What Defines the Good Person? Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Experts' Models With Lay Prototypes

Abstract

“Good” is a fundamental concept present in all cultures, and experts in values and positive psychology have mapped good's many aspects in human beings. Which aspects do laypersons typically access and consider as they make everyday judgments of goodness? Does the answer vary with culture? To address these questions, the authors compiled prototypes of the good person from laypersons' free-listings in seven cultures and used experts' classifications to content-analyze and compare the prototypes. Benevolence, conformity, and traditionalism dominated the features that laypersons frequently attributed to good people. Other features—competence in particular—varied widely in their accessibility across cultures. These findings depart from those obtained in research using expert-designed self-report inventories, highlighting the need to consider everyday accessibility when comparing cultures' definitions of the good person.

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WHAT DEFINES THE GOOD PERSON?
Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Experts’ Models With Lay Prototypes
KYLE D. SMITH
SEYDA TÜRK SMITH
University of Guam
JOHN CHAMBERS CHRISTOPHER
Montana State University at Bozeman
“Good” is a fundamental concept present in all cultures, and experts in values and positive psychology
have mapped good’s many aspects in human beings. Which aspects do laypersons typically access and
consider as they make everyday judgments of goodness? Does the answer vary with culture? To address
these questions, the authors compiled prototypes of the good person from laypersons’ free-listings in
seven cultures and used experts’ classifications to content-analyze and compare the prototypes.
Benevolence, conformity, and traditionalism dominated the features that laypersons frequently attrib-
uted to good people. Other features—competence in particular—varied widely in their accessibility
across cultures. These findings depart from those obtained in research using expert-designed self-report
inventories, highlighting the need to consider everyday accessibility when comparing cultures’ defini-
tions of the good person.
Keywords: positive psychology; moral reasoning; prototypes; values; content analysis; psychological
well-being; psychological realism
People make moral evaluations every day, and it is critical to know the psychological basis on
which they are made.
—Walker and Pitts (1998b, p. 405)
“Good” is a fundamental concept present in all languages (Goddard & Wierzbicka,
1994). Researchers in positive psychology seek to understand and promote the good life,
in part, by developing guides to good character (cf. Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi,
2000). This article contributes to those goals by identifying and comparing the qualities
that laypersons in a variety of cultures attribute to good people. Examining laypersons’
prototypes of the good person cross-culturally allows us to address a largely neglected
AUTHORS’ NOTE: Portions of this research were funded by grants to Kyle Smith from the University of Guam Research
Council, to Seyda Türk Smith from the University of Guam Faculty Travel Fund, to John Christopher from the University of
Guam Faculty Travel and Faculty Resource Funds, and to John Christopher from the Montana State University Faculty
International Research and Development Fund. Portions of the results from Study 1 were presented at the 1998 Congress of the
International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP), Bellingham, Washington; and additional Study 1 data were
presented at the 2000 IACCP Congress in Pultusk, Poland. The authors gratefully acknowledge contributions of data and support
in translations from Fatima al-Darmaki, Inci Artan, Chih-Hyu Chan,Yao-Xin Chang, Shu-Hui Liu, Lorenza Olkeriil, Maria Rosa
Orantes, Suna Tevrüz, and Debbie Tkel-Sbal; and helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article, from three anonymous review-
ers. Correspondence should be directed to Kyle D. Smith, Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Guam,
Mangilao, GU 96923, U.S.A.
JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 38 No. 3, May 2007 333-360
DOI: 10.1177/0022022107300279
© 2007 Sage Publications

problem: identifying those aspects of positive character (out of many) that remain
widely accessible and active in everyday judgments of goodness.
Cross-cultural psychologists’ interests in the qualities that people value in themselves
and in others predate the recent resurgence of interest in beneficial characteristics among
mainstream psychologists (e.g., Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Hofstede and Bond (1984)
linked important dimensions of cultural variation to Rokeach’s (1973) distinctions among
values—transsituational goals guiding behavior—such as freedom, respect for tradition,
and pleasure. In the two decades since, Shalom Schwartz and his colleagues have identi-
fied a comprehensive and apparently universally recognized structure for individual val-
ues, as well as reliable and interpretable cross-cultural differences and commonalities in
priorities among these values (e.g., Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz & Bardi, 2001; Schwartz &
Bilsky, 1987). In an important recent discovery, Haslam, Bain, and Neal (2004) provided
data indicating that Schwartz’s individual motivational values share a common conceptual
space with the character strengths and positive traits assessed by Peterson and Seligman
(2004) and others: establishing a direct link between the methods employed in cross-
cultural research on values and the methods of positive psychology.
Yet when applied to studies of individual and cultural priorities, these methods share an
important limitation: the use of closed-ended self-report questionnaires that present partici-
pants with expert theory-driven, comprehensive inventories of positive traits and values.
Because laypersons do not typically engage their lives—or other people—with the entire uni-
verse of human potentials for good in mind, the question of what laypersons think about
when they consider goodness in the absence of such comprehensive guides remains. It seems
important to discover which personal qualities laypersons access and apply as criteria in
everyday judgments of goodness. It seems equally important to discover the extent to which
the most accessible qualities coincide, and differ, across cultures.
With these goals in mind, we begin by reviewing research that revealed the structure of
an expert-defined conceptual space of values and positive traits. Next, we compare these
studies with recent research addressing the question of how laypersons access this con-
ceptual space in the absence of comprehensive external cues. We will also consider rea-
sons why the portions of the conceptual space that laypersons typically access may differ
from culture to culture.
EXPERT THEORY-BASED STUDIES OF PERSONAL QUALITIES
Both Schwartz’s studies of individual values, and Peterson and Seligman’s studies of
virtue-affirming character strengths (“values in action”), address the specific goal of pro-
viding a conceptually complete guide to desirable personal qualities. Doing so requires
drawing from one or more expert-derived theories of what personal qualities exist.
SCHWARTZ’S RESEARCH ON VALUES
Schwartz’s studies of the individual values that people use to appraise themselves,
events, and other people derive from a theory addressing the universal requirements of sur-
vival for societies and individuals (Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987). Combining
essential values suggested by this theory (e.g., helpful, capable) with several drawn from
other experts’ inventories (e.g., Rokeach, 1973) yielded a list of 56 values in 10 individual
334 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

motivational categories (e.g., interpersonal benevolence, power) (Schwartz, 1992); of
these, 45 exhibit equivalence of meaning across cultures (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001).
Using a comprehensive inventory based on these values, Schwartz and his colleagues
have solicited ratings of personal endorsement from samples of students and educators in
dozens of countries worldwide. Multidimensional scaling analyses mapped participants’
subjective distinctions between the values: revealing, for example, which values are com-
patible and which conflict (e.g., values signifying self-transcendence opposing values
involving self-enhancement). Strong evidence exists for the universality of this compre-
hensive structure (Schwartz, 1992) and for the near-universal tendency of laypersons to
attribute greater importance to some values (e.g., benevolence) than others.
PETERSON AND SELIGMAN’S ANALYSIS OF VALUES IN ACTION
Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) analysis of character strengths and virtues, though as yet
less grounded in empirical data, shares important similarities with Schwartz’s work. Like
Schwartz, Peterson and Seligman asserted that the survival of human societies requires that
individuals act on certain values. They developed a classification of trait-like “values in
action” primarily by consulting many experts’(philosophers’and psychologists’) inventories
of virtues. Peterson and Seligman proposed that the virtues described by philosophers from
the major traditions of China, South Asia, Athens, Judeo-Christian faiths, and Islam share a
common core (including humanity and justice), as do many of the specific character strengths
(e.g., kindness, fairness) that express these virtues. The resulting Values in Action (VIA) clas-
sification likewise provided a basis for closed-ended self-report inventories to support
research and applied work (Peterson & Seligman, 2004, pp. 625-644).
1
LIMITATIONS OF EXPERT THEORY-BASED MEASURES
Schwartz’s self-report measure of an individual’s values—and presumably, Peterson
and Seligman’s self-report measures of character strengths, which access the same con-
ceptual space (Haslam et al., 2004)—are well suited to assessing the emphasis an individ-
ual places on particular values (or strengths) when simultaneously considering all. Given
the exhaustive breadth of these expert theory-driven measures, they may well succeed in
making the entire universe of virtue accessible and salient to the layperson.
We argue, however, that this salience is only temporary. Schwartz’s and Peterson and
Seligman’s measures were not designed to identify the subset(s) of personal qualities
that remain accessible to laypersons dealing with the demands of everyday life, in the
absence of a complete, externally supplied menu (cf. Walker & Pitts, 1998a, p. 425).
Neither were similarity-based sortings of personal qualities (e.g., Haslam et al., 2004),
which also cue the participant with comprehensive stimulus sets. Priorities guiding
laypersons’ more routine moral judgments will of necessity be more selective: at most,
representing a subset of the 10 motivational categories identified by Schwartz, or of the
6 categories of virtue identified by Peterson and Seligman. Laypersons’ priorities may
also differ from experts’ theories of the good person in other important ways: for example,
by emphasizing qualities other than justice and fairness, whose dominance in psycholo-
gists’ theories of morality has attracted recent criticism (Campbell & Christopher, 1996;
Lapsley & Lasky, 2001; Walker & Pitts, 1998b).
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 335

