From putative genes to temperament and culture: cultural characteristics of the distribution of dominant affective temperaments in national studies

Abstract

Background: Affective temperaments may carry distinct evolutionary advantages both on the individual or a group level, so we can expect that in different cultural and national samples the frequency of dominant affective temperaments will show characteristic differences. The aim of the present study was to investigate the characteristics of distribution of dominant affective temperaments in different national studies of general non-clinical population.

Method: In our study we included six studies published in different countries around the world (Argentina, Germany, Hungary, Korea, Portugal, and Lebanon) which investigated a large sample of non-clinical population using TEMPS-A, and reported frequencies for dominant affective temperaments. The frequencies of dominant affective temperaments were compared using chi square tests.

Results: We found a significant difference in the frequency of affective temperaments among the different national studies in case of the cyclothymic, hyperthymic and irritable temperaments.

Conclusions: We found important parallels between the frequency of affective temperaments and cultural dimensions described by Hofstede (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). The characteristics encompassed by the depressive temperament show considerable similarities with Hofstede's individualism-collectivism dimension, while those of the hyperthymic temperament seem to be similar to uncertainty avoidance, and the irritable temperament shows similarities with Hofstede's power distance. Furthermore, the relative frequency of these dominant temperaments in case of the different national samples paralleled the relative scores of these countries on the corresponding cultural scales. Our results indicate an important relationship between affective temperaments and cultural dimensions, which suggests that these phenomena may be the manifestations of the same genetically determined predispositions in different forms.

Limitation: We included a study by Erfurth et al. (2005), in which affective temperaments were evaluated using the TEMPS-M. Also, in the Korean study the Korean version of the TEMPS-A was not validated.