Markku Verkasalo

• University of Helsinki

Farming communities are becoming more heterogeneous and multifunctional due to various structural and environmental changes. However, it is not known if farmers' values have also become more heterogeneous. We wanted to explore potential heterogeneity in farmers' value priorities in detail across different farmer groups in Finland using the refined...

We investigated determinants of liking at zero-acquaintance, focusing on individual differences in perceivers’ reactions to appearance cues. Perceivers (N = 385) viewed portrait photographs of Targets (N = 146). Perceiver’s Agreeableness and Extraversion were uniquely associated with liking targets. Targets who expressed positive emotions, looked r...

We investigated determinants of liking at zero-acquaintance, focusing on individual differences in perceivers’ reactions to appearance cues. Perceivers (N = 385) viewed portrait photographs of Targets (N = 146). Perceiver’s Agreeableness and Extraversion were uniquely associated with liking targets. Targets who expressed positive emotions, looked r...

Finland changed from an industrial society to an information society in 1991-2015. Due to economic fluctuations, diffusion of digitalization and media turbulence the period changed Finnish society a lot. We studied the impact of this on basic human values with Schwartz’s approach, and concentrated on zeitgeist effects. We developed a definition of...

Sociometric status, the regard that other group members confer to an individual, is one of the most ubiquitous and behaviourally relevant attributes assigned to the person by the social environment. Despite this, its contribution to personality development has received little attention. The present three‐wave longitudinal study, spanning the age ra...

Sociometric status, the regard that other group members confer to an individual, is one of the most ubiquitous and behaviorally relevant attributes assigned to the person by the social environment. Despite this, its contribution to personality development has received little attention. The present three-wave longitudinal study, spanning the age ran...

The current study examines the extent to which religiosity account for ideological orientations in 16 countries from five continents (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Greece, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Results showed that religiosity was consistently related...

Spousal similarity and its consequences are widely studied, but methodologically challenging topics. We employed Response Surface Analysis to examine similarity along political attitudes, personal values, and personality traits. Opposite-sex couples (624 individuals) expecting a child were recruited. Spouses were highly similar regarding their poli...

There is little research on how life transitions influence value priorities. Our purpose was to investigate, within the framework provided by Schwartz's Values Theory, the effects of entering parenthood on personal values. Study 1 (N = 12,850), employing cross-sectional European Social Survey data, showed that Finnish mothers, as compared to non-mo...

Spousal similarity and its consequences are widely studied, but methodologically challenging topics. We employed Response Surface Analysis to examine similarity along political attitudes, personal values, and personality traits. Opposite-sex couples (624 individuals) expecting a child were recruited. Spouses were highly similar regarding their poli...

The aim of this study was to construct a short, 30-item personality questionnaire that would be, in terms of content and meaning of the scores, as comparable as possible with longer, well-established inventories such as NEO PI-R and its clones. To do this, we shortened the formerly constructed 60-item “Short Five” (S5) by half so that each subscale...

Data files and description of the variables. (ZIP)

Instructions and items of the XS5. (PDF)

Supplementary results. (PDF)

The current study examines the contribution of left–right (or liberal–conservative) ideology to voting, as well as the extent to which basic values account for ideological orientation. Analyses were conducted in 16 countries from five continents (Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania), most of which have been neglected by previous...

Even though homophily (love of the same) is often thought of as a standard feature of friendships, the empirical evidence for attraction based on personality trait similarity is mixed at best. One reason for the inconsistent findings across studies could be variation in the large-scale social environment in which the studies have been conducted. We...

The study addressed individual differences on two types of prosocial behavior on the Internet: Help-giving/sharing and moral courage. A questionnaire to measure these behaviors was developed. We investigated the effects of the Big Five personality traits, sadistic traits, and values on help-giving and moral courage. We found that the willingness to...

Schwartz et al. (J Pers Soc Psychol 103(4): 663–688, 2012) recently proposed a refined theory that describes universal aspects in the content and the structure of human values. We propose a bi-factor model in order to model the common method variance (CMV) imposed by people's response styles, which has been ignored in previous tests for measurement...

