Your past is not their present: Time,the other,and ethnocentrism in cross-cultural personality psychology

Allochronic discourse

In the physical sciences, conceptualizations of time have moved beyond a Newtonian understanding of it as a fixed and linear feature of reality (Bowers, 1991). Einstein and others provided an alternative theorization of time as relative and flexible, a construction contingent upon the specificity of the situations in which it is observed. Rather than an objective and abstract entity, time is “a local, internal feature of any system of observation, related to the position of the observer” (Levine, 2003, p. 53). The rethinking of time reflects subsequent developments in social sciences (e.g., Adam, 1988, 1990; Fabian, 1983), whereby time as an element of reality has become problematized. In general terms, understandings of time “have begun to focus less on how time can be used as a (linear) dimension along which a particular phenomenon can be arrayed, and more on how different kinds of time are deployed in the construction of the phenomenon itself” (Levine, 2003, p. 54). Thus “time appears as a quality which can be associated with different types of social and cultural organization” (Bowers, 1991, p. 554).

Fabian’s (1983) critique of time in anthropological discourse is a pertinent example of the reflexive theorization of the place of time in the research process. Anthropology and the associated methodology of ethnography have a long tradition of studying cultures that are different and thus “other” to the researcher’s own. Observing and engaging with others in ethnographic work has historically led to a consideration of the ways in which that “other” is represented in the research process. In the past, such representations may have been taken for granted and assumed to be unproblematic, as the second of the opening quotes suggests. Following critiques of positivism in the social sciences from the 1960s onwards (e.g., Habermas, 1967/1988), however, the taken-for-granted authority and objectivity of the researcher’s voice was increasingly questioned, and a new emphasis upon reflexivity ushered in a concern for the political and partial nature of representativeness.

Fabian’s (1983) contribution to this debate was distinct. He argued that despite being based upon communicative interaction in practice, the subsequent representation of anthropological knowledge relegated the “others” it studied to a lower status than the implied in-group of the researcher. One of the ways it did this was by eliding the populations of other contemporary cultures with the past societies and subjectivities of the west, rather than viewing them as existing in the same period (coeval), not least through the very label of “traditional” as distinct from “modern.” Distance from current global power centres becomes a journey back in time as well as across space, reflecting an allochronic and asynchronic discourse in which “us” (host culture) and “them” (culture being studied), although literally contemporaneous, are conceptually rendered as inhabiting different time-periods.

Fabian argues that this tendency to banish the other from the present is simply an imposition of anthropological discourse and a refusal to acknowledge that the “others” are “our” contemporaries, implying that “they” live in “our” past. This is the “denial of coevalness.” The difference between the culture of the author and the culture of the subject is measured in terms of both space and time (Smith, 2006). Thus a contradiction lies at the heart of anthropology, which, as expressed by Fabian (2006), captures how the “other” is devalued:

Anthropology has its empirical foundation in ethnographic research, inquiries which even hard-nosed practitioners (the kind who liked to think of their field as a scientific laboratory) carry out as communicative interaction. The sharing of time that such interaction requires demands that ethnographers recognize the people whom they study as their coevals. However—and this is where the contradiction arises—when the same ethnographers represent their knowledge in teaching and writing they do this in terms of a discourse that consistently places those who are talked about in a time other than that of the one who talks. (p. 143)

The problem with allochronic discourse, at best, is its oversimplification of the social and subjective complexity of “others”; at worst, it reflects a cultural superiority and arrogance, implying that “we” are the first and only ones to free ourselves from an habitual adherence to the shackles of prescriptive cultures and tradition. The alternative view, as established in the political science of international development/underdevelopment as well as cultural and political psychology, is a dynamic, complex, and fundamentally interrelated variety of coeval subjective, cultural, social, and national formations uneasily co-existing in a “world system” marked by entrenched power asymmetries (Chew & Denemark, 1996; Frank, 1978; Wallerstein, 1979).