Does “important” mean “accessible”? One might argue that the values and virtues that
an individual selects as most important (when prompted with a comprehensive stimulus set)
likely remain influential, salient, and accessible throughout everyday life. Yet some strongly
endorsed values do not correlate with everyday behaviors (Bamberg & Schmidt, 2003; Bardi
& Schwartz, 2003; Schultz & Zelezny, 1998). There are at least three reasons why individ-
ual differences in the importance attached to a given value may not predict behaviors rele-
vant to that value. The first of these involves near-constant access to the value. The other two
possibilities involve values that are important but infrequently accessed.
First, strong situational pressures and social penalties may largely force attention to—
and compliance with—some values (e.g., courtesy), even among people who do not
endorse them (cf. Bardi & Schwartz, 2003). Second, relatively few situations may have
obvious relevance to a given value. In the absence of informational campaigns, conserva-
tionist values may fall in this category (cf. Bamberg & Schmidt, 2003.) Third, some impor-
tant and ubiquitous values, such as staying alive and loving one’s children, may not
differentiate exemplary people from the less good, precisely because so little variance
exists in the importance assigned to these values.
The most useful criteria in judgments of goodness will be those that are not only impor-
tant to success in situations common to a given cultural milieu but also highly variable in
their expression. These are the features of the good person one would expect laypersons to
access frequently. A means of identifying such features exists. Independent teams of
researchers working from the perspective of psychological realism (e.g., Smith, Türk
Smith, & Christopher, 1998; Walker & Pitts, 1998b) have employed a method that is
arguably well suited to mapping features of good persons as laypersons conceive them.
PROTOTYPE ANALYSES OF LAYPERSONS’ CONCEPTS OF THE GOOD
To identify “ideas about moral excellence that are operative in everyday life,” Walker
and Pitts (1998a, p. 424) proposed to study moral prototypes. Prototype theory asserts that
many concepts and categories in everyday cognition are defined by exemplars: Some more
central to the concept—and therefore more accessible—than others (e.g., Fehr & Russell,
1984; Rosch, 1977). For example, in deciding whether a relationship involves love, layper-
sons typically ask whether the relationship includes features such as trust, caring, and
commitment, and also may consider a few less central features, such as unconditional and
admiration (Fehr, 1988). Hart (1998, p. 422) argued that this process is quite general, such
that laypersons consult prototypes for social concepts during “very early steps in the pro-
cessing of new information.” In support of Hart’s contention, Lapsley and Lasky (2001)
provided experimental evidence that laypersons’ concepts of morality are indeed organized
around prototypes. Because comparing oneself and others to standards weighted heavily
in a moral prototype produces strong, influential emotions (cf. Hart, 1998), identifying the
most central, accessible features in these prototypes is an important goal.
MAPPING EVERYDAY MORAL PROTOTYPES
To identify features included in moral prototypes, Walker and Pitts (1998b) asked
Canadian participants to free-list features of highly moral people, then ordered the features
by frequency of free-listing: an index of everyday accessibility (cf. Fehr & Russell, 1984).
336 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

Walker and Pitts’s aggregate prototype included such highly accessible features as honesty
and faithfulness. Similar procedures identified prototypes for specific types of moral per-
sons (Walker & Hennig, 2004).
Walker and Pitts (1998b, p. 415) called for additional research to discover moral proto-
types in a variety of cultures. Feature-listing procedures in particular seem well suited to
such research. They have identified prototypes for everyday concepts of emotion in multi-
ple cultures (e.g., Fehr & Russell, 1984; Smith & Tkel-Sbal, 1994; Türk Smith & Smith,
1994). To date, however, no one has applied feature-listing procedures to studies of moral
prototypes in multiple cultures.
RATIONALE FOR COMPARING LAYPERSONS’ CONCEPTS
OF THE GOOD PERSON ACROSS CULTURES
It seems likely that cultures differ in terms of the aspects of goodness that come read-
ily to mind. Psychological qualities central to meeting the challenges of life within a par-
ticular culture (cf. Georgas, van de Vijver, & Berry, 2004), yet far from universal among
people within that culture (cf. Edwards, 1966), seem especially likely to remain accessible
and in frequent use as means of discriminating good from less good persons. To take one
example, people making interpersonal judgments may frequently access the criterion
“competent” in cultural settings where people prosper largely in proportion to the capabil-
ities and efforts of others in their social networks, and incompetent people exist in signif-
icant numbers. Where competence is ubiquitous, or where other factors such as wealth or
personal effort can buffer people from the consequences of others’ incompetence, people
may less often access competence as a criterion in their interpersonal judgments. We did
not attempt to specify such distinctions a priori but predicted that comparisons of cultural
prototypes of the good person would identify them.
THE PRESENT RESEARCH
This article reports what is, to our knowledge, the first systematic cross-cultural com-
parison of everyday prototypes of the good person. We also present systematic compar-
isons of these lay prototypes with experts’theories of values, character strengths, and other
personal qualities and with laypersons’ subjective ratings of these qualities’ importance.
CHOICES OF CULTURES
Our samples reflect culturally diverse settings. We recruited participants drawn from
known individualistic cultures (e.g., Anglo-Americans in Montana) as well as participants
from cultures with more collectivist values (e.g., Filipinos, Taiwanese). Our samples also
represented cultures with widely varying levels of affluence. We drew participants from
large urban centers (e.g., Istanbul, Caracas) as well as from nonurban settings (e.g., Palau).
Finally, acknowledging the importance of religion in concepts of the good person (cf.
Georgas et al., 2004), we included participants from multiple religious traditions: Our
samples included Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, and Muslims in significant numbers.
Clearly, with a relatively small number of cultures, one cannot separate the contributions
of these variables to differences in conceptions of the good person (e.g., distinguishing the
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 337

correlates of the Islamic faith from those of urban settings). However, our goal in this
exploratory research was representation of diverse views of the good person in our proto-
types, and description of commonalities and differences, not tests of the independent con-
tributions of specific sociocultural variables.
PLANNED CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS
Prototypes of free-listed features from different cultures may be compared quantita-
tively in at least two ways: (a) by assessing correlations between the frequencies of free-
listing (levels of accessibility) associated with given features, across cultures and (b) by
using content analysis to sort features within each culture’s prototype into theoretically
distinct categories. The resulting profiles would allow for comparisons of cultures using
the chi-square statistic. We planned both kinds of comparisons.
Our content analyses were based on categories identified by Wojciszke (1994: distin-
guishing moral qualities from competence); by Schwartz (1992: distinguishing 10
motives—e.g., benevolence, tradition—expressed in values); by Walker and Pitts (1998b:
distinguishing six clusters among traits that Canadian participants attributed to the highly
moral person, e.g., dependable-loyal, fair); by Peterson and Seligman (2004: distinguish-
ing six groups of character strengths (e.g., courage, humanity); and by Haslam et al.
(2004): distinguishing six clusters of values and positive traits (e.g., drive, knowledge)),
respectively.
2
Thus, we planned to derive for each cultural sample five profiles (one based
on each of five categorization schemes) and to make a set of statistical comparisons across
cultures for each of the five types of profiles.
Of the five sets of categories used in our content analyses, four were either expert-
defined or based on responses to stimulus sets that were expert-defined. Walker and Pitts
(1998b) conducted cluster analyses of responses to a stimulus set drawn from laypersons’
free-listings of attributes of the highly moral person. Their clusters alone represent a
laypersons-defined model.
SUPERORDINATE COMPARISONS
We also sought to learn what distinguishes highly accessible personal qualities from the
less accessible, in a more general sense. It seemed possible that participants might access
qualities in several categories (e.g., courage and humanity) more frequently than those in
other categories (e.g., wisdom and temperance), without any obvious clues as to what com-
monalities the most accessible categories share. Therefore, we planned to identify such
commonalities, using these qualities’ coordinates on dimensions identified by Walker and
Pitts (1998b, Study 3: e.g., externality-internality) and by Haslam et al. (2004: Study 1:
e.g., vivacity vs. decency) as explanatory variables in multiple regression analyses.
COMPARING ACCESSIBILITY WITH SUBJECTIVE IMPORTANCE
Finally, we sought to determine whether the variance in levels of spontaneous accessi-
bility associated with specific personal qualities, and the variance in their rated importance
reflect the same cognitive process or different cognitive processes. For this reason, we
planned to compare our measure of personal qualities’ accessibility (frequencies of free-
listing, from Study 1) with a closed-ended measure of subjective importance, of the type
employed by Schwartz and his colleagues (e.g., Schwartz & Bardi, 2001), administered in
338 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

our Study 2. We also planned to determine whether different explanatory variables predict
(a) frequencies of free-listing and (b) mean ratings of importance.
SUMMARY OF GOALS
In review, we sought to accomplish the following:
1. to describe laypersons’ concepts of the good person in terms most accessible to
them;
2. to compare these concepts across cultures;
3. to compare these concepts with experts’ theories, in terms of the qualities and
expert-defined categories that laypersons most frequently access; and
4. to compare specific personal qualities’ levels of accessibility with the subjective
importance assigned to these qualities.
STUDY 1: FREE-LISTINGS OF QUALITIES OF THE GOOD PERSON
METHOD
Participants
A total of 1,353 male and female students in Guam (indigenous Chamorro [n = 152] and
Filipino [n = 151]); Palau, a Micronesian archipelago (n = 255); Taiwan (n = 297); Turkey
(n = 148); the mainland United States (Anglo-Americans, n = 202); and Venezuela (n = 148)
participated. With the exception of the Palauans (high school juniors and seniors), all were
university students. These samples do not include self-identified members of other ethnic
groups (e.g., non-Turks in Istanbul).
Materials
We carefully selected both the good person as the target concept and feature-listing as the
task. Arguably, the good person subsumes more specific, related concepts, such as the moral
person, and psychological well-being (cf. Christopher, 1999; Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman,
2005, p. 210). Moreover, instructions targeting this concept would not prejudge or structure par-
ticipants’ responses. We sought to elicit conceptions of goodness without imposing a Western
metaphysical bias that separates the person into physical and mental components.
Bilingual educators chose terms in Palauan (ungil a blekerdelel el chad), Mandarin (hao
ren), Turkish (iyi insan), and Spanish (la persona buena) that most closely approximated
“the good person” in English. Bilinguals then translated instructions for feature-listing
adapted from Fehr and Russell (1984). Back-translations and retranslations continued until
we obtained equivalent versions. Participants in Guam (all of whom were fluent in
English: for many, as their first language) completed the task in English. As in all feature-
listing-based research, the instructions included a sample feature-listing (in this case, char-
acteristics that one might attribute to a fan of rock music) to familiarize participants with
the task (cf. Fehr & Russell, 1984).
Procedures. Participants completed their questionnaires in anonymous mass testing ses-
sions: listing all features of the good person that came to mind within 20 minutes. Proctors
required participants to work silently and independently. Both the instructions and procedures
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 339

