scales—
Neuroticism in the ratings of typical Russians—had a relatively low internal consistency
coefficient (a ¼ .45). The main problem occurred with facet N5: Impulsiveness, which had
a virtually zero-correlation with the other five items on the N scale. As previously found in
Russian samples using the NEO-PI-R self- and other-ratings (Allik & McCrae, 2004;
Konstabel, Realo, & Kallasmaa, 2002; Martin, Costa, Oryol, Rukavishnikov, & Senin,
2002), N5 was more strongly related with Extraversion (r ¼ .23, p < .000) and
Conscientiousness (r ¼ .36, p < .000) than with Neuroticism (r ¼ .04, n.s.).
Factor structure
A principal components analysis followed by a varimax normalized rotation was
conducted on the 30 items for the entire sample of 1448 subjects for the (1) ingroup ratings,
(2) ratings of typical Russians and (3) self-ratings. For ingroup ratings, five factors had
eigenvalues greater than one, explaining 48.4% of the total variance. For the ratings of a
typical Russian and self-ratings, six factors had eigenvalues above one but both a scree-test
and parallel analysis clearly indicated that five factors should be retained. The five-factor
solution explained 47.8 and 47.9% of the variance for the ratings of typical Russians and
self-ratings, respectively. In order to examine how well the NCS factor solutions replicated
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
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A. Realo et al.
the NCS structure, as found in previous research (Terracciano et al., 2005), exploratory
principal component analyses were followed by Procrustes targeted rotations and by the
computation of an index of factorial agreement across the cultural groups (van de Vijver &
Leung, 1997). More specifically, the varimax normalized factor loadings were targeted
towards the factor structure of the NCS ingroup ratings obtained on the international
sample of 3989 respondents from 49 different nations (Terracciano et al., 2005). After the
target rotations were carried out, the factorial agreement with the international data was
estimated for all three conditions. The mean coefficients of congruence between the fivefactor structures of the international data and our sample for Neuroticism, Extraversion,
Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were .91, .91, .70, .95 and
.98 (ingroup ratings), .93, .94, .92, .96 and .96 (ratings of a typical Russian) and .91, .88,
.90, .96 and .95 (self-ratings), respectively. Thus, nearly all congruence coefficients—
except for two—were above .90, thereby providing a reasonable replication of the
expected factor structure. But even these two somewhat lower coefficients of congruence
do not suggest total randomness as the means of the distributions of factor congruencies
based on Procrustes rotations of randomly permuted data range from .32 to .34 for the five
factors of personality (McCrae, Zonderman, Costa, Bond, & Paunonen, 1996).
Interjudge reliability
Interjudge reliability between single raters showed modest agreement between individual
judgments of ingroup national character, with coefficients ranging from .02 (C1:
Competence) to .38 (Agreeableness) for ingroup ratings with a median value of .14 for the
30 facets. This coefficient is slightly lower than what was reported by Terracciano and
colleagues (2005) in their study on national character in 49 countries (median ¼ .17). By
aggregating the judgments of an average of 181 respondents per sample, reliability coefficients ranged from .95 (Conscientiousness) to .99 (Agreeableness). Thus, aggregation
across a large sample of judges yielded highly reliable values, supporting the perception
these are shared by the group as a whole. Intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated
according to the following formula: reliability of (a) single raters [ICC(1,1) ¼ MSRMSW/
MSW/ MSR þ (k1) MSW] and of the (b) culture–average ratings [ICC(1,k) ¼ (MSR
MSW)/MSR], where k is the mean number of raters per culture, MSR is the mean square for
facets and MSW is the mean square for residual sources of variance of an ANOVA model
with cultures as the independent variable (McGraw & Wong, 1996; Terracciano et al., 2005).
Analytic strategy
In this paper we are mostly interested in agreement of cultures across trait profiles, not in
agreement on traits or in correlations for individual traits across cultures. Any two profiles
may be similar not only because their distinctive features are well matched but also because
they both reflect an average profile. In order to eliminate or reduce the component common
to all ratings irrespective of particular instruction, usually called the concept of
‘generalized other’ (Cronbach, 1955), all NCS stereotype scores (i.e. mean ratings of a
typical ingroup member and of a ‘typical Russian’) were converted into T-scores using
mean scores of national character ratings from 3989 people in 49 different cultures
(Terracciano et al., 2005). Unfortunately, there are no world norms for self-reports on the
NCS. Therefore, self-ratings were standardized using the seven-culture unweighted means
(total N ¼ 12 120) to compensate for the very large Russian sample. Thus, the mean values
of self-ratings on the NCS items were transformed into a distinctive profile which show
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
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237
how each individual culture is above or below average of the seven studied cultures
(cf. Furr, 2008).
