‘Italians are passionate. Swedes are beautiful. Brits love queuing.’ Many of us routinely make these kinds of sweeping statements about people from different countries.
Most of the time, these generalisations are based on stereotypes, prejudice or experiences we had on holiday – not rooted in scientific fact.
But, sometimes, scientists have the same thought: can we meaningfully compare the personalities of whole nations against each other?
In one such attempt, researchers attempted to produce a global map of the world’s most honest and dishonest countries.
This wasn’t based on airport people-watching, but dropped wallets.