In a sample of 7- to 8-year-old children (N = 760), we examined the associations between personality traits, oral fluency and sociometric popularity. Extending upon research conducted with older populations, we found parent ratings of extraversion at age 7 to predict popularity one year later. More importantly, we expected and found teacher-rated o...

The present study examined the associations of the Five-Factor Model personality dimensions with Degree (number of friends) and Transitivity (the likelihood that two of a person’s friends are friends with each other) of a person’s network on the social networking site Facebook. A Facebook application administered a personality questionnaire and obj...

Using data from 28 countries in four continents, the present research addresses the question of how basic values may account for political activism. Study 1 (N = 35,116) analyses data from representative samples in 20 countries that responded to the 21-item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-21) in the European Social Survey. Study 2...

We examined Finns' and bilingual Swedish-Finns' stereotypes regarding personality differences between Finns and Swedish-Finns and compared them with their respective self-ratings. Stereotype ratings by both groups converged on depicting Swedish-Finns as having a more desirable personality. In-group bias also influenced stereotypes. Contrary to pred...

Returning to a sample of Ingrian Finnish migrants (N = 136) in which postmigration change in personal values has previously been documented, we investigated the permanency of such value change. Personal values, measured within the framework provided by Schwartz’s (1992) values theory, were previously measured prior to migration and 1 year after mig...

Do the political values of the general public form a coherent system? What might be the source of coherence? We view political values as expressions, in the political domain, of more basic personal values. Basic personal values (e.g., security, achievement, benevolence, hedonism) are organized on a circular continuum that reflects their conflicting...

Relying on the framework provided by Schwartz's theory of personal values, we investigated whether values can help explain prosocial behaviour. We first distinguished value‐expressive behaviours from value‐ambivalent behaviours. The former are compatible with primarily one value or with congruent values, the latter with mutually conflicting values....

In a 4-year longitudinal study, we investigated stereotype change in the context of increased intergroup contact. Specifically, using one pre- and two postmigration measurement points, we followed some 200 Ingrian Finns and their families migrating from Russia to Finland. Stereotypes of a typical Finn were conceptualized within the framework provid...

The relationship between political conservatism and left—right orientation was examined in 15 Western European and 13 former communist Central and Eastern European countries using the data from European Social Survey Round 3 (N = 46,103) and Round 4 (N = 50,601). Cross-culturally validated values were used to measure the two potential aspects of co...

Using the Schwartz Value Model as a basis, the meaning of the value item, honor (sense of honor) was explored in eight samples in Finland (N = 1877) and in five comparable samples of 15- to 17-year-old adolescents in Estonia, Finland, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland (N = 1788). In Finland, honor was a self-enhancement value in all age and occupation...

How do people trade off efficiency against equality concerns? To study this question, we conducted a modified mini ultimatum game (N=120) in which proposers were asked to choose between offering 8:2 and y:y, y∈{5, 4.5, 4,.., 0.5}; all offers in Euro. According to the data, 58 of 60 proposers have a unique switching point towards the unequal split a...

The present study examined how Big Five personality ratings of the same target individuals differ as a function of the power relation between the target and the judge. Our targets were 37 employees with leadership duties from two large organizations. The targets' subordinates (N = 352), peers (N = 186), and superiors (N = 62) constituted our groups...

Person perception research has focused on the accuracy of observers receiving truthful target information; however, in real life people may often wish to manage the impression that they convey. We investigated whether people can “pose personality” in photographs. Sixty target participants posed each in 10 photographs in which they sought to express...

Understanding how persons, situations, and behaviors contribute to behavioral consistency is a central goal for the science of behavior. The present study focused on dyadic social situations that were created by professional actors who enacted 4 social roles derived from interpersonal theory: dominant, submissive, agreeable, and quarrelsome. A tota...

We linked seven-year-old children's personality (n = 406), as rated by both teachers and parents, to a wide array of cognitive ability measures. Besides (i) providing descriptive data on the associations between childhood personality and cognitive ability, we (ii) investigated the benefits of having multiple informants provide personality ratings a...