Profile agreement, if not otherwise said, was calculated as the intraclass correlation
(ICC) across the 30 facets, using the double-entry method (Griffin & Gonzalez, 1995).
Double-entry intraclass correlations are similar to Pearson correlations, but they are
sensitive to differences in profile elevation as well as shape (McCrae, 2008). The p-value is
based on the non-doubled n of 30.
Abbreviations
Throughout the paper we use the following system of abbreviations: BLR ¼ Belarus;
EST ¼ Estonia; FIN ¼ Finland; LAT ¼ Latvia; LIT ¼ Lithuania; POL ¼ Poland; RUS ¼
Russia; self ¼ self ratings. In abbreviation pairs, the first part indicates the country of the
judges. Number 2 added to Estonia and Latvia indicates adult samples. The second part
refers to the target. If this is a country code, then the instruction was to describe a typical
person from this country. If it is ‘self’ then participants were instructed to evaluate their
own personality. For example, POL_RUS means that Polish participants rated a typical
Russian and LAT2_self means that adult Latvians assessed their own personality.
RESULTS
Using unstandardized scores, we performed an ANOVA with cultural group as an
independent variable (with student and adult samples being combined for Estonia and
Latvia) for each dimension in three different conditions (i.e. ingroup ratings, perceptions of
typical Russians and self-ratings). To estimate the effect size, we used the partial Eta
squared (h2), which is computed as the ratio of the effect variance (variance between
cultures) to the sum of the effect and error variance (variance within cultures). The
proportion of variance that can be attributed to the effect of culture varied from 8.48%
(Conscientiousness) to 35.00% (Agreeableness) with a median value of 20.47% for
ingroup ratings and from 4.18% (Agreeableness) to 17.82% (Openness) with a median
value of 11.59% for ratings of typical Russians. In case of self-ratings, the proportion of
variance that is attributable to the effect of culture varied from 0.58% (Openness) to 6.61%
(Extraversion) with a median value of 3.52%. A similar estimate was found in the
Personality Profiles of Cultures (PPOC) study of 51 cultures (McCrae & Terracciano,
2008). Based on those results, it can be concluded that national character stereotypes about
one’s own nation are particularly sensitive to respondents’ cultural background. In other
words, differences in ingroup stereotype ratings between six cultural samples were six time
bigger than differences in self-ratings of personality.
NCS mean ratings
NCS mean ratings in T-scores of a typical ingroup member and of a ‘typical Russian’ as
well as self-report personality ratings for five personality domains are given in Table 1. In
all eight samples, respondents saw a typical member of their own nation as high in
Conscientiousness and low in Extraversion as compared to international average
(cf. Terracciano et al., 2005). Respondents from all nations, except Belarus, also believed
that their compatriots are open to new experience below the world average. Russians, on the
other hand, were quite uniformly seen as high in Extraversion and Openness to Experience but
low in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness as compared to international norms.
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. 23: 229–249 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/per
N
E
O
A
C
N
Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
E
O
A
C
ICC1
ICC2
55.94
53.51
51.84
49.97
—
53.25
52.20
48.23
47.46
—
45.95
45.82
46.51
44.33
—
48.20
48.08
46.86
47.57
—
50.78
46.68
50.80
53.66
48.60
49.18
49.45
53.24
52.83
51.29
49.42
47.71
49.37
49.93
52.83
47.51
47.85
46.93
48.41
51.77
47.91
50.79
49.53
49.84
51.26
.25
.21
.22
.81
ICC4
.07 .57 .06
.40
.17 .31
.09
.50
.13 .13
.27
.06
.39
.38 .39 .15
.52
—
—
—
.31
ICC3
p < .05; p < .01; p < .001.
Data from Allik et al. (2009).
