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Personality differences in small island populations 57

Table 1. Gender, age, education level, age at the time of immigration and years lived on the islands by immigrated people

Sample subsets Gender Age Education IMM. age IMM. years

Mainlanders Mean 0.41 40.25 10.16 — —
(N ¼ 106)
Std. error 0.05 1.57 0.40 25.82 28.57
Immigrant 2.04 1.42
ADAPTED (N ¼ 28) Mean 0.54 54.39 10.25 33.14 11.36
3.64 1.72
RECENT (N ¼ 14) Std. error 0.10 2.34 0.813 4.00 31.86
0.54 2.44
CHILD (N ¼ 7) Mean 0.57 44.50 8.21 — —

NATIVE (N ¼ 30) Std. error 0.14 3.65 0.78 24.84 19.47
4.11 2.81
Mean 0.86 35.86 12.29 — —

Std. error 0.14 2.22 0.71 24.96 17.86
2.72 3.08
Mean 0.37 39.03 9.00 — —

Std. error 0.09 3.48 0.70

MIXED ORIGIN ISLANDERS

NOT NATIVE (N ¼ 19) Mean 0.58 44.32 9.58
1.13
Std. error 0.12 3.71 8.98
0.34
NATIVE (N ¼ 116) Mean 0.52 42.61

Std. error 0.05 1.70

ANCIENT ORIGIN ISLANDERS

NOT NATIVE (N ¼ 28) Mean 0.43 42.82 9.61
0.75
Std. error 0.10 3.22 8.10
0.19
NATIVE (N ¼ 380) Mean 0.48 47.90

Std. error 0.03 0.91

Gender: 0 ¼ male, 1 ¼ female. For Gender, the reported mean is the fraction of females in the subset.
Education: years of study.
Mainlanders: subjects resident and born in Trapani town, in mainland Sicily with no known relatives coming from the Egadi archipelago. Islanders: subjects
resident in the Egadi archipelago with at least one grandparent native to the islands; most of them are native to the islands, but some of them were born on the
mainland. Ancient Origin Islanders: subjects resident in Egadi with all four grandparents native to the islands; according the historical accounts most of them
descend directly from the founders of the island population. Mixed Origin Islanders: subjects resident in Egadi with 1–3 grandparents native to the islands.
Immigrants: subjects resident in the Egadi archipelago without grandparents native to the islands; they include all immigrants of the 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation to
the archipelago, coming from all over Italy. Adapted Immigrants: immigrants resident for at least 20 years, who immigrated after 10 years of age; these
individuals have shared the island environment with islanders for a long time but do not have recent ancestry in common. Recent Immigrants: immigrants
resident for less than 20 years who immigrated after 10 years of age; these individuals share with islanders the least of both environmental and genetic ancestry.
Child Immigrants: subjects who immigrated before 10 years of age; these individuals have shared the same environment with islanders since infancy; this group
was dealt with separately because early experience could influence adult personality traits. Native Immigrants: 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants (i.e.
descendants of immigrants) born on the Egadi islands; they have shared with islanders both the same environment and early experience since birth but have no
recent shared genetic ancestry.

effect in the genotype expression by comparing native mixed experience (þ4.1 T-scores, p ¼ .020), and lower in
origin islanders (1–3 grandparents native to the islands) with conscientiousness (À4.5 T-scores, p ¼ .004). Furthermore,
native ancient origin islanders (all four grandparents native comparing adapted immigrants (n ¼ 28) and non-native
to the islands). Indeed, when comparing native immigrants ancient origin islanders (n ¼ 28), both of whom were born
(n ¼ 30) and native ancient origin islanders (n ¼ 380), both and spent their infancy on the mainland before coming to live
of whom shared the insular environment since birth, we
found that the former to be significantly higher in on the islands, we found the former significantly higher only
extraversion (þ8.6 T-scores, p < .001) and openness to in extraversion (þ7.4 T-scores, p ¼ .026); moreover,
comparing native mixed origin islanders (n ¼ 116) and

Figure 2. Big Five personality traits measured in the sample subsets, expressed in T-scores. T-scores are standardized scores with mean ¼ 50 and standard
deviation ¼ 10, computed by standardizing the raw scores with reference to the mainland control sample.

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Pers. 25: 53–64 (2011)
DOI: 10.1002/per