Fabian’s arguments have continued to resonate in anthropology (e.g., Banerjee & Linstead, 2001) and been applied to other areas such as the study of history (Todorova, 2005) and health care (Willis, 2010). Bowers (1991) makes the short leap from anthropology to psychology, which Levine (2003) extends to social psychology (2003), in asserting that in contemporary psychological research, “respondents are systematically excluded from sharing the same time as researchers” (p. 63). This exclusion is based on the requirement to tell a cohesive story, which Bowers captures nicely in a brief example relayed here by Levine:

The fact subjects are sent home after an experiment is not accidental. Resident subjects in psychology departments would destroy the temporal boundedness of the experiment. If they were to stay, they might present multiple and unmanageable representations of themselves. Respondents are allowed a short period of shared time, on the terms of the researcher, who then controls how the story of that encounter is told through the subsequent denial of coevalness. (p. 63)

According to both Bowers and Levine, however, much of psychology is still under the spell of Newtonian time, a number of the implications of which were spelt out some time earlier by Slife (1993). Levine (2003) frames the insights of Fabian and others within a more general critique of the unreflexive theorization of time in social psychology, building on the insight that “no single time can claim a privileged place in psychology” (p. 56). Consequently, psychology must attempt to make explicit the particular theorizations of time underpinning psychological knowledge production.

Whereas Levine discusses the implications of unsettling time for research practices in social psychology, it is of equal importance in thinking through how research findings are interpreted and reported. This point of emphasis is of direct relevance here, as the problems he identifies in psychological research practices, we will claim, are found in evolutionary interpretations of cross-cultural sex differences in personality, and underpin their ethnocentrism. First, however, it is necessary to briefly summarize recent findings in the field of cross-cultural personality psychology.

Personality across cultures

The study of personality traits across cultures is a thriving area of psychology (Church, 2009), predominantly based on the theories of trait psychology, and the taxonomy and testing of the Five-Factor Model (FFM)—the five factors being openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Though by no means unchallenged, a substantial consensus in support of this model has emerged in recent years and underpins a wealth of empirical work (Terracciano & McCrae, 2006). Motivated by the desire to discover the cross-cultural universality or specificity of personality traits, research utilizing the FFM has made a number of claims about the salient dimensions of personality traits as verified by cross-cultural studies (Terracciano & McCrae, 2006). Terracciano and McCrae (2006) highlight five “important features” of personality traits that have some empirical support cross-culturally (pp. 176–177) and closely resemble Church’s more recent overview (2009): that all five factors are heritable (e.g., Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001; Jang, McCrae, Angleitner, Riemann, & Livesley, 1998; McAdams & Pals, 2006); that traits are subject to “almost imperceptibly gradual” maturational development (Roberts & Del Vecchio, 2000; Terracciano & McCrae, 2006, p. 178); relatedly, that adulthood traits are generally stable and enduring (McCrae et al., 2000); and that self-reports are a valid measurement of traits and reflect a moderate degree of cross-observer agreement (Church, 2009; McCrae & Costa, 2003).

These features have been subject to a number of controversies, not least as they come into contact with cultural psychology, which tends to emphasize situational rather than dispositional understandings of apparent cross-cultural differences and similarities in personality structures (Church, 2009). Whereas contemporary cross-cultural trait psychology boldly claims that “it is clear that culture, ethnicity and language have limited influence on personality traits” (Terracciano & McCrae, 2006, p. 178), cultural psychologists question the relevance of the trait concept across cultures, arguing them to be an artefact of a particular historical interaction between culture and psychology in the west, distinct from other cultural understandings of psychological life (Geertz, 1975), whilst imposed upon them in cross-cultural administration of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Church, 2009). Besides this radical strain of cultural psychology, experimental work on cross-temporal cohorts also suggests the persistent and pervasive role of culture in shaping the coordinates of personality structure (Twenge, 2001). Cultural psychology, in turn, is accused of neglecting evidence from trait psychology supporting the role of biology in personality (Church, 2009). However, the present intention is not to rehearse existing points of controversy and contention but to suggest another, which, to the author’s knowledge, has not yet been addressed—ethnocentrism.