All stereotype ratings (ingroup ratings and the ratings of a typical Russian) were standardized using international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005), self-ratings were standardized using
the seven-culture unweighted means for self-reports (this study). N ¼ Neuroticism; E ¼ Extraversion; O ¼ Openness; A ¼ Agreeableness; C ¼ Conscientiousness; ICC1 ¼ intraclass
correlation between ingroup stereotype ratings and self-ratings (auto-stereotype accuracy); ICC2 ¼ intraclass correlation between ingroup stereotype ratings and ratings of a typical
Russian; ICC3 ¼ intraclass correlation between Russians’ self-ratings (Allik et al., 2009) and ratings of a typical Russian (this study; hetero-stereotype accuracy); ICC4 ¼ intraclass
correlation between Russian ingroup stereotype ratings (Allik et al., 2009) and ratings of a typical Russian (this study).
y
N
.65 .01
.77 .00
.56 .09
C
54.68 52.59 47.16 46.86 50.62 49.58 49.80 49.27 48.04 .07
54.99 52.68 49.60 46.36 46.37 49.26 45.43 49.64 51.14 .43
50.73 51.43 45.57 46.58 50.40 45.68 49.51 52.59 50.70 .44
A
Intraclass Correlations
.11
O
NCS mean self-ratings
51.94 54.69 47.93 50.73 46.98 49.78 51.10 53.03 51.55 .35
E
NCS mean ratings of Russians
Belarus
45.87 48.63 53.68 57.39 54.59 46.89
Estonia
Students
50.41 44.68 46.65 47.81 53.69 51.85
Working adults 49.25 44.63 46.63 48.34 54.78 51.92
Finland
49.01 41.65 46.07 53.33 55.73 49.50
Latvia
Students
51.65 45.02 48.80 48.46 52.80 48.54
Working adults 50.86 46.37 49.69 48.64 51.01 48.91
Lithuania
54.12 46.78 47.50 45.87 51.93 47.70
Poland
53.48 49.51 47.92 47.16 50.94 50.43
Russiay
48.30 51.15 53.63 49.86 51.27 —
Culture
NCS mean ratings of the ingroup
Table 1. National Character Survey mean ratings of the ingroup, Russians, and self-ratings. Intraclass correlations between ingroup ratings and self-ratings
and between ingroup stereotype ratings and ratings of the typical Russian
238
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239
Consistency and stability of stereotypes
The following analysis demonstrates that national stereotypes are beliefs shared by
different groups in the population and that they are relatively enduring. In Estonia and
Latvia, samples of working adults were used as raters in addition to university students and
yielded fairly similar profiles of both ingroup ratings and perceptions of typical Russians.
In Estonia, the ICCs across the 30 facet profile elements were .94 and .95 for ingroup
stereotype ratings and perceptions of Russians, respectively. In Latvia, the respective ICCs
were .84 and .88 (all correlations significant at p < .001). These high correlations indicate
that national character stereotypes of one’s own nation and of typical Russians are
consistent across samples and not restricted to college students alone.
Next, we had the opportunity to test the temporal stability of stereotypes for a period of
5 years in two countries, namely Estonia and Poland. Both countries had participated in 2003 in
the previous study in which auto-stereotypes were collected (Terracciano et al., 2005). The ICCs
between the student samples from 2003 and 2008 (this study) were .93 and .80 for Estonia and
Poland, respectively (p < .001). These relatively high correlations show that profiles of national
character are relatively stable and have not changed considerably during the last 5 years.
Similarity of profiles
One of the most elegant ways to summarize similarities between different profiles is
through multidimensional scaling (MDS). Figure 1 was created from pairwise distances
Figure 1. Multidimensional scaling plot of stereotype and assessed personality profiles. BLR ¼ Belarus; EST ¼
Estonia; FIN ¼ Finland; LAT ¼ Latvia; LIT ¼ Lithuania; POL ¼ Poland; RUS ¼ Russia; N ¼ Neuroticism;
E ¼ Extraversion.
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A. Realo et al.
between profiles, defined as one minus Cohen’s correlation across the 30 facet scores using
the ordinal MDS algorithm (Roskam & Lingoes, 1981). Although the stress value was .14,
increasing the number of dimensions did not alter the original two-dimensional
representation. Since the actual orientation of axes in MDS is arbitrary, we rotated the
whole configuration into the position that maximized the correlation of the dimensions
with Neuroticism and Extraversion (cf. Allik & McCrae, 2004).