340 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
ensured that participants answered the question with a minimum of structure and external
cues as to content, relying instead on internal cues.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Compiling the Free-Listings
Frequencies of free-listing provide an index of a concept’s accessibility to everyday
cognition (Fehr & Russell, 1984, pp. 467-468; cf. Higgins, King, & Mavin, 1982 [Study
1]; Powell & Fazio, 1984). Bilingual consultants ordered by frequency all features
within each free-listing, collapsing across grammatical variations (e.g., cares with car-
ing; cf. Fehr & Russell, 1984) and provided closest English-equivalents for each feature.
Also after Fehr and Russell (1984), we omitted as unreliable features listed by only one
person.
We next identified clusters of concepts in each prototype that shared single equivalents
in others. (For example, both humble and modest shared the Turkish equivalent alçak
gönüllü.) We wished to avoid underestimating the relative importance of synonymous con-
cepts scattered across a given prototype, in comparison with their single-term counterparts
in other languages. We therefore tallied close synonyms into the same category: for
example, humble with modest; dependable with reliable; rational with reasonable (cf.
Lapsley & Lasky, 2001, pp. 349-350). In judging the level of common meaning appropri-
ate to combining synonyms, we were guided by the degree of overlap in other-language
equivalents for terms in Turkish and Palauan—of the languages represented in the samples,
the two having the fewest words and therefore serving as least common denominators for
translations (cf. Josephs, 1977; Okar, 2004).
Everyday Concepts Are Based on Behavioral Qualities in Prototypes
Culture-specific summaries of frequently listed features appear in Table 1. Consistent
with prototype theory, the free-listings (a) include features mentioned at widely varying fre-
quencies; and (b) in data from six samples, lack sudden shifts in frequency that might other-
wise suggest boundaries, or separations of features from nonfeatures (cf. Fehr & Russell,
1984). (However, for Palauans, respectful surpassed all other features in frequency.)
Many overall impressions of the free-listings are possible; here, we restrict ourselves to
four. First, although laypersons could have listed such attributes as physical attractiveness
and wealth as hallmarks of the good person, they rarely did. Like the experts, laypersons
focused on behavioral qualities. Second, although some frequently free-listed features
amounted to negations of faults (e.g., not prejudiced), the vast majority were distinctly
positive, echoing positive psychology’s emphasis on flourishing as more than the mere
absence of pathology (cf. Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Third, although attributes of the
good person show some overlap across cultures, the rankings of these attributes within cul-
tures also show considerable variation.
Fourth, the prototypes suggested both underrepresentations and overspecializations of
several qualities in the experts’ classifications. Respectful—which does not appear in
Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) classification and appears only as respect for tradition in
Schwartz’s (1992)—was the quality most frequently mentioned by participants in two of
our samples and appeared in the top 30 for all but the mainland American sample. This
suggests that respect merits careful consideration in classifications of personal qualities

341
TABLE 1
Most Accessible Features of the Good Person in Seven Cultures
Sample
Chamorro % Filipino % Taiwanese % Turkish % U.S. % Venezuelan % Palauan %
1 honest 66 honest 46 kind 33 respectful 47 caring 36 helpful 26 respectful 69
2 caring 53 caring 38 independent 32 honest 41 generous 32 loving 26 moral 37
3 understanding 48 sense of humor 34 tolerant 32 not prejudiced 22 honest 31 sincere 24 generous 33
4 considerate 42 understanding 32 optimistic 30 industrious 21 kind 26 intelligent 20 happy/kind
a
29
5 kind 36 kind 31 helpful 26 helpful 20 intelligent 23 respectful 20 even tempered 28
6 respectful 35 considerate 26 generous 23 intelligent 18 considerate 21 amiable 19 helpful 28
7 helpful 34 loving 26 goal oriented 23 goal oriented 16 helpful 21 understanding 18 industrious 27
8 friendly 32 helpful 25 healthy 22 successful 16 loving 20 cooperative 15 obedient 25
9 generous 30 generous 21 friendly 19 tolerant 15 friendly 18 industrious 12 responsible 18
10 intelligent 28 sociable 21 responsible 19 well-spoken 14 sense of humor 17 generous 11 treats well 18
11 loving 28 friendly 21 active 18 likes people 14 nice 15 honest 10 compassionate 18
12 trustworthy 27 intelligent 18 educated 18 not selfish 14 good listener 14 nice 9 sociable 14
13 sense of humor 22 athletic 15 caring 18 loving 13 trustworthy 13 responsible 9 honest 13
14 open-minded 22 responsible 15 family oriented 17 has self-esteem 13 courteous 11 friendly 9 modest 13
15 optimistic 20 attractive 14 sincere 17 open-minded 12 open-minded 11 modest 8 kind 13
16 patient 19 respectful 14 wise 17 modest 11 understanding 11 kind 7 religious 12
17 responsible 18 nice 13 considerate 16 responsible 11 compassionate 10 caring 7 does not gossip 12
18 compassionate 18 courteous 12 knows self 16 farsighted 10 shares 9 happy 7 says nice things 11
19 altruistic 17 trustworthy 11 sense of humor 16 knows own faults 10 fun-loving 8 simple 7 loving 11
20 courteous 16 active 11 confident 16 educated 9 optimistic 7 cordial 6 does not fight 9
21 moral 14 knowledgeable 11 perseveres 14 sociable 9 attractive 7 optimistic 6 no drug abuse 9
22 sincere 13 religious 11 respectful 14 confident 9 happy 7 sensible 6 does not steal 9
23 loyal 13 confident 10 attractive 13 determined 9 religious 7 sociable 6 does not curse 8
24 not prejudiced 13 patient 10 brave 13 develops potential 9 altruistic 7 well-spoken 6 not alcoholic 7
25 reliable 13 loyal 9 well-spoken 13 environmentalist 9 forgiving 7 affectionate 5 well-spoken 7
26 sensitive 12 optimistic 9 honest 13 knows self 9 good personality 7 fighter 5 does not scowl 6
27 good listener 11 compassionate 9 proper 13 patriotic 9 reliable 7 honorable 5 not talkative 6
28 assertive 11 educated 9 sociable 13 understanding 9 not judgmental 6 humane 5 smiles 6
29 family 11 industrious 9 even tempered 12 idealist 8 not prejudiced 6 not expect 5 patient 6
oriented reciprocity
30 independent 11 assertive 8 modest 12 compassionate 7 outgoing 6 religious 5 soft-spoken 5
NOTE: Features listed by 10% or more of a given sample appear in boldface. Percentages are rounded to the nearest full percent. The order of apparent ties reflects the actual dec-
imal values.
a. The Palauan ungil a rengul, glossed as “good-hearted,” denotes both happiness and kindness.