In his summary of support for trait perspectives, Church (2009) adds that empirical support for the existence of cross-cultural personality traits also includes the discovery of “similar patterns of age and gender differences across cultures” (p. 154). It has been argued that sex differences in personality are fairly robust universally: men score higher on assertiveness, extroversion, and openness to ideas; women score higher on neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness to feelings (Costa et al., 2001; Williams & Best, 1990). However the universality of sex differences in personality has itself been subject to recent uncertainty. Doubt has been sparked by a “surprising” but “unmistakable pattern” in recent cross-cultural personality research (Costa et al., 2001, p. 327; Schmitt et al., 2008): “sex differences in [personality] traits were larger in countries with greater gender equality” (Schwarz & Rubel-Lifschitz, 2009, p. 180); or, more particularly, “sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men” (Schmitt et al., 2008, p. 168; see also Costa et al., 2001; McCrae, 2002; McCrae et al., 2005; Williams & Best, 1990).

A salient example of recent research establishing the aforementioned pattern also offering an evolutionary interpretation is Schmitt et al.’s study (2008). Their research is one element of a project involving 55 nation-states and 121 members of the International Sexuality Description Project (ISDP), “one of the largest cross-cultural studies of personality ever conducted” (p. 171; see also Schmitt & 121 Members of the ISDP, 2003, 2004). The authors’ analysis indicates that the “African and South/Southeast Asian” world regions tended to have smaller sex differences in personality than most world regions. Cultures described as more “modern” and “progressive” tended to have larger sex differences in personality than cultures collected under the heading of “traditional.” This was mainly as a result of significant differences between males on neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (rather than female differences).

Cross-cultural studies of sex differences can be perceived as a testing ground for social, evolutionary, and biological theories of personality (Lippa, 2008). The interpretation of the specific finding of personality difference has been particularly prized as capable of “discerning the ultimate origins of personality traits” (Schmitt et al., 2008, p.169). When it comes to theoretical interpretations of cross-cultural sex-differences there is a tendency to broadly reiterate claims that research reveals the universality of traits and their biological origins, “and that culture plays a negligible to small role in moderating sex differences in personality” (Lippa, 2010, p. 619), supported by evolutionary explanations (Schmitt et al., 2008).

Sex differences in personality across cultures might be considered to question the evolutionary perspective and indicate support for social-environmental theories—suggesting as they do that culture plays a role in that difference (Wood & Eagly, 2002). However, role theories assumed to support social and cultural explanations are rejected by Schmitt and others as unable to cope with the specific finding that, all things environmental being equal, natural differences between the sexes emerge more pointedly as social- and cultural-level explanations would expect them to converge (Lippa, 2008; Schmitt et al., 2008; Schmitt et al., 2009). In light of this apparent failure of explanations of difference lodged in culture, an evolutionary framework is utilized, whereby differences are explained by the re-emergence of dormant but inherent qualities of evolutionary origin.

Ethnocentrism

These interpretations will be addressed shortly via the detail of Schmitt et al.’s (2008) report of their findings, as we consider them to harbour particularly problematic ethnocentric assumptions. First we will outline our understanding of the term “ethnocentrism.” The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology defines it as: “The tendency to view one’s own ethnic group and its social standards as the basis for evaluative judgement concerning the practices of others, with the implication that one views one’s own standards as superior” (Reber & Reber, 2001, p. 251). Thus, ethnocentrism refers to the tendency to believe in the importance of one’s own cultural group above others and/or to measure other groups in relation to the standards of one’s own.

Ethnocentrism is commonly the subject of psychological inquiry as a dimension of human behavior: for example, as a factor in intergroup relations, prejudice, and stereotyping (e.g., Bizumic, Duckitt, Popadic, Dru, & Krauss, 2009; Brauer, 2001; Khan & Liu, 2008; Perreault & Bourhis, 1999). It is much less likely to be identified as a problem in relation to the production of psychological knowledge (Berry, Poortinga, & Pandey, 1997), though notable exceptions include the concept’s application to psychological researchers’ prejudice (Teo & Febbraro, 2003), the psychology of race (Fish, 2000), psychology research citations (Greeson, 1991), and the development of positive psychology (Christopher & Hickinbottom, 2008).