The most conspicuous feature of Figure 1 is that personality profiles produced by ratings
of the typical Russian (triangles) occupy the right side of the plain which corresponds to
Extraversion. All other national character auto-stereotypes (squares), except for Russian
sample, are on the left side of the figure. The average self-ratings circles tend to occupy the
space between the profiles of national auto-stereotypes and the profiles of the typical
Russian. Arrows connect self-ratings in each sample to the ratings of their typical ingroup
member. In some cases the arrows are rather short (e.g. Belarus, Finland, Estonian adult
sample and Russia) which demonstrates that there is a considerable similarity between selfrated personality and national character profiles. Except for the Belarusian and Russian
samples, the average vector of arrows points to the left-upper corner of the figure which
corresponds to higher levels of Introversion and/or Neuroticism. This indicates that a common
feature of most national character stereotypes was that a typical ingroup member was
perceived as more neurotic and/or less extraverted than their rating of their own personality.
To what extent do NCS ingroup ratings correspond to the outgroup ratings of a typical
Russian? The ICCs between NCS ingroup ratings and ratings of Russians ranged from
.77 ( p < .001) to .38 ( p < .05) for Poland (see Table 1; ICC2), the latter being the only
positive correlation. Averaged across the eight samples, the median ICC between NCS
ingroup ratings and ratings of a typical Russian was .44. As predicted, Estonians (both
samples) but also Latvians (students) and Finns described their nation as a mirror image of
Russians (or the other way around: that is, they described a typical Russian as a mirror
image of a typical member of their own nation), perhaps in an effort to differentiate
themselves and establish an independent national identity. To illustrate these findings,
Figure 2a shows the ingroup ratings and ratings for Russians in the Estonian sample of
working adults. Estonians, when compared to Russians, are seen as very introverted, low in
openness and highly conscientious. A typical Pole, on the other hand (Figure 2b), is
thought to be not so different from a typical Russian, especially in terms of Extraversion
and Openness to Experience. As for the remaining three main personality traits, Poles see
themselves as more neurotic, agreeable and conscientious compared to Russians.
Do national character stereotypes reflect mean personality traits?
To answer this question we compared national character ratings (auto-stereotypes) with
mean self-ratings in the same culture. ICCs between national character auto-stereotypes
and self-report profiles were all positive, ranging from .07 (Estonian and Latvian students)
to .52 (Russia) with a median value of .35 (see Table 1; ICC1). In four countries—Russia,
Finland, Estonia (working adults) and Poland did people perceive a typical ingroup
member similarly to how they rated their own personality ( p < .05). In Belarus, Latvia,
Lithuania and among Estonian students there was no statistically significant correlation
between auto-stereotypes and self-rated personality. Figure 3 provides an example of
Finland where national character stereotypes appeared to be relatively accurate. Finns
described themselves, as well as a typical Finn, as average in Neuroticism and high in
Agreeableness. At the same time, a typical Finn was seen as introverted, closed to
experience, yet more conscientious as compared to self-ratings.
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241
Figure 2. National Character Survey ratings, T-scores for NCS factor and facet scales. (a) Solid lines show the
NCS profile of a typical Estonian as judged by Estonians (working adults); dotted lines show the NCS profile of a
typical Russian as judged by Estonians (working adults). The ICC between ingroup and outgroup ratings ¼ .77
( p < .001). (b) Solid lines show the NCS profile of a typical Pole as judged by Polish students; dotted lines show
the NCS profile of a typical Russian as judged by Poles. The ICC between ingroup and outgroup ratings ¼ .38
( p < .05). Scores were standardized using international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005).
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A. Realo et al.
Figure 3. National Character Survey ratings, T-scores for NCS factor and facet scales. Solid lines show the NCS
profile of a typical Finn (ingroup ratings); dotted lines show mean self-rated NCS profiles of the Finnish sample
(self-ratings). The ICC between ingroup ratings and self-ratings ¼ .44 ( p < .05). Ingroup rating scores were
standardized using international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005), self-ratings were standardized using the sevenculture unweighted means for self-reports (this study).
Are stereotypes about the character of other nations accurate?