(cf. Türk Smith, Smith, & Christopher, 2003). Similarly, an average of 10.5% of partici-
pants in each sample identified happiness—which appears in none of the classifications
(the closest equivalent is Schwartz’s [1992] pleasure)—as a characteristic of the good
person (cf. King & Napa, 1998). The Palauan concept of ungil a rengul, which denotes
both happiness and kindness, may express an association implicitly recognized by people
in many cultures. The prototypes also suggested several cases in which experts’ categories
may have sampled qualities at widely varying levels of specificity. Some subtle qualities
such as authenticity and zest (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) did not appear in the prototypes;
in each case, more general, closely associated qualities (e.g., integrity, enjoys life) did.
To begin comparing the prototypes, we computed correlations of frequencies of free-
listing for each of the 21 pairs of cultures. For a given pair of cultural samples, strongly
correlated prototypes would indicate marked commonalities in the aspects of the good
person coming readily to mind, and in aspects of the good person rarely considered.
As Table 2 indicates, such commonalities were rare. Though each prototype’s average
correlation with others was positive (and no prototypes exhibited negative correlations), only
a small minority of pairs of prototypes shared greater than 50% of the variance in frequen-
cies.
3
In some cases, the shared variance was negligible. This analysis suggests that cultures
vary substantially in terms of which aspects of the good person laypersons typically access.
Interpreting the Prototypes: Content Analyses
We began detailed comparisons of the prototypes across cultures—and with experts’
classifications—by conducting content analyses based on the five classifications (e.g.,
Schwartz, 1992; Wojciszke, 1994) summarized earlier. Each classification categorizes a
somewhat different set of qualities, providing a unique perspective on the universe of per-
sonal qualities, much as different impressions of the same city emerge from tours of that
city visiting different attractions in each district. We therefore conducted five separate con-
tent analyses. We performed each content analysis using computer-based counts of exact
matches within each prototype for the names of categories and exemplars from a given
classification, a procedure that is recognized both as highly reliable and valid whenever
interpretation of text is not required (Krippendorff, 2004, pp. 12-14, 214).
In each content analysis, we identified types of qualities that consistently appeared in the
prototypes with high frequency and types that appeared rarely. We also identified types of qual-
ities that appeared far more frequently in some of the cultures’ prototypes than in others’.
We considered two ways of defining frequency: (a) summing the frequencies with
which qualities in a given category were free-listed (adjusting these totals for the number
of participants in the sample, for ease of comparison); or (b) further adjusting these sums,
dividing them by k
c
, the number of features in each category (given that some categories
(e.g., Schwartz’s universalism) contain more exemplars than others (e.g., hedonism).)
Table 3 reports both k
c
-unadjusted and k
c
-adjusted totals for each content analysis.
4
When laypersons free-list personal qualities, which dominates: moral goals or com-
petence? Wojciszke (1994) distinguished moral (prosocial) qualities from competence,
and our first content analysis is based on this distinction. If Wojciszke, Bazinska, and
Jaworski (1998) were correct in proposing that, in comparison with appraisals of com-
petence, appraisals of the actor’s social goals serve as better guides to most decisions
about other people, one might expect prosocial qualities (rather than competence) to
dominate laypersons’ prototypes. Such is the case.
342 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 343
TABLE 2
Correlations Between Percentages Free-Listing Positive Traits
Across Cultures: Raw Data and Transformed Data
Sample 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mean r
1. Chamorro — .88 .54 .50 .87 .56 .35 .62
2. Filipino .58 — .53 .39 .82 .48 .28 .56
3. Taiwanese .26 .18 — .38 .50 .41 .31 .44
4. Turkish .27 .24 .40 — .32 .42 .26 .38
5. U.S. .60 .59 .32 .28 — .49 .26 .54
6. Venezuelan .44 .40 .25 .06 .56 — .36 .44
7. Palauan .01 .14 .24 .26 .10 .33 — .30
Mean r (transformed data) .36 .36 .28 .25 .41 .34 .18 —
NOTE: Coefficients in boldface are reliable at p < .01 (two-tailed) or better. Pearson coefficients in the upper right
of the table were computed based on frequencies for features free-listed by participants in at least one of the two
samples indicated. Features listed by other samples, but not by participants in either of a given pair of samples,
were excluded when computing a given pairwise coefficient. These computations preserved the original form of
the data, but did not compensate for skew. Pearson coefficients in the lower left of the table were computed after
applying an inverse transformation to the data. The inverse transformation corrects for skew, but does not pre-
serve the original form of the data, and excludes from the analysis all features having zero frequency in either of
the given two samples. Relationships that achieve reliability in one set of analyses, but not the other, should be
interpreted with caution. Degrees of freedom and critical values for coefficients in both sides of the table vary
based on the number of features with nonzero frequencies. Correlations based on frequencies for all features,
including (0,0) data pairs, are available from the first author.
In each of our seven prototypes, qualities that Wojciszke and his colleagues identified
as having strong relevance to moral rules and prosocial goals (e.g., helpful, honest, gener-
ous) appeared at greater frequencies than competence-based qualities (e.g., intelligent,
knowledgeable), 22.76 ≤ all χ
2
(1) values ≤ 106.44, all ps < .001. Indeed, of Wojciszke
et al’s (1998) eight competence-based qualities, only intelligent achieved frequencies com-
parable with those of leading prosocial qualities.
When laypersons free-list personal qualities, which types of values do they access?
Schwartz (1992) distinguished between 10 categories of values. Our second content analy-
sis demonstrated that our participants accessed some of these categories
5
far more fre-
quently than others, χ
2
(9) = 1,737.77, p < .0001. Benevolence—seeking the well-being of
people with whom one has frequent personal contact—dominated lay prototypes of the
good person. In six of seven prototypes, values from Schwartz’s benevolence domain (e.g.,
honest, helpful) appeared with greater frequency than values from any other category: in
four cases, attracting more than twice as many free-listings as the prototype’s runner-up.
Moreover, values from the motivational domains adjacent to benevolence in the two-
dimensional subjective space mapped by Schwartz (1992)—conformity, tradition and uni-
versalism—together with benevolence constitute the four most frequently appearing types.
Even in the seventh (Palauan) prototype, only one value—respectful (an instance of
conformity)—appeared more frequently than values reflecting benevolence. Only the
greater frequencies with which values representing the self-direction and security motives
(for Taiwanese participants) or values representing security and achievement (for the
Turks) displaced value categories adjacent to benevolence from the top four. The Palauan
sample generated the only prototype in which any of the benevolence-adjoining categories
(universalism) appears among the least frequently accessed types.

344
TABLE 3
Adjusted Frequencies of Matches Between Free-Listed Features of the
Good Person and Experts’ Categories
Sample
Combined Chamorro Filipino Taiwanese Turkish U.S. Venezuelan Palauan
Category
ΣΣ
f/n
ΣΣ
f/nk
Σ
f/n
Σ
f/nk
Σ
f/n
Σ
f/nk
Σ
f/n
Σ
f/nk
Σ
f/n
Σ
f/nk
Σ
f/n
Σ
f/nk
Σ
f/n
Σ
f/nk
Σ
f/n
Σ
f/nk
Wojciszke (1994)
Morality 835 104 201 25 135 17 125 16 91 11 107 13 98 12 76 10
Competence 187 23 41 5 33 4 26 3 37 5 24 3 24 3 2 <1
Schwartz (1992)
Benevolence 547 109 135 27 97 19 60 12 73 15 69 14 52 10 61 12
Conformity 299 75 57 14 30 7 27 7 48 12 18 5 24 6 95 24
Tradition 133 27 18 4 16 3 26 5 18 4 15 3 16 3 25 5
Universalism 125 18 28 4 13 2 38 5 23 3 14 2 9 1 0 0
Self-direction 92 18 15 3 8 2 45 9 13 3 2 <1 7 1 1 <1
Security 82 16 14 3 5 1 30 6 26 5 6 1 0 0 1 <1
Achievement 60 20 6 2 5 2 15 5 24 8 1 <1 5 2 4 1
Hedonism 35 17 8 4 3 2 4 2 9 4 9 5 0 0 1 <1
Power 23 8 7 2 5 2 8 3 3 1 1 <1 0 0 0 0
Stimulation 11 4 6 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0
Walker and Pitts (1998b)
Caring-trustworthy 953 106 270 30 181 20 127 14 80 9 154 17 82 9 58 6
Dependable-loyal 400 50 91 11 50 6 37 5 66 8 25 3 41 5 89 11
Has integrity 127 21 17 3 12 2 18 3 28 5 6 1 18 3 27 5
Confident 97 32 17 6 15 5 29 10 23 8 6 2 7 2 0 0
Principled-idealistic 97 7 20 1 11 1 32 2 17 1 4 <1 1 0 13 1
Fair 30 30 7 7 3 3 8 8 2 2 2 2 4 4 3 3
Peterson and
Seligman (2004)
Humanity 758 69 182 17 153 14 106 10 34 3 137 12 72 7 73 7
Courage 440 34 99 8 64 5 71 5 70 5 47 4 47 4 40 3
Transcendence 257 43 52 9 56 9 59 10 27 5 32 5 15 2 16 3

345
Justice 178 22 42 5 30 4 33 4 22 3 14 2 17 2 21 3
Wisdom/knowledge 167 19 40 4 24 3 44 5 34 4 15 2 10 1 0 0
Temperance 111 16 18 3 10 1 22 3 16 2 12 2 17 2 16 2
Haslam, Bain, and
Neal (2004)
Love 409 68 98 16 77 13 78 13 23 4 62 10 44 7 27 5
Wisdom 237 30 49 6 35 4 40 5 33 4 35 4 30 4 14 2
Drive 205 34 38 6 26 4 54 9 32 5 12 2 16 3 28 5
Self-control 137 14 22 2 13 1 43 4 23 2 9 1 14 1 14 1
Vivacity 67 17 11 3 17 4 19 5 2 1 13 3 5 1 1 <1
Collaboration 30 10 7 2 3 1 8 3 2 1 2 1 4 1 3 1
NOTE: Cells in Σf/n columns list the frequencies of exact matches between any of the category’s exemplars and free-listed features of the good person, divided by the number of
participants in the sample. Cells in Σf/nk columns list the frequencies of exact matches divided by the number of participants and the number of exemplars in the category. Cell
entries are rounded to the nearest whole number.

