Personality and Prejudice: From Big Five Personality Factors to Facets

The Generality of Personality Heritability

The present research examined the relationship between heritability and response time for the Big Five personality facets in three samples of adults and adolescents. We predicted that the larger the heritability of a facet the faster is the response to the items of that facet. In support of our predictions, the results showed that heritability and response time were indeed negatively correlated. The effect size of the relationship was small but systematic and statistically significant across all samples. The findings underline the generality of personality heritability and highlight the link between heritability and behavioral indicators. The potential usefulness of both heritability estimates and response time in research on personality is discussed.

L’âgisme : Adaptation française d’une mesure et test d’un modèle structural des effets de l’empathie, l’orientation à la dominance sociale et le dogmatisme sur l’âgisme

This article presents two studies dealing with ageism. The objective of the first study was to adapt to French language and validate the Fraboni of Ageism Scale-Revised (FSA-R) which contains 23 items, while the objective of the second study was to test a structural model containing ageism as measured by the FSA-R and the “Big Three”: empathy, social dominance orientation, and dogmatism, controlled for by sex and age. The results of the first study (n = 323) generated a version of the FSA-R comprising 14 items, of which the psychometric properties were very satisfactory. Using structural equation modelling and bootstrap procedure, the results of the second study (n = 284) showed a direct negative and significant effect of empathy on agism. They also showed that this negative effect was mediated by dogmatism and social dominance orientation, which both exerted a positive effect on ageism.

Conscientiousness and Work Ethic Ideology

Prior research on work ethic ideology has tended to neglect the multidimensional nature of such ideology. To examine how different facets of work ethic ideology may be rooted in the basic personality construct of conscientiousness, 299 Americans completed a 133-item online survey that contained six facets of conscientiousness and seven different dimensions of work ethic ideology. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the conscientiousness facets of dutifulness and achievement striving were the two most consistent predictors of seven dimensions of work ethic ideology. Subsequent dominance analyses suggested that achievement striving, followed by dutifulness, tended to predict the most work ethic dimensions. Discussion focuses on the theoretical importance of using work ethic dimensions rather than global work ethic scores in future research.