If stereotypes about the character of one’s own nation are sometime moderately accurate,
how about the stereotypes about the character of other nations (Robins, 2005)? In this
study, we were directly able to examine this question. How accurate are stereotypes of
Russians in these six neighbouring countries of Russia? To answer this question, we first
examined the degree of agreement between our samples on their perceptions of the
character of a typical Russian. The ICCs across the 30 facet profile elements between
samples were all positive, ranging from .13 (Belarus vs. Poland) to .95 (two Estonian
samples). Only six correlations did not reach statistical significance and the median of the
28 ICCs was high at .58 ( p < .001). This suggests that, in spite of some disagreement, there
is a common belief about the Russian national character shared by the members of these
six particular neighbouring countries of Russia.
Having established agreement between our samples in the perception of the Russian
national character, we next examined whether national character ratings of the typical
Russian converged with the average self-reported personality scores of Russians. ICCs
between Russian NCS self-report profiles (Allik et al., 2009) and perceptions of a typical
Russian from the six different nations ranged from .39 (Poland, p < .05) to .31 (Belarus,
ns) (see Table 1; ICC3). Out of eight correlations, five were positive (median, .01), only one
of them statistically significant at p < .05. Thus, we can conclude that, although
representatives of the six nations have a relatively similar perception of the Russian
national character, this perception does not converge with self-assessed personality traits of
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243
Russians. In other words, stereotypes about the character of other nations appear to be less
accurate than the character stereotypes about one’s own nation.
If stereotypes about the Russian national character in these six neighbouring countries
do not reflect the mean personality traits of Russians, we can pose a slightly different
question: do perceptions of a typical Russian from the six countries converge with what
Russians think about their own national character? Figure 4 shows mean NCS ingroup
ratings by Russians and by the respondents in our study. The ICC across the 30 facet profile
elements was positive and statistically significant, ICC ¼ .40, p < .05. Both sources depict
a typical Russian as rather emotionally stable and extraverted, but there were notable
differences in the case of the other three personality traits. In support of the ethnocentric
bias hypothesis, Russians rated themselves as higher in Openness to Experience, and
especially in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, than others rated them. In other words,
members of the six neighbouring countries had a less favourable view of Russians than
Russians had of themselves. The degree of agreement with the ingroup profile of Russians
(see Table 1, ICC4) varied significantly across the samples in our study (median ¼ .24).
Belarusians and Latvians (both working adults and students) showed the highest degree of
agreement (ICCs ¼ .81, .50., 40, respectively, all significant at p < .05), Finns and
Estonians (students and adults) showed weak agreement (ICCs ¼ .22, .25 and .21,
respectively), whereas Lithuanians and Poles showed no agreement at all (ICCs ¼ .06 and
.15). The degree of agreement clearly reflects the ethnic composition of the six countries.
In Latvia and Belarus—where people have a relatively similar view of Russians to that
Figure 4. National Character Survey ratings of Russians by Russians (solid lines; Allik et al., 2009, Table 1) and
by members of six other nations (dotted lines; this study). ICC ¼ .40 ( p < .05). Scores were standardized using
international norms (Terracciano et al., 2005).
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which people from Russia have—Russians (or Russian speakers) form a sizeable part of
the population (Latvia—29%, Belarus—ethnic Russians constitute about 12% of Belarus’
total population but for most Belarusians, Russian is the only language in which they are
fluent (Ioffe, 2003). Of course, one cannot rule out the possibility that the very high
similarity between the Russian auto-stereotype and the Belarusians’ perception of Russian
national character is due to the fact that in both samples respondents completed the Russian
version of the NCS. But more likely, the high degree of agreement reflects the cultural and
linguistic closeness of Russians and Belarusians as has been emphasized repeatedly by
historians and political scientists (Drakokhrust & Furman, 2003; Ioffe, 2003). In Lithuania
and Poland; however, where perceptions of a typical Russian do not converge with what
Russians themselves think about their national character, Russians constitute a relatively
minor percentage of the population (Lithuania—5%; Poland—less than 1%). Thus, with
increased first-hand experience and contact with Russians as well as with cultural,
linguistic and economic closeness, the perceptions of Russian national character seem to
become more similar to the Russian auto-stereotype.
GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
In this article we sought to contribute to the existing literature on national character
stereotypes by examining the mechanisms of national character stereotype formation.
More specifically, we studied the temporal stability of stereotypes, the spread of
stereotypes among different groups of the population and the degree of agreement between
self-rated personality and ingroup ratings as well as between ingroup and outgroup ratings
of Russians. As opposed to similar previous studies (e.g. McCrae et al., 2007; Terracciano
et al., 2005; Terracciano & McCrae, 2007), all assessments were made using the same
measure—the NCS—which should exclude the possibility of the method effect in the
comparison of the ratings of personality and national character.