Triandis (1994) suggests that cross-cultural psychologists view the reduction of ethnocentrism as paramount in their approach. Adopting the application of cross-cultural studies is here understood to be a deliberate attempt to overcome traditional psychological research, which has a tendency to view the world through the lens of the “west.” However, in the practical production of psychological knowledge, cross-cultural psychology has not proved to be an exception to this rule (Yang, 2000). Teo and Febbraro (2003) suggest that through the use of empiricism and empirical methodologies, differences are constructed in favour of European superiority through use of western concepts, labels and values, and explanations. Therefore, even those psychologists with good intentions who turn to cross-cultural psychology to overcome the more explicit forms of ethnocentrism visible in much of traditional psychological research fall short of their goal through a “hidden ethnocentrism.” For example, in relation to cross-cultural studies on personality, Teo and Febbraro (2003) argue that:

It is epistemologically premature to suggest that Euro-American conceptualizations of personality, for example, are universal. These conceptualizations are then sometimes applied to other contexts and supposedly support the cross-cultural authority of these conceptualizations. However, they do not prove the cultural validity of the concepts, only their administrative applicability. (p. 683)

The application of “personality” to other cultures by western psychologists accepts one’s own cultural forms of intuition as standard, acting in effect “as if they have told the whole story of human mental life” rather than the selective construction they entail (p. 683).

It is our assertion that “hidden ethnocentrism” remains prevalent in cross-cultural psychology, large-scale personality studies in particular. Ethnocentrism is understood in the current discussion to be a descriptive container for a number of fluidly related issues: colonialism, the concept of self in relation to the other, allochronic discourses of time, and the denial of coevalness. Each of these phenomena contributes to a form of ethnocentrism as defined here. As noted above, although attempts have been made to address controversies in cross-cultural personality psychology (Church, 2000), to our knowledge the possibility that research reports in the field may perpetuate a form of ethnocentrism has not yet been considered.

Time, the other, and cross-cultural personality psychology

Three related critical points will be made. The first addresses the way in which nation-state samples are categorized by Schmitt et al. (2008). The second considers the uncritical use of temporal-spatial metaphors relying on evolutionary assumptions. The third challenges the problematic utilization of the concept of change across samples. Other studies contain elements open to one or more of these criticisms, such as the interchangeability of the other as “traditional” with other descriptions such as “unequal” or “developing” (e.g., “developing” and “disparate” in Ferguson, 2010; “traditional” and “pre-literate” in Hofstede & McCrae, 2004; “traditional,” “less developed,” and “less equal” in Costa et al., 2001; “traditional” and “less developed” in Williams & Best, 1990). It is possible then to look across the field more generally to discern examples suitable for critique; however, the research report discussed here is selected because it contains interpretations relevant to all three criticisms.

Firstly, as noted above, Schmitt et al. (2008) aim to expand current research within the area of personality psychology to examine whether sex differences in personality traits are larger in “prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures” than they are in “less fortunate social and economic conditions” across 55 nations (p. 168). Throughout the article these two “types” of culture are referred to in order to explore their hypothesis, using varied terms, which to a greater or lesser extent reflect specific conceptualizations of time, which are often implicit. The report draws on “categories” of culture as if they are an objective point of reference in much the same way as a car is a very different object from a table. Thus these two “types” of culture are reified through their construction within this article as “real” objects defined via their binary opposition to each other. The depiction of these two categories is further reinforced by the subtle interchanging of category characteristics. For example, the “other” is explicitly referred to as “less fortunate” (p. 168), “Asian and African” (p. 169), “poorer countries with more collectivist and embedded cultures” (p. 169), “traditional cultures” (p. 169), “less-developed agricultural or pastoral cultures” (p. 170), “non-western” (p. 175), “economically deprived” (p. 178), and “patriarchic” (p. 178). Consider a more detailed depiction of this “difference” between the “developed” and “developing”:

People in traditional societies tend to emphasize the importance of religion, have high levels of national pride, favor more respect for authority, and value obedience and conformism. Societies high on secular-rationalism emphasize the opposite. Societies that stress survival values are relatively materialistic. People in those societies report poor health and low levels of trust and happiness, are relatively intolerant towards outgroups, show low enthusiasm for and awareness of environmental protection issues, and are meager in political activeness and personal responsibility. (p. 171)