In other respects, all seven prototypes indicated substantial consistencies in which
motives laypersons accessed least frequently. In each prototype, values representing
motives for power and stimulation appeared in the three least frequently cited categories.
Adjusting the accessibility measure for the number of exemplars in each category (k
c
)
did not alter the relative emphases of benevolence, conformity, and tradition, or the rela-
tive de-emphasis of power and stimulation. Hedonism and achievement (with two and
three exemplars, respectively) increased in relative emphasis to levels comparable with
universalism (eight exemplars), self-direction, and security.
How did the cultures surveyed vary in the apparent accessibility of value types? The
seven cultural samples appeared to vary in the degree to which they accessed values con-
ceptually similar to Wojciszke’s (1994) competence as they described the good person.
Self-direction and achievement (as well as security) varied widely in terms of their repre-
sentation in individual prototypes: having the highest variances of adjusted frequencies of
any value categories other than the two most accessible, benevolence and conformity. Self-
direction was the second most accessible motive for Taiwanese participants; for Palauans,
Turks, and mainland Americans, self-direction was fourth from least accessible, and
attained intermediate accessibility for the other samples, χ
2
(6) = 104.15, p < .001.
Achievement-based values appeared more frequently in the Turkish and Taiwanese proto-
types; less so in the others, and hardly at all in the mainland American prototype, χ
2
(6) =
45.47, p < .001. Security appeared relatively accessible both for Taiwanese and Turkish
participants, but much less accessible for others, particularly the Palauans and
Venezuelans, χ
2
(6) = 74.56, p < .001.
6
In four important ways, our results depart from the pancultural consensus on values that
Schwartz and Bardi (2001) reported: first, in strong cross-cultural variability in the
emphases accorded to multiple value categories; second and third, in greater emphases on
tradition, and on conformity; and fourth, in a lesser emphasis on self-direction. We will
return to these differences when comparing our measure of accessibility with ratings of
importance.
What moral attributes dominate lay concepts of the good person? Walker and Pitts
(1998b) identified six clusters of attributes of the highly moral person. Our third content
analysis demonstrated that our participants accessed some clusters far more frequently
than others, χ
2
(5) = 2,184.11, p < .0001. In six out of seven prototypes, attributes from the
cluster that Walker and Pitts identified as caring-trustworthy appeared in our laypersons’
prototypes with greater frequency than any other, with attributes from the dependable-
loyal cluster an often distant second. For the Palauans, dependable-loyal dominated
concepts of the good person, with caring-trustworthy not far behind. Significantly, two
frequently free-listed attributes that Walker and Pitts ascribed to the dependable-loyal
cluster—responsible and loyal—are aspects of Schwartz’s (1992) benevolence, with sec-
ondary connotations of conformity.
These findings contrast with those of Walker and Pitts (1998b, p. 408), who found care-
based attributes such as kind and helpful of only intermediate accessibility: perhaps a result
of the more specific connotations of their target term, “the highly moral person.” Also in
contrast with Walker and Pitts’s participants, our samples did not seem preoccupied with
fairness or principles. Attributes from Walker and Pitts’s fair cluster appeared least fre-
quently in five of our seven prototypes, and next to least frequently in the remaining
two. Principles and idealism also fared poorly in four prototypes but attained moderate
346 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

accessibility among the Chamorro, Palauan, and Taiwanese samples. (We will later discuss
possible differences in the concepts of the highly moral person and the good person.)
Adjusting the accessibility measure for the numbers of exemplars in each category did
not alter the relative emphases on the caring-trustworthy and dependable-loyal clusters or
the de-emphasis of principles and idealism. This adjustment did increase the relative
emphasis on fairness, which in our analysis had a single exemplar (fair/just, combined
based on single equivalents in non-English languages), and de-emphasized has integrity,
with six exemplars.
Of the positive attribute categories represented with intermediate frequency, confidence
varied most in accessibility: of moderate accessibility for Taiwanese and Turkish partici-
pants, but much less for mainland Americans, Venezuelans, and Palauans, χ
2
(6) = 45.08,
p < .001. As with the Schwartz categories, then, it appeared that competence-related
aspects of the person accounted for the most variability across cultures as participants con-
sidered goodness in general.
When laypersons free-list personal qualities, which types of virtues do they access?
Peterson and Seligman (2004) identified six categories of virtues. Our fourth content analy-
sis demonstrated that our participants accessed some of these categories far more frequently,
χ
2
(5) = 934.14, p < .0001. The class of character strengths that Peterson and Seligman (2004)
identified with the virtue of humanity—including kindness and love—appeared most fre-
quently in six of seven prototypes, and second most frequently in the remaining (Turkish)
prototype. Courage—including honesty, industriousness and sincerity—also figured
prominently: most accessible for the Turks, and second most accessible for the other six
samples.
Temperance—including prudence and self-control—demonstrated relatively little
accessibility among six of seven samples. Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) wisdom and
knowledge category also fared poorly, as least or second least accessible for four of seven
samples. Venezuelan participants, however, found temperance (and the character strengths
humility and forgiveness in particular) as accessible as justice and transcendence.
Taiwanese and Turkish participants found wisdom-based character strengths moderately
accessible.
Adjusting for the numbers of exemplars in each category did not alter the dominance of
humanity, or the lack of relative accessibility for character strengths based on temperance.
Transcendence (with six exemplars) showed increased emphasis, and courage (which included
authenticity, diligence, valor, vitality and vigor among its 13 exemplars) showed less.
Of the moderately accessible categories in the Values in Action (VIA) classification,
transcendence—including optimism, humor, and religiosity—differed most across the
samples, with greatest accessibility for the Taiwanese, Filipinos, and Chamorros and least
for the Palauans and Venezuelans, χ
2
(6) = 57.75, p < .001. Because the VIA classification
contains no category corresponding to competence (indeed, Peterson and Seligman [2004]
distinguished virtues and character strengths from skills), no VIA-based comparison of
cultures in terms of emphases on competence is possible.
When laypersons free-list personal qualities, which clusters of positive characteristics
do they access? Haslam et al. (2004) identified six clusters of positive characteristics. Our
final content analysis demonstrated that our participants accessed some clusters far more
frequently than others, χ
2
(5) = 517.41, p < .0001. Overall, our participants found traits,
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 347

values, and strengths from the cluster Haslam et al. (2004) identified as love—including
kindness, love, and hope—most accessible: Traits, values, and strengths from the love clus-
ter appeared more frequently than characteristics from any other in five of seven proto-
types, and only drive (principally, the trait industriousness) equaled love in accessibility
for Palauans.
It is interesting to note that both wisdom and self-control, as defined by the traits and
values included in Haslam et al.’s (2004) stimulus set, were more lay-accessible concepts
than the wisdom and knowledge and temperance classes of strengths proposed by Peterson
and Seligman (2004).
Surprisingly, collaboration was least accessible for six of seven samples, including
samples from cultures well known for collectivist tendencies. (In fact, for the Taiwanese,
independence was highly accessible.) Situational pressures may assure collaboration in
these cultures (cf. Bardi & Schwartz, 2003); alternatively, the two specific collaborative
attributes that Haslam et al. (2004) included—teamwork and fairness—may not define col-
laboration in these cultures. Adjusting for the numbers of exemplars in each category did
not alter collaboration’s lack of relative accessibility, or the dominance of love.
As compared with our other samples, the Palauan, Taiwanese, and Turkish participants
more readily accessed concepts from the drive category, χ
2
(6) = 40.16, p < .001. In com-
parison with other samples, the Palauans and Turks less frequently accessed attributes
from the love cluster, χ
2
(6) = 81.43, p < .001; though still more frequently than vivacity
and collaboration, which scarcely appeared in either prototype.
Summary of content analyses. Results from content analyses based on different classi-
fications coincided in two important ways. First, interpersonal benevolence (aka caring,
humanity) dominated the most accessible features of the good person. Second, qualities in
competence-based categories (e.g., achievement, confidence, drive) varied widely across
cultures in terms of accessibility. In the General Discussion, we consider implications of
both patterns.
Regression Analyses: Variables Explaining Accessibility
We next turned to the question of what superordinate commonalities distinguish fre-
quently accessed personal qualities from the less commonly accessed. Given that our
participants accessed qualities from such categories as morality, benevolence, caring-
trustworthy, humanity, and love more often than qualities from categories like competence,
stimulation, fair, temperance, and vivacity, what distinguishes the former categories from
the latter?
To address this question, we used previously established multidimensional coordinates
for personal qualities as explanatory (X) variables in multiple regression analyses. Walker
and Pitts’s (1998b) Study 3 (similarity sorting) provided one set of coordinates, locating
moral traits on the dimensions of interpersonal relevance and externality-internality.
Haslam et al. (2004, Study 1, similarity sorting) provided coordinates for values and
traits on three dimensions contrasting self-control with warmth; vivacity with decency;
and wisdom with power, respectively.
7
Because Walker and Pitts supplied coordinates for
one unique subset of qualities, and Haslam et al. supplied coordinates for a second, par-
tially independent set, we applied the two sets of coordinates to separate regression
analyses.
348 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