The first major conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that people assess the
personality traits of their typical ingroup or outgroup member rather similarly to how they
describe their own tendencies to feel, think and behave in a consistent way. Since the factor
structures of both self-rated personality and national character were remarkably similar, if
somebody described a typical Russian as high in Neuroticism, for example, the same
meaning appeared in the self-descriptions.
Our data from Estonia and Poland showed that perceptions of national character
stereotypes appear to be indeed quite stable, even over a period of 5 years (2003 vs. 2008).
During those 5 years, some politically and economically crucial events took place in both
countries, such as joining the European Union and NATO in 2004, which brought about
considerable changes in public opinion. For example, the percentage of people in Estonia
who said that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their life increased more than 20%
from 2003 (53%) to 2008 (76%) (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm). The
perceptions of the typical Estonian or Pole; however, remained unchanged. Moreover,
these national character stereotypes appear to be shared by different groups of the
population—in Estonia and Latvia, samples of adults were used as raters in addition to
college students and both yielded very similar profiles of the national character.
One of the most interesting and innovative findings of this study, we believe, was the
direct comparison of self-ratings of personality with perceptions of national character. Our
findings do not support the conclusion made by Terracciano et al. (2005) that, as a general
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rule, national character ratings do not converge with assessed traits. When the same
instrument was used for the evaluation of national stereotypes and the rater’s own
personality, the relationship between national stereotypes and observed personality traits
was positive in all studied seven countries. Among Russians (Allik et al., 2009), Finns,
Estonian working adults and Poles, mean self-rated personality profiles were in a relatively
good agreement with perceptions of their national character. In other four samples, profiles
of the self-rated personality and national character were similar but did not reach statistical
significance. This seems to imply that in some places, such as Finland, for instance,
respondents may base their assessment of a typical ingroup member on themselves, that is,
on their own personality traits. In some other cultures (e.g. Lithuania), however, people
portray a typical ingroup member differently from what they think about themselves. It is
worth noting here that the significant positive correlation found for Poland in this study
replicates one of the few positive correlations found by Terracciano et al. (2005).
Stereotypes about the character of other nations appear; however, to be less accurate than
stereotypes about one’s own nation: although the representatives of the six nations had a
relatively similar perception of the Russian national character, this perception did not
converge with the self-assessed personality traits of Russians.
Thus, it seems that the agreement between self-rated personality judgments and
perceptions of a typical ingroup member is a variable in itself, the magnitude of which can
vary across nations from being close zero to highly positive. Thus, instead of a fixed
relationship, we seem to have a variable relationship which could be used as a basis for a
typology of cultures. It is possible to speculate that some cultures appear to be ‘realistic’,
where personality traits attributed to a typical member of the nation accurately reflect the
personality traits of these members. On a two-dimensional plot of stereotype and
personality profiles (such as Figure 1, for instance), the aggregate self-rated personality
profiles of such nations or cultural groups would be located very near to the profiles of their
ingroup national character. In some other cultures, the portrait of a typical ingroup member
has no resemblance to the actual personality traits of members of this culture. With this
present level of understanding, we may only speculate how meaningful this typology could
be and how well it could predict other aspects of culture.
How do national character stereotypes arise? If they are not always based on observable
personality traits of the members of a nation, there must be some other mechanisms
underlying their formation. The results of this study provide one of the first insights into the
mechanism that makes stereotypes different from an average self-rating. As shown in
Figure 1, a typical member of a culture is perceived as more neurotic and introverted
compared to the average self-description. Thus, in a certain sense, people perceive
themselves more positively than they perceive others (John & Robins, 1994; Krueger,
1998). Yet, this does not mean that people perceive their own nation (ingroup) more
positively than they perceive other nations or other outgroups (Brewer, 2007), as would be
predicted by social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). In some cases people’s opinions
about their own nation were even more critical than those concerning their neighbours. In
this study we saw, for example, than in nearly all samples a typical compatriot was seen as
less extraverted and less open to experience than a typical Russian. Latvians, Lithuanians
and Poles also described their typical ingroup member as more maladjusted and distressed
than they perceived a typical Russian.