Here “others,” or “people in those societies,” are presented as homogeneously negative in direct opposition to the heterogeneously positive “modern” (p. 169), “developed” (p. 168), “free” (p. 169), “autonomous” (p. 169), “healthy” (p. 168), “egalitarian” (p. 168), “prosperous” (p. 168), “well-educated” (p. 170) nation-states. What is produced in these consistent binaries is a measure of “other” cultures according to the assumed superiority and advancement of the “west versus the rest” (Hall, 1992). The distinction constructs the others as culturally inferior and primitive through the discursive strategy of binary oppositions (Sampson, 1993). The ethnocentrism of this binary construction lies in the simplistic homogenization of “other” cultures, but more pointedly in the movement beyond the description of empirically measurable differences (in, for example, rates of literacy amongst women) to the application of temporal-spatial metaphors, most obvious in the labels “developed” and “developing,” but more subtly implied in evolutionary constructions of socio-historical time, which leads us to our second point.

In an attempt to address and explain the sex-related difference in personality traits, the authors reject social role explanations and propose the efficacy of evolutionary explanations, despite the fact that an evolutionary approach might not at first glance be best suited to explain cultural variations. To this end they turn to the “mismatch theory.” This adaptation of evolutionary theory is based around the assumption that “when contemporary environments are different from hunter-gatherer environments, the adaptive development of innate psychological sex differences can be impeded” (Schmitt et al., 2008, p. 169). From this hypothesis we might expect that the more modern a society is, the more gender role differentiation there is. However, in the authors’ data this is clearly not the case, as “modern” society is reported to have far greater personality differences between the sexes than in the more “traditional” societies. Thus the suggestion is made that “modern nation-states may be psychologically closer to hunter-gather cultures than are less-developed agricultural or pastoral cultures” (p. 170). According to the mismatch perspective, cultural variation in personality results from varied levels of mismatch between the environmental conditions of early human development—hunter-gather cultures—and those of contemporary societies. The less a society resembles hunter-gather environments (a mismatch), the more likely it is to impede “the adaptive development of innate psychological sex differences” (p. 169).

The case made is that societies marked by the largest resource inequalities, related gender inequality, and isolated family units—“traditional cultures”—may differ most from “our hunter-gatherer past,” which is constructed here as one of relative equality and community. “Modern” cultures contain greater equalities between the sexes, and, it is implied, greater social cohesion, which in turn fosters fewer constraints on individuals and a far greater scope for “natural divergence.” It is through this liberty that “natural divergence” can manifest itself in a way that innate sex differences are expressed, creating heightened levels of sexual dimorphism: “[T]herefore, our most modern postagricultural environments may be gradually becoming more similar to, not more different from, the hunter-gatherer psychological conditions in which sex differences in personality traits evolved” (Schmitt et al., 2008, p. 170). However, those living in less fortunate, unequal, and isolated communities will see the innate dispositional personality traits constrained. Schmitt et al. (2008) then hypothesize that the mismatch between the “most modern” nation-states and “ancestral conditions” might actually be smaller than that in “less-developed” cultures. Such divergence does not reflect the “linear function of sociohistorical time” but a “curvilinear hypothesis” of cultural variation explained by mismatch theory (Schmitt, 2005).

The utilization of the evolutionary “mismatch perspective” to make sense of the finding that sex differences appear to be larger in more gender-equal cultures depends on the use of a particular temporal-spatial metaphor. Note the assumption, frankly stated here: that traditional cultures do actually exist earlier on a line of socio-historical time, however they might vary on other axes. Through positioning the “modern” as more similar to the “ancestral” past, the authors are not reflecting on the hybrid and localized nature of time. Instead, this positioning places the “modern” and the “ancestral” at opposite ends of an evolutionary timeline adapted to fit their findings. The “traditional” is stuck half way between the two, neither equal to the “ancestral” in terms of equality, nor equivalent to the “modern” (our present, their future) in terms of progress or equality. This reflects the explicit application of a temporal metaphor dismissed in many related disciplines as simplistic and outmoded, as detailed above—reproducing ethnocentric and allochronic discourse.

A third significant critical point is the problematic utilization of the concept of change across samples which build on the temporal-spatial metaphors residing in mismatch theory. Consider this example from Schmitt et al.’s presentation of their findings:

In more traditional countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia, the blood pressure of men and that of women are practically identical. For