Corrections for skew. Given the incomplete overlap between personal qualities appear-
ing in stimulus sets from prior research and in our own samples’ feature lists (which had
30 qualities in common with Walker and Pitts’s [1998b] set of 50 stimuli, and 40 in common
with Haslam et al.’s [2004]), an inverse transformation eliminating from the regression analy-
ses any qualities with intrasample frequencies of zero, was impractical. Therefore, to address
the possibility that skewed distributions might affect tests of significance, we supplemented
tests of beta weights in the regression analyses with parallel tests of Spearman rank correla-
tions. Both sets of tests are reported in Table 4. In 14 of 16 cases, effects detected in para-
metric tests of beta weights also appeared in the nonparametric tests.
Interpersonal relevance and internality predict accessibility. As the top half of Table 4
indicates, our own samples had accessed interpersonally relevant qualities with particular fre-
quency. Walker and Pitts’s (1998b) self-other dimension contrasts self-relevant, competence-
based qualities like confident and disciplined with interpersonally relevant qualities like caring,
kind, and sincere. Qualities closer to the other-relevant pole more frequently appeared in
feature lists for all but the Turkish and Palauan samples.
Participants in the Filipino, Taiwanese, U.S., and Venezuelan cultural samples also
exhibited reliable tendencies to access qualities pertaining to internal regulation of proso-
cial behavior (e.g., strong, conscientious, dependable), rather than qualities indicating a
response to external standards (e.g., law-abiding, proper). The same pattern approached
but did not achieve significance in parametric tests of the Chamorro data.
Coordinates on each of Haslam et al.’s (2004) dimensions, reported in the bottom half
of Table 4, exhibited weaker relationships with frequencies of free-listing. Tests using data
combined from all samples detected modest but reliable tendencies for participants to
access qualities indicating interpersonal warmth (e.g., love, warmth), and decency (e.g.,
forgiving, humble) more frequently than qualities indicating self-control (industriousness,
efficiency), or vivacity (enthusiastic, fun-loving), respectively.
8
These effects, however,
attained significance in only three of the within-culture tests.
Implications for studies of lay theories of the good person. The two sets of regression
analyses suggest a lay theory that ascribes goodness to a person who reliably responds to the
needs of other people with warmth and humility, rather than focusing on his or her own capa-
bilities, or depending on (potentially variable) external norms to prompt prosocial acts. Of the
dimensions tested, responsiveness to others emerged as the most promising candidate for a
central element in Chamorro, Filipino, Taiwanese, U.S., and Venezuelan participants’theories
of the good person (though this particular relationship did not emerge in the Turkish or
Palauan data). In general, these results provide further support for Wojciszke’s (1994) pro-
posal that everyday interpersonal judgments emphasize prosocial acts over competence.
STUDY 2: RATING THE IMPORTANCE
OF QUALITIES OF THE GOOD PERSON
Study 2 solicited closed-ended ratings of the importance of personal qualities free-listed
in Study 1, to determine (a) whether the levels of accessibility associated with these qual-
ities correlate strongly with the degrees of subjective importance laypersons attach to them
and (b) whether the same superordinate commonalities (e.g., responsiveness to others)
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 349

distinguish both highly accessible qualities and subjectively important qualities. To
address the latter question, we again employed Walker and Pitts’s (1998b) and Haslam
et al.’s (2004) multidimensional coordinates for subsets of personal qualities. These coor-
dinates served as explanatory variables in multiple regression analyses of the qualities’
mean levels of rated importance.
METHOD
Participants
A total of 1,357 male and female students in Guam (indigenous Chamorro [n = 75] and
Filipino [n = 131]), Taiwan (n = 217), Turkey (n = 309), the mainland United States
(Anglo-Americans, n = 291), and the United Arab Emirates (n = 334) participated. None
had participated in Study 1.
350 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
TABLE 4
Explanatory Variables Predicting Accessibility (Study 1)
β
and Rho, by Sample
Variable Combined Chamorro Filipino Taiwanese Turkish U.S. Venezuelan Palauan
Analyses using Walker and Pitts’s (1998b) multidimensional
scaling (MDS) coordinates
W-P other-relevance
β .48**** .74**** .68**** .50** .22 .75**** .56** .17
Rho .50**** .76**** .64*** .46** .11 .77**** .68*** .35
W-P internality
β .29**** .34 .37* .45* .20 .38* .45* .13
Rho .38**** .39* .48** .45* .28 .50** .55** .17
Summary statistics
R .50**** .75**** .69**** .58** .26 .76**** .61** .18
F 34.45**** 16.91**** 12.43**** 6.83** <1 18.08**** 8.41** <1
Analyses using Haslam, Bain, and Neal’s (2004)
MDS coordinates
Haslam warmth
β .20*** .29 .31* .16 –.01 .32* .20 .12
Rho .20*** .25 .24 .11 .02 .33* .28 .22
Haslam decency
β .20*** .25 .20 .16 .15 .20 .23 .27
Rho .20*** .24 .15 .15 .11 .16 .31 .32*
Haslam power
β .11* .16 .22 .07 –.06 .15 .07 .17
Rho .06 .13 .21 .05 –.15 .20 .02 .15
Summary statistics
R .31**** .42 .44* .24 .16 .41 .32 .34
F 9.98**** 2.60 2.95* <1 <1 2.47 1.40 1.58
NOTE: Values of the predictors (X) were drawn from Walker and Pitts (1998b, Study 3, similarity sorting, moral
person concept), and from Haslam et al. (2004, Study 1, similarity sorting). The regression coefficient for each
individual predictor is based on entering that predictor first in a hierarchical regression analysis. Within-culture
tests of significance for standardized regression coefficients have degrees of freedom = (1,28 [Walker & Pitts])
and (1,38 [Haslam]). The degrees of freedom for the combined-sample analyses = (1, 208 [Walker & Pitts]) and
(1, 278 [Haslam]).
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ****p < .0001.

Materials
We drew from each of the seven Study 1 cultures’ prototypes the 21 most frequently
free-listed qualities of the good person. With duplications eliminated, this yielded a list of
70 qualities. Participants in each Study 2 sample rated each quality in terms of its impor-
tance to deciding whether someone is a good person: using a 9-point scale anchored with
not important at all and very important. We obtained Mandarin, Turkish, and Arabic trans-
lations using the same procedure as in Study 1.
Procedures
Participants provided these ratings as part of a larger study of culture-relevant personal
qualities, conducted in anonymous mass testing sessions. Proctors required participants to
work silently and independently.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Regression Analyses: Variables Explaining Importance
Within-sample standardization of the ratings of importance that Study 2’s participants
assigned to 70 qualities compensated for possible intersample differences in response
biases (Fischer, 2004, pp. 265-268, 276), allowing us to conduct regression analyses with
data combined across cultural samples, in addition to the within-culture analyses.
Other-relevance and externality predict importance. As Table 5 indicates, coordinates
on both of the dimensions that Walker and Pitts (1998b) identified—other-relevance and
externality-internality (e.g., law-abiding contrasted with conscientious)—reliably corre-
late with mean ratings of importance for the 12 of their attributes included in our Study 2,
accounting for 46% of the variance in the combined-samples analysis. Walker and Pitts’s
dimensions reliably account for substantial variation in the importance that Filipino,
American, Turkish, and Taiwanese participants assigned to the 12 qualities: at 49%, 58%,
61%, and 86%, respectively. In data from all samples, the directions of correlations and
trends are consistent: Qualities involving responsiveness to others’ needs, and to external
standards, receive higher ratings of importance.
Decency and power predict importance. In a combined-samples analysis, coordinates on
Haslam et al.’s (2004) dimensions—and the vivacity vs. decency dimension in particular
(contrasting fun-lovingness and playfulness with forgiving, helpful, and humble)—account
for 58% of the variance in mean ratings of importance. Decency appears particularly impor-
tant for the Taiwanese, Turkish, and United Arab Emirates. Coordinates on Haslam et al.’s
warmth dimension also predict importance but contribute little unique variance to the regres-
sion equation. Of the 15 qualities represented in both Haslam et al.’s study and ours, quali-
ties closer to the decency and power poles (the latter indicating superior ability, e.g., to help;
Haslam et al., 2004, p. 534) received higher mean ratings of importance.
Accessing Personal Qualities Versus Rating Their Importance:
Are These Different Processes?
The present results provide three types of evidence that the personal qualities most
accessible to laypersons are not necessarily the ones they rate as important.
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 351