There appears to be a common belief about the Russian national character shared by the
six neighbour countries in this study. As said above, Russians were seen as high in
Extraversion and Openness but low in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Yet, the
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degree of agreement between auto- and hetero-stereotype ratings of a typical Russian in our
study (ICC ¼ .40) was at a much lower level than in a similar study by Terracciano and
McCrae (2007) which examined perceptions of the typical American from 49 cultures
around the world. In Terracciano and McCrae’s (2007) study, a relatively strong agreement
was found between ingroup and outgroup ratings on the American profile, ICC ¼ .71,
p < .001. Our findings do, however, seem to support other previous studies which have
demonstrated a substantial difference between ingroup and outgroup judgments of
Russians (Peabody, 1985; Peabody & Shmelyov, 1996; Stephan et al., 1993). Most
commonly, Russians are judged as impulse-controlled and conscientious (e.g. disciplined,
hardworking, serious, active) in outgroup judgments (mostly by Americans or Western
Europeans), whereas ingroup ratings are more in the opposite direction: impulsive,
inactive, generous, impractical and very likeable (Peabody & Shmelyov, 1996). In our
study, in contrast, Russians see themselves as above average on Conscientiousness,
whereas their six neighbours see them as low in Conscientiousness. As found in earlier
studies (Boster & Maltseva, 2006), our findings seem to indicate that people in
neighbouring countries of Russia see Russians differently than people in other parts of the
world. In Estonia and Finland, for instance, Russians are often depicted as lazy and lacking
conscientiousness (Lehtonen, 1993; Realo, 2003; Valk, 1998). Also in other neighbouring
countries of Russia, (e.g. Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic), Russians are typically
seen as less modern (e.g. bound by tradition, devoutly religious, old-fashioned) and less
self-controlled (e.g. easily lose their tempers, know how to have fun, lazy, sexually active,
generous) than how they are seen by people in Southern and Western Europe, or in other
parts of the world (Boster & Maltseva, 2006). It is possible that we have another foundation
for a cultural typology: cultures which have national stereotypes strongly (e.g. United
States) or only weakly (e.g. Russia) resembling the perception of their neighbours,
irrespective whether these stereotypes resemble assessed personality traits or not.
In conclusion, the obtained data provided some insight into the mechanisms of national
stereotype construction. National character stereotypes about one’s own nation are indeed
widely shared and temporally stable and, most importantly, moderately related to self-rated
personality traits if all assessments are made using the same measurement instrument.
Furthermore, national character stereotypes about one’s own nation appear to be formed, at
least to a certain extent, in reference to a dominant neighbouring nation (e.g. USA, Russia)
or to people’s self-rated personality traits: a typical ingroup member is often portrayed as
less extraverted and emotionally stable than people’s rating of their own personality. As for
the latter, it remains to be proved whether this is a mere consequence of the selfenhancement which accompanies social comparison, in which people perceive themselves
more positively than they perceive others (John & Robins, 1994; Krueger, 1998), or is,
indeed, a separate mechanism.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Anu Realo, Jüri Allik, University of Tartu and the Estonian Center of Behavioral and
Health Sciences, Estonia; Jan-Erik Lönnqvist, Markku Verkasalo, University of Helsinki,
Finland; Anna Kwiatkowska, Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland;
Liisi Kööts, Maie Kütt, University of Tartu, Estonia; Rasa Barkauskiene, Vilnius University, Lithuania; Alfredas Laurinavicius, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania;
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Konstantin Karpinski, Alexandr Kolyshko, Grodno State University, Belarus; Sandra
Sebre, Viesturs Renge, University of Latvia, Latvia.
This project was supported by grants from the Estonian Ministry of Science and
Education (SF0180029s08) and the Estonian Science Foundation (ESF7020) to the second
author. The writing of this article was supported by a Primus grant, number 3-8.2/60 from
the European Social Fund to the first author. Portions of this article were presented at the
14th European Conference on Personality, July 2008, Tartu, Estonia. We are grateful to
Robert R. McCrae (NIA, NIH), Antti Hulsi, Anneli Portman (University of Helsinki), Gints
Malzubris (University of Latvia) and Delaney Michael Skerrett (University of Queensland)
for their assistance at different stages of this project. We also thank anonymous reviewers
for constructive remarks and suggestions which helped us to improve the quality of the
manuscript to a great extent.
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