We propose a refined theory of basic individual values intended to provide greater heuristic and explanatory power than the original theory of 10 values (Schwartz, 1992). The refined theory more accurately expresses the central assumption of the original theory that research has largely ignored: Values form a circular motivational continuum. The th...

How do people perceive a social dilemma such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma if the problem is framed focusing entirely on monetary incentives – as commonly done in laboratory experiments? Focusing on the involved conflict between strategic and moral incentives, we designed a two-stage experiment to analyse both the subjects’ judgement (Part 1) and their...

The authors examined the proposal that personality disorder categories may denote particular detrimental combinations of personality dimensions. A multiround economic exchange game (ten round trust game), conducted with university students pre-selected on basis of their personalities (N = 164), provided a framework within which to investigate inabi...

This study examined the role of value patterns of potential migrants from Russia to Finland (N = 229) in predicting expectations of post-migration socio-cultural adaptation. Furthermore, the fit between migrants' personal values and the values they expect to encounter in the new home country (i.e. perceived value congruence) was hypothesized to pre...

National Finns (N=286), as well as potential, Ingrian Finnish (N=229) and Russian (N=78) migrants from Russia to Finland rated their own personal values and the values of a typical Finn and Russian. Virtually all participants in our migrant samples, although still living in Russia, had been in frequent contact with Finns and Finland, suggesting tha...

A new approach to the construction of short questionnaires is introduced: ‘comprehensive single items’ (CSI) are developed with the intention to match expert descriptions of a construct as closely as possible. Based on this idea, a 60-item questionnaire, the ‘Short Five’ (S5) is constructed for measuring 30 facets of the Five-Factor Model. Studies...

We investigated the process of value change in a migration context. Specifically, in a longitudinal panel design with around 19 months between measurement points, 145 Ingrian–Finnish migrants from Russia to Finland completed the same measures of personal values both before and after migration. As expected, the importance of both Universalism and Se...

Agreement between multiple informants on child personality has received limited attention. Focusing on factor structure, gender differences and the influence of socially desirable responding (SDR), we compared parent and teacher Big Five personality ratings of around 600 7-year olds. Although parent ratings were more desirable than teacher ratings,...

Associations of value priorities with socially desirable responding (SD) might be due to a stylistic bias that distorts self-reported value ratings or to a substantive relationship between valued goals and needs. We hypothesize that, as a stylistic bias, SD would increase (a) the importance people attribute to values in general and (b) lead people...

We report on two studies in which we measured army cadets' tendencies to engage in two types of self-enhancement: communal self-enhancement (a moralistic bias in self-presentation) and agentic self-enhancement (an egotistic bias in self-presentation). These self-presentation styles were then related to their selection and performance as military le...

We examined the interactive effects of personal values and situational power on proposer and responder behavior in an ultimatum bargaining game. The current literature suggests that situational power could moderate the influence of personal values on behavior. For proposers (N = 107), high scores on the Self-Transcendence vs. Self-Enhancement value...

Previous studies have demonstrated that university students hold several paranormal beliefs and that paranormal beliefs can be best explained with core knowledge confusions. The aim of this study was to explore to what extent university students confuse the core ontological attributes of lifeless material objects (e.g. a house, a stone), living org...

The authors investigated how the presence or absence of monetary incentives in a prisoner’s dilemma game may influence research outcomes. Specifically, the predictive power of the Big Five personality traits on decisions in an incentivized (N = 60) or hypothetical (N = 60) prisoner’s dilemma game was investigated. Participants were less generous in...

This paper compares two prominent empirical measures of individual risk attitudes - the Holt and Laury (2002) lottery-choice task and the multi-item questionnaire advocated by Dohmen, Falk, Huffman, Schupp, Sunde and Wagner (forthcoming) - with respect to (a) their correlation with actual risk-taking behaviour in the lab - here the amount sent in a...

This study reports results from the first International Body Project (IBP-I), which surveyed 7,434 individuals in 10 major world regions about body weight ideals and body dissatisfaction. Participants completed the female Contour Drawing Figure Rating Scale (CDFRS) and self-reported their exposure to Western and local media. Results indicated there...

