© 2013 Cengage Learning
Outline

Defining Personality




Definitions
Perspectives
Measuring Personality across Cultures
Cross-Cultural Studies of Personality Traits: The
Five-Factor Model


Evidence for The Five-factor Model
Do Perceptions of National Character Correspond to
Aggregate Personality Traits?
Outline (cont’d.)

Cross-Cultural Studies of Personality Traits: The
Five-factor Model (cont’d.)

Where Do These Traits Come From? The Five Factor
Theory
 An Evolutionary Approach

Cross-Cultural Research on Other Dimensions
of Personality


Are There More Than Five Universal Traits?
Internal versus External Locus of Control
Outline (cont’d.)

Cross-Cultural Research on Other Dimensions
of Personality (cont’d.)



Direct, Indirect, Proxy, and Collective Control
Autonomy
Indigenous Personalities and a Cultural
Perspective on Identities
 Integrating Universal and Culture-specific
Understanding of Personality
 Conclusion
DEFINING PERSONALITY
Definitions
Personality: aspects of individual’s unique
characteristics, enduring behavioral and
cognitive characteristics, traits, or
predispositions
 Trait: characteristic or quality distinguishing a
person
 Identity: perceived roles in life, aggregate role
and life experiences, narratives, values, and
motives

Perspectives

National character: perception that each culture
has a modal personality type, and most persons
in that culture share aspects of it
 Cross-cultural psychology: focuses on traits;
views personality as something discrete and
separate from culture
 Culture-specific indigenous personalities:
constellations of personality traits and
characteristics found only in specific culture
Measuring Personality
across Cultures

Etic perspective assumes personality can be
measured and compared across cultures
 Emic perspective suggests that it is difficult to
create measures of personality that have same
meaning (and validity) across cultures
 Cannot assume personality dimensions
represented by imposed etic are equivalently
and meaningfully represented in all cultures
 Cross-cultural validation of personality measures
requires psychometric evidence from all cultures
CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH
ON TRAITS:
THE FIVE-FACTOR MODEL
Evidence for the Five-Factor Model

Five-Factor Model (FFM): built around five
distinct /basic universal personality dimensions


Neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience,
agreeableness, and conscientiousness
Support for FFM arose out of factor analyses of
trait adjectives from English lexicon that were
descriptive of self and others
 NEO Personality Inventory: instrument in which
respondents rate degree to which they agree or
disagree that an item is characteristic of them
Do Perceptions of National
Character Correspond to Aggregate
Personality Traits?

Perceptions of national character: stereotypes
about personalities of people of different cultures
 Perceptions of national character not correlated
with actual, aggregate personality levels of
individuals of those cultures
 If perceptions of national character are
inaccurate, why do we have them?


Maintenance of national identity
Climate, national wealth, values, or social desirability
Where Do These Traits Come From?
The Five-Factor Theory

Five-factor theory (FFT) of personality: theory
about source of traits
 Core components of FFT: basic tendencies,
characteristic adaptations, and self-concept
 Personality traits underlying basic tendencies
are biologically based
 Universal basic tendencies expressed in
characteristic ways and largely influenced by
culture
An Evolutionary Approach

Evolutionary approach: universality of interests
and neurophysiological trait variations

Personality structure is product of natural selection



Serves social and nonsocial functions in problem solving
and environmental adaptation
Evolutionary approach suggests hierarchical model
based on motivation
Culture plays role in producing specific
behavioral manifestations individuals engage in
to achieve universal affective goals
CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH
ON OTHER DIMENSIONS OF
PERSONALITY
Are There More than
Five Universal Traits?

Interpersonal relatedness

Indigenous scale of personality traits in China


Filipino personality structure


Harmony, Ren Qing, Modernization, Thrift v.
Extravagance, Ah-Q Mentality, Face
Two additional traits in Filipino culture are
temperamentalness and self-assurance
Dominance


Studies conducted in Denmark and the Netherlands
Authoritarianism determined to be sixth trait
Internal versus External
Locus of Control

Locus of control: differences in how much
control one believes to have over one’s own
behavior and relationship with environment and
others



Internal locus of control: behavior and relationships
are dependent on one’s own behavior
External locus of control: behavior and relationships
contingent on forces beyond one’s control
European Americans have high internal locus of
control
Direct, Indirect, Proxy, and
Collective Control

Direct control: self acts as agent, and one feels
more self-efficacious when agency is made
explicit
 Indirect control: one's agency is hidden or
downplayed; people pretend they are not acting
as an agent even though they are doing so
 Proxy control: control by someone else for
benefit of oneself
 Collective control: attempt to control
environment as member of a group; group
serves as agent of control
Autonomy

Self-determination theory: people share basic
psychological needs for autonomy, competence,
and relatedness
 Autonomy: behavior willingly enacted and
actions fully endorsed; interests, values, or
desires met
 Heteronomy: one's actions are perceived as
controlled by someone else or alien to oneself
 Relative autonomy of individual's motivations to
engage in cultural practices predicts well-being
INDIGENOUS PERSONALITIES
AND A CULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE ON IDENTITIES
Indigenous Personalities and a
Cultural Perspective on Identities

Each culture pays tribute to specific way of
understanding their world

African model: layers of personality
 Japanese: amae
 Korean: cheong
 Indian: hishkama karma
 Chinese: ren qing
 Mexican: simpatia
 Filipino: pagkikipagkapwa, pakikiramdam, and
pakikisama
INTEGRATING UNIVERSAL AND
CULTURE-SPECIFIC
UNDERSTANDING OF
PERSONALITY
Integrating Universal and CultureSpecific Understanding of
Personality

Personality is a multidimensional construct
 Two different aspects of personality



Traits: rooted in biology
Identities: less influenced by biology and more
influenced by culture
Sources of personality:


Existence of biologically innate and evolutionarily
adaptive factors that create genetic predispositions to
certain types of personality traits
Culture-constant learning principles and processes
CONCLUSION
Conclusion

Examining relative degree of contribution of
biological and cultural factors in development
and organization of personality is important
 Future theories and studies will likely benefit
from a blending of universal, etic approaches
with indigenous, emic approaches