How many? The Big Five and the number of children across three cultures

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Abstract
We investigate the relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions (i.e., openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) and reproductive success, operationalized as one's number of biologically related children. The sample comprised 15,120 participants across Canada, the USA, and Japan. It was hypothesized that higher scores in extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness would correlate positively with the number of children, whereas higher neuroticism scores would correlate negatively. Data analysis supported these hypotheses for extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. However, no significant correlations were found for openness and conscientiousness. Additionally, factors such as marital status, sex/gender, age, and sexual orientation also showed significant associations with reproductive outcomes, with married individuals, females, older participants, and heterosexuals reporting more offspring. Cross-country comparisons indicated participants from the USA and Canada reported more children than those from Japan. Together, these findings contribute to the literature on personality and reproductive outcomes by demonstrating that the effects of personality traits on reproductive success are potentially influenced by both cultural context and demographic factors.

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