The present study utilizes European Social Survey (ESS) data to introduce European norms and equations for computation of the Self-Transcendence—Self-Enhancement and Conservation—Openness to Change value dimensions, as measured with the 21-item Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ). Our analysis of ESS round 1 and 2 data suggest that the two-dimensio...

The authors assessed whether neuroticism in emerging adulthood predicts mental disorders and self-esteem in early adulthood after controlling for possible confounding variables. A sample of 69 male military conscripts was initially assessed at age 20 and again as civilians at age 35. The initial assessment included a psychiatric interview, objectiv...

Cognitive ability has been shown to moderate the relations between emotional stability and self-reports of well being. The present study examined whether this interaction effect generalizes to non-self-report measures of well being. Male conscripts (N = 152) completed an emotional stability scale and a cognitive ability test. Several indicators of...

The present study explored the premorbid personality traits Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Disinhibition in individuals later diagnosed with psychotic disorders. Results on personality questionnaires and intellectual performance tests were obtained for 213,443 apparently healthy male subjects (mean age: 20.1 years) conscripted into the Finnish Defe...

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...

The present studies sought connections between two highly influential, but separate motivational systems: the regulatory foci and personal values. Study 1 (N = 173) showed that promotion focus was positively associated with Achievement and negatively with Tradition values, whereas prevention focus was positively associated with Conformity and Secur...

To investigate alternative hypothetical models that could clarify the relationship between depressive symptoms and serum cholesterol fractions, i.e., high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL). It was hypothesized that the impact of the depressive symptoms on cholesterol fractions is mediated through health behavior and body m...

Three studies predicted and found that the individual's conformism values are one determinant of whether behaviour is guided by other personal values or by social norms. In Study 1 (N=50), pro-gay law reform participants were told they were either in a minority or a majority in terms of their attitude towards the law reform. Only participants who w...

Self-enhancement and its implications for psychological adjustment were studied in a replication and extension of a study by Kwan et al. (200426. Kwan , V. S. Y. , John , O. P. , Kenny , D. A. , Bond , M. H. , & Robins , R. W. ( 2004 ). Reconceptualizing individual differences in self-enhancement bias: An interpersonal approach . Psychological Revi...

The relations of value priorities (the Schwartz Value Survey) to guilt, shame (Tangney’s Test of Self-Conscious Affect) and empathy (Davis’ Interpersonal Reactivity Index) were examined in two samples, one of 15–19-year-old secondary school students (N=207), and the other of military conscripts (N=503). As hypothesized, guilt-proneness was, in both...

A sample of male military conscripts in the Finnish Defence Forces (N = 74) completed the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire [Cattell, R. B., Eber, H., & Tatsuoka, M. (1970). Handbook for the sixteen personality factor questionnaire. Champaign, Illinois: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing, Inc.] at age 20 and again as civilians at...

We evaluated Big Five personality factor differences between research volunteers and nonvolunteers. In the first study, 158 military officers were asked to participate in a mail survey. The personality scores of the officers were available from an archival data set. In our second study, adult siblings from large families were invited to participate...

This research was designed to investigate Paulhus' communion management (CM) and self-deceptive enhancement (SDE), socially desirable responding (SDR) scales as measures of general SDR, communal bias and agentic bias. The CM and SDE scales, as well as the Schwartz values survey (SVS), were administered to four samples drawn from different cultures...

The purpose of the present study was to connect personal values to self-esteem in 14 samples (N = 3612) of pre-professionals, high school students, and adults, from Finland, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, and Estonia. Self-enhancement values (power, achievement) and openness to change values (self-direction, stimulation) were positively, and self-tran...

The purpose of the present series of studies was to evaluate whether Paulhus's (1991) Self-Deceptive Enhancement (SDE) and Communion Management (CM) socially desirable responding (SDR) scales should be interpreted as response set measures, response style measures, or measures of substantive individual differences in personality. In Study 1 (N=57) a...

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the moderating effect of Conformism values on the relations between other values and behavior. The authors expected people low, but not high, in Conformism to behave in a manner that is consistent with their personal values related to self-transcendence versus self-enhancement. In Study 1 (N = 199),...