Accessibility and subjective importance intercorrelate weakly. Mean ratings of the
importance that Chamorro, Filipino, Taiwanese, Turkish, and American laypersons in
Study 2 attributed to specific qualities correlate only modestly with the frequencies with
which the same qualities came to mind as their counterparts in Study 1 defined the good
person, sharing less than 12% of the variance. Within-culture correlations of rated impor-
tance with percentages free-listing these qualities averaged r(67) = .34, p < .01, two-tailed:
with a minimum of .17 (Taiwan) and a maximum of .47 (Chamorros). With both variables
adjusted for skew, correlations of frequencies and importance ratings were even lower,
with a mean of r(67) = .26, p < .05.
The contrast between results of our values-based content analysis, and Schwartz and
Bardi’s (2001) evidence of a pancultural consensus in the importance individuals attach to
the same value types, provides an additional case in point. Schwartz and Bardi’s participants
consistently rated benevolence as highly important but gave intermediate ratings of impor-
tance to conformity and low ratings to tradition (as did our own participants in Study 2: e.g.,
giving devout/religious a mean standardized rating of –1.50). Yet in our Study 1, benevo-
lence, conformity, and tradition all appeared frequently and prominently in participants’
concepts of the good. Even Filipino participants, who in our Study 2 (and apparently, in
Schwartz and Bardi’s data [2001, pp. 278, 283]) attributed unusually strong importance to
conformity and little importance to self-direction, gave ratings that did not parallel other
aspects of the Filipino prototype: The overall correlations of Filipinos’ ratings of importance
352 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
TABLE 5
Explanatory Variables Predicting Mean Ratings of Importance (Study 2)
β
, Rho, by Sample
United Arab
Variable Combined Chamorro Filipino Taiwanese Turkish U.S. Emirates
Analyses using Walker and Pitts’s (1998b)
multidimensional scaling (MDS) coordinates
W-P other-relevance .52**** .52 .61* .77** .64* .60* .04
W-P internality –.44**** –.39 –.34 –.52 –.45 –.48 –.55
Summary statistics
R .68**** .63 .70* .93*** .78* .76* .55
F 30.23**** 3.32 4.23* 26.68*** 7.14* 6.26 1.98
Analyses using Haslam, Bain, and Neal’s
(2004) MDS coordinates
Haslam warmth .26** .38 .49 –.08 -.13 .40 -.11
Haslam decency .64**** .59* .62* .73** .80*** .44 .77***
Haslam power .36**** .42 .48 .28 .22 .52* .33
Summary statistics
R .76**** .76* .84** .82** .85** .72* .88***
F 38.88**** 5.14* 8.82** 7.84** 9.86** 3.99* 11.99***
NOTE: Values of the predictors (X) were drawn from Walker and Pitts (1998b, Study 3, similarity sorting, moral
person concept), and from Haslam et al. (2004, Study 1, similarity sorting.) Prior to regression analyses, a loga-
rithmic transformation (with reflection) was applied to the standardized mean importance ratings, to correct for
skew. The regression coefficient for each explanatory variable is based on entering that variable first in a hierar-
chical regression analysis. Within-culture tests of significance for standardized regression coefficients have
degrees of freedom = (1,10 [Walker & Pitts]) and (1,13 [Haslam]). The degrees of freedom for the combined-
sample analyses = (1, 70 [Walker & Pitts]) and (1, 88 [Haslam]).
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ****p < .0001.

(from Study 2) with percentages of Filipinos free-listing the same values (in Study 1), were
quite low, r(67) = .28, Rho = .30. Apparently, rating a value as important does not guarantee
its accessibility, and vice versa.
Accessibility and importance have different correlates. With Walker and Pitts’s (1998b)
coordinates entered as explanatory variables, a given quality’s basis in internal standards
predicts its accessibility. Qualities indicating internal control of behavior (e.g., conscien-
tious, consistent, dependable) were accessed more frequently (in Study 1). The opposite is
true of predicting rated importance. Qualities indicating a response to external standards
(e.g., law-abiding, proper) received greater ratings of importance (in Study 2). Comparing
the values of r (.29 and –.44, respectively) yields a value of Z = 5.51, p < .0001, two-tailed.
Moreover, the Haslam et al. (2004) dimensions—and decency in particular—show
marked differences in their abilities to predict accessibility and rated importance. These
dimensions account for only 9% of the variance in free-listings (accessibility) but account
for 58% of the variance in ratings of importance: a reliable difference. Comparing the mul-
tiple rs (.31 and .76, respectively) yields a value of Z = –4.73, p < .0001, two-tailed.
Taken together, the results summarized in Tables 4 and 5 suggest that when accessing
criteria for everyday judgments of goodness, laypersons may consider primarily the degree
to which the person consistently responds to others with prosocial behavior. Subjective
judgments of importance are predicted by a wider variety of considerations, including
external standards, decency, and power.
More cross-cultural variance in accessibility than in importance. Finally, we note that
Study 1’s measure of accessibility showed far more cross-cultural variability than did
Study 2’s measure of subjective importance. In skew-corrected data, none of the present
samples’ frequencies of free-listing attained a mean correlation with the other cultures’ fre-
quencies of greater than .41, with a mean r of only .31. In contrast, ratings of subjective
importance from one culture correlated with those of others at an average of r = .75, with
a minimum mean value of .59 (United Arab Emirates) and a maximum of .85 (United
States). Schwartz and Bardi (2001) observed an even higher average (median) intersample
correlation of importance ratings, at r = .92. Mean cross-cultural correlations for accessi-
bility and for importance differ reliably, Z = –2.64, p < .01, two-tailed.
Schwartz and Bardi (2001, p. 287) noted that cross-cultural differences in the impor-
tance people attach to specific values are often more salient and compelling than similari-
ties. Given the more pronounced cross-cultural differences in which elements of the good
come readily to mind, we suggest that such differences merit further investigation.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The capacity to evaluate one’s fellows and oneself distinguishes human beings from
other species (cf. Heidegger, 1962). With the present research, we sought to contribute to
a cross-cultural base of knowledge concerning the qualities to which people most often
attend as they evaluate themselves and other people.
Our research of necessity began with samples drawn from a limited number of cultures;
in addition, our young participants free-listed qualities of the good person within brief and
anonymous sessions. It remains to be seen whether the consistencies observed in the
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 353

present results will generalize to older samples (who may, for example, more frequently
access values of wisdom and temperance); to samples drawn from additional cultures; and
to other, more specific prompts (e.g., the admirable person, the honorable person). Future
research may also compare our results with the character-based concepts that laypersons
in various cultures access in evaluations of specific people. Several implications of the
commonalities and differences observed across our culturally diverse samples appear to
justify such research. We summarize these implications here and identify some new
hypotheses suggested by our results.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE OBSERVED COMMONALITIES AND DIFFERENCES
Theoretical Implications
We began by asking which of the many previously identified aspects of personal good-
ness remain active and accessible in everyday thought. Our data lend independent support
to proposals by Wojciszke (1994), Gilligan (1977), and others: that people routinely
appraise behavior for expressions of caring (benevolence) as they judge its value.
Laypersons also frequently access such conformity- and tradition-based values as polite-
ness and humility and, to a lesser extent, universalist values such as broad-mindedness and
wisdom. We suggest that all four types of values address the most essential of the societal
and individual needs that Schwartz and Bardi (2001) identified: for cooperation and sup-
port among members of primary groups.
Respect in particular appears to warrant more attention from researchers than it
presently receives. Values similar to respect appear in Schwartz’s model of relations
between values yet receive little current emphasis in the theory. Schwartz and Bardi (2001)
found that tradition-based values (e.g., respect for tradition) typically receive low subjec-
tive ratings of importance, and therefore deemphasized the role of tradition in everyday
social relations (p. 281). One might argue that humility and modesty represent respect in
the Values In Action classification. Yet Peterson and Seligman (2004, pp. 461-470) did not
discuss overt demonstrations of respect in their descriptions of humility and modesty,
which are often defined by what the person does not do. The degree to which laypersons
identify respect with humility and modesty is an open empirical question. In the meantime,
our results suggest that values relevant to tradition remain active in both Western (e.g.,
U.S.) and non-Western lay cognition. These values—and respect in particular—deserve
further study as possible contributors to harmony within groups, and good character.
Wojciszke (1994) argued that in comparison with caring-based appraisals, competence-
based appraisals receive lesser weight: a point that our data support. Yet we also found that
competence—conceived in different classifications as self-direction and achievement; con-
fidence; and drive—varied widely in its accessibility across cultures. Revealingly, compe-
tence addresses a secondary but still universal requirement of societal functioning, namely,
for productive and innovative work (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001): a requirement that may vary
in salience with the specific environmental demands contributing to a given culture.
It is also possible that Wojciszke’s (1994) distinction between morality and competence
reflects primarily Western understandings of these terms, and that in other cultures the two
concepts are less distinct. For example, in collectivist cultures, self-reliance may be valued
as a way to avoid imposing on others (see Christopher, 1999).
Self-determination theory (SDT) suggests a third, complementary explanation.
According to SDT, competence is one of three fundamental human needs (together with
354 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

autonomy and relatedness), and cross-cultural research on SDT to date supports this pro-
posal (e.g., Levesque, Zuehlke, Stanek & Ryan, 2004; Sheldon, Elliot, Kim, & Kasser,
2001). Of the three needs, competence may be most prone to multiple, conflicting defini-
tions (e.g., individual achievement vs. socially oriented achievement), especially within
cultures attempting to integrate Western approaches to education, business, and politics
with traditional approaches (cf. Serpell & Hatano, 1997; Yu & Yang, 1994). To the extent
that people in such cultures remain conflicted about competence and achievement, and to
the extent that as-yet-unsatisfied needs lead people to idealize those who have satisfied
them, we would expect competence and achievement to remain salient in images of the
good person. Future research may address the impact of specific environmental demands,
and of differing, potentially conflicting definitions of competence and achievement, on the
salience of competence within given cultures.
Implications for Counseling and for Positive Psychology
Christopher (1999) speculated that psychology has focused on pathology—and gener-
ally avoided defining well-being and positive mental health—precisely because such def-
initions are often conflated with cultural values. Our results suggest a partial solution,
based on a convergence of results from closed-ended and open-ended assessments on a
possible universal in conceptions of well-being. Among the most accessible value cate-
gories in our data, benevolence is unique in that its component values also receive strong
ratings of importance in comprehensive inventories (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001). Because
benevolence has such accessibility and centrality in disparate cultures’ conceptions of the
good person, it may best and most reliably express societies’ and individuals’ essential
need for cooperation and mutual support. As such, the capacity for benevolence may form
a core element in a broadly applicable concept of well-being.
Other values (including conformity and universalism) frequently accessed by our samples
occupy regions adjacent to benevolence in Schwartz’s structure: suggesting a stronger reflec-
tion of the common prosocial function of these value types in their accessibility than is evident
in ratings of their importance (cf. Schwartz & Bardi, 2001). Future research may explore the
possibility that accessing values in one of these prosocial regions (e.g., benevolence) increases
the accessibility of values in the others (cf. Collins & Loftus, 1975). Such research may also
explore indications that, in comparison with descriptions of goodness generally conceived, dis-
tinctly moral values less often emphasize benevolence and caring, as results from Walker and
Pitts’s (1998b) participants, who described the “highly moral person,” suggest.
We also discerned important cultural differences in the salience of other constituents of
the good person, such as self-direction, confidence, transcendence, and drive. Interpretations
of such constituents can also vary considerably across cultures (cf. Christopher, Nelson, &
Nelson, 2004). Differences of salience and interpretation may be critical to consider when
working across cultures and trying to take into account indigenous conceptions of well-being
and mental health (Christopher, 2001).
IMPLICATIONS OF A DISTINCTION BETWEEN ACCESSIBILITY AND RATED IMPORTANCE
Our data indicate that “important” does not necessarily mean “accessible.” Given the
evidence in each of the present cultural samples of a distinction between important
personal qualities and those coming readily to mind, three implications obtain.
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 355

