Ethnopsychological Variables as Predictors of Socio-Economic Development of a Country

The article observes the possibilities of predicting socio-economic characteristics of a country by national IQ and Big Five personality factors. The efficiency of predicting educational attainments, per capita income and corruption in a country are estimated. National IQs provided by Lynn and Vanhanen and estimates of five personality factors obtained in the study of Schmitt and al. for 56 countries and in the study of Bartram for 29 countries are used as predictors. In the study of Schmitt and al. the brief measure of five personality factors (BFI) was used; Bartram's estimates were based on the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ32). The results show the following. 1. The estimates of five personality factors obtained by Schmitt and al. are not effective predictors of the analyzed socio-economic characteristics (the values of adjusted R squared are lower 0.1) and their aggregating with national IQ not by much increases accuracy of prediction. 2. The estimates of five personality factors obtained by Bartram are satisfactory predictors of per capita income and corruption (the values of adjusted R squared equal 0.526 and 0.666); their aggregating with national IQ somewhat increases efficiency of prediction of per capita income but not corruption. 3. National IQ is an effective predictor of educational attainments of a country (the value of adjusted R squared equals 0.840 for the sample of 49 countries and 0.845 for the sample of 29 countries) and satisfactory predictor of per capita income (the value of adjusted R squared equals 0.650 for the sample of 52 countries and 0.411 for the sample of 28 countries).