Some 200 military cadets rated themselves and other members of their platoons on a variety of variables, including the quality of their leadership behaviors. They also completed standardized personality questionnaires measuring the positive and negative aspects of narcissism. Strong predictions were found for variables related to the two sides of t...

The two-dimensional value structure postulated in Schwartz's (1992) theory has previously found support in samples of teachers and university students, but groups with other professions or low educational level have been understudied. The current study employed the 40-item Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ; Schwartz et al., 2001), multidimensional...

The horrific terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, left an indelible mark on perceptions of security and threat across the world. This paper uses Schwartz’s (1992) value circumplex model to examine value change across matched high school and university student samples in Finland, questioned before and after the World Trade C...

The reliability and validity of the Short Schwartz's Value Survey (SSVS) was examined in 4 studies. In Study 1 (N = 670), we examined whether value scores obtained with the SSVS correlate with those obtained with Schwartz's Value Survey (SVS; Schwartz, 1992, 1996) and the Portrait Values Questionnaire (Schwartz et al., 2001) and whether the quasi-c...

This study explores short- and long-term traumatic stress and the related risk factors among peripheral victims of the M/S Estonia disaster. The participants, characterized as fourth- and sixth-level victims, were 135 crew members (50 males and 85 females) of one of the Finnish ferries that took part in the rescue operation. The participants retros...

The aim of this study was to determine whether patients and dentists differ in their ideal role expectations concerning each others behaviour. This was done by further analysing a set of data containing responses to 124 five-class Likertian statements about ideal role expectations and questions about the background of the respondents with regard to...

Examined the effects of debriefing on stress reactions in 135 ferry personnel who took part in rescue operations after the sinking of the Estonia in the North Baltic Sea. Debriefing is an intervention aimed at preventing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and somatic illness by confronting participants with reality, processing feelings, developin...

The paper reports a study on the values of 15‐year‐old pupils and their teachers, and also their beliefs about the values of an ideal pupil. The sample included Finnish comprehensive school pupils (n = 406, mean age 15.3 years) and their teachers (n = 124). The study centred on two questions concerning: (1) what values are important to pupils and t...

To analyze how the cognitive, affective, and somatic-vegetative symptoms of depression included in the modified Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZSDS) relate to pain severity. Three groups of subjects were compared. The "no pain" group (n = 64) reported no musculoskeletal symptoms during the preceding year, the "low pain" group (n = 119) had a pa...

Based on previous research on socially desirable responding and positive—negative asymmetry, we hypothesized that (i) impression management is higher in public than in private settings, (ii) personal ideals linked to exemplification, ingratiation, and intimidation are related to an impression management tendency, (iii) negatively keyed social desir...

The effect of personal ideals on socially desirable responding (impression management or IM, and self-deception or SDE) was examined in a study of 428 undergraduate students. The subjects indicated their endorsement of 56 values and filled in Paulhus's (1991) Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Three IM types, viz. ingratiators, exemplifica...

An osteosynthesis with a four-hole AO/ASIF-DCP plate was performed on the right tibia of 40 rabbits. Clodronate (50 mg/kg s.c.) was given once a week, resulting in a mean bone concentration of 509 micrograms/g in 2 hours. Plate fixation caused a decrease in mean net cross-sectional area of compact cortical bone of 17 percent at 9 weeks and 46 perce...

The authors conducted a dietary methodology study in 1984 in Finnish men aged 55-69 years in order to validate two dietary assessment instruments being used in the US-Finland Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Lung Cancer Prevention Trial. Twelve 2-day food records collected from 162 men over a 6-month period, including every day of the week, served a...

The authors conducted a dietary methodology study in 1984 in Finnish men aged 55–69 years in order to validate two dietary assessment instruments being used in the US-Finland Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Lung Cancer Prevention Trial. Twelve 2-day food records collected from 162 men over a 6-month period, including every day of the week, served a...

The results of three weeks' treatment for low back pain were studied in 88 patients at a rehabilitation centre and in 63 outpatients. All the patients were male, and between 54 and 63 years of age. Physical measurements of spinal function were made before and two months after treatment; a questionnaire on back-pain symptoms was filled in before tre...