Accessibility and Behavior
First, it seems both reasonable and possible to determine whether individual differences in
certain qualities’levels of accessibility better predict some classes of everyday behaviors—for
example, those manifesting achievement—than the ratings of importance only marginally
related to these behaviors. Bardi and Schwartz (2003, p. 1217) proposed that normative pres-
sures often override individual differences in the importance attached to particular values,
resulting in low correlations between ratings of values’ importance and behavior. A second,
noncompeting possibility is that accessibility moderates the value-behavior relationship.
Some values may be important, but infrequently accessed (cf. Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2000).
To arrive at a more complete understanding of the relationships between internal and
external determinants of positive behaviors, researchers may derive individual prototypes
of goodness (e.g., based on frequencies of free-listing in repeated measures), then compare
these with (a) ratings of importance assigned by the same individuals, and (b) indexes of
the normative pressures in effect, as predictors of everyday behaviors.
Do Accessible Qualities Reflect Implicit Values?
Second, if accessibility and rated importance reflect different evaluative processes, it
seems possible that one is more implicit—affording less conscious access to its origins—
than the other. Evidence indicates that people apply at least two forms of evaluation to the
same objects, people, and events: highly context-sensitive, explicit evaluations constructed
in response to the available external cues and more stable, implicit evaluations formed ear-
lier in life and accessed automatically (e.g., Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). Implicit
evaluations more often guide routine behaviors.
Taylor (1989); Bruner (1990); and Chiu, Dweck, Tong, and Fu (1997) all argued that
the theories of morality that guide laypersons’ everyday behaviors are implicit, and Walker
and Pitts (1998b, p. 405) specifically designed their instructions to access these implicit
theories. Our feature-listing instructions, which paralleled Walker and Pitts’s, asked par-
ticipants to consider the qualities they attribute to good people in general, not to them-
selves. Such instructions, presented in the absence of external cues as to specific content,
typically minimize the consciously constructed self-attributions that often override
implicit cognition in responses to closed-ended questionnaires (cf. Greenwald & Banaji,
1995; Lapsley & Lasky, 2001).
Nevertheless, it remains for more direct evidence to establish whether differing levels
of accessibility associated with caring, modesty, assertiveness, and other qualities reflect
such qualities’ emphases in implicit personal theories of goodness, and in everyday acts.
At least two forms of evidence will bear on these questions: (a) correlations of qualities’
levels of accessibility with the speed of associating the same qualities with “good” during
the Implicit Associations Test (cf. Greenwald & Banaji, 1995) and (b) correlations of
accessibilities with the frequencies of corresponding routine behaviors in the individual’s
daily life (cf. Wilson et al., 2000). Cross-cultural research on these questions seems par-
ticularly worthwhile, given Rudman’s (2004) recent review of evidence that cultural influ-
ences have a stronger impact on implicit than on explicit evaluations.
Cultural Divergence in Theories of the Good Person
Third, cross-cultural differences in the readiness with which elements of the good
person come to mind may outweigh the relatively small cultural differences in the levels
356 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

of importance assigned to them. As indicated, Schwartz (e.g., 1992) and his colleagues
found a universal structure and near-universal priorities among values rated for impor-
tance. In contrast, cultural samples contributing prototypes to the present research varied
widely in how frequently value categories other than benevolence and its close relatives
came to mind. On average, representatives of our seven cultures shared only 10% of the
variance in the frequencies with which they free-listed specific qualities of the good
person. If these frequencies reflect implicit folk theories of what is good, as Walker and
Pitts (1998b) argued, the theories in effect in different cultures diverge considerably.
This suggests a promising topic for further research. If subsequent investigations verify
the differences we observed, the question of what functions specific lay theories of the
good person serve follows naturally. We look forward to learning more about cultural dif-
ferences as well as commonalities in the criteria that people apply to everyday judgments
of goodness.
NOTES
1. We note that Peterson and Seligman (2004, pp. 638-639) described an as-yet-infrequently used, but more
open-ended interview protocol that may provide fewer contextual cues.
2. Despite Haslam, Bain, and Neal’s (2004) evidence of convergence, as yet no single term encompasses all
of the constructs addressed by these authors. Throughout this article, when discussing individual classifications,
we have taken care not to impose meanings with which the original authors may disagree and instead use the
terms preferred by the original authors (e.g., attributes, character strengths, traits). We use the term personal
qualities when referring to these constructs in the aggregate.
3. Even in correlations computed using frequencies for all features (including features appearing in neither
of the two cultural prototypes in question), only 3 of 21 pairs of cultural samples share more than 50% of the
variance in frequencies. Most share much less. The mean correlation is .54. Moreover, such correlations may
inflate apparent similarities between prototypes that jointly omit a large number of features. For example,
Taiwanese and Turkish participants’ frequencies so correlated share 20% of the variance, in part because neither
sample listed carefree, softhearted, well-groomed, or any of 150 other features free-listed by other samples. With
the (0,0) data pairs removed, these samples’ frequencies share 14% of the variance.
4. The number of exemplars in a category may relate to their accessibility in complex ways, some of them
substantive (cf. Hunt & Agnoli, 1991, p. 378; Zhang & Schmitt, 1998). No one method of computing frequen-
cies adjusts for all of these, or for the twin possibilities of oversampling and undersampling of exemplars within
particular categories. Reporting frequencies not adjusted for the number of exemplars corrects for the possibility
that some expert-defined categories contain both widely accessed exemplars (e.g., courage) and also related
terms whose greater specificity ensures that laypersons will less frequently access them (e.g., authenticity, zest).
Dividing frequencies by the total number of exemplars thus risks diluting frequencies for commonly accessed
terms; at the same time, this adjustment corrects for the possibility that some categories have underrepresented
the concept by omitting distinct and accessible exemplars at the same level of specificity. To address these pos-
sibilities, we report both k
c
-unadjusted and k
c
-adjusted totals for each content analysis.
5. In this content analysis, we considered only the 45 values listed by Schwartz and Bardi (2001) as equiva-
lent in meaning across cultures.
6. These data were collected prior to terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001. It seems
likely that security-based values would attain greater accessibility in a post-9/11 American sample.
7. Haslam et al. (2004) originally labeled their dimensions such that a positive coordinate indicated a posi-
tion closer to the pole named first. Walker and Pitts (1998b) did the opposite. For clarity, Tables 4 and 5 label
each dimension in terms of the pole that correlates positively with the percentages free-listing traits in Study 1,
with the sign of correlations adjusted accordingly, as needed.
8. In each of the analyses reported in Tables 4 and 5, values of Y were unique to individual cultural samples;
values of X were not. For a given (X,Y) pair, the Y value quantified the relative accessibility (or importance) of a
given personal quality for participants in a particular cultural sample. The X value expressed that quality’s posi-
tion on the conceptual dimension in question: a datum available from Walker and Pitts (1998b) or Haslam et al.
(2004). Throughout a given combined analysis, the same set of archival data-supplied X values served as predic-
tors for corresponding Y values from each of the samples.
Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 357

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Smith et al. / LAY PROTOTYPES OF THE GOOD PERSON 359

Kyle D. Smith received his PhD in social psychology from the University of Washington in 1987. He has
held appointments at Marmara University in Istanbul, and at the University of Washington at Bothell, and
is currently a professor of psychology at the University of Guam. His work with students from Guam, the
Philippines, Micronesia, and East Asia earned him a Professor of the Year Award in 2005 from the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support
of Education. His research interests include cross-cultural universals and differences in conceptions of
good and evil, emotions in close relationships, positive psychology, and culture as a predictor of skills in
establishing intimacy.
Seyda Türk Smith, a Turkish-American cross-cultural psychologist, received her PhD from the University
of Washington. She is currently an associate professor of psychology and women and gender studies at
the University of Guam. Her research interests include culture and the self, gender differences, intimate
relationships, and positive psychology.
John Chambers Christopher received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Texas at
Austin. He is a professor in health & human development at Montana State University and a senior staff
psychologist at MSU’s Counseling Center. He is the recipient of the 2003 Sigmund Koch Early Career
Award by the Society of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology of the American Psychological
Association. He specializes in cultural psychology, health psychology, and theoretical and philosophical
psychology. He has written on the cultural, moral, and ontological underpinnings of theories of psycho-
logical well-being, positive psychology, moral development, and psychotherapy.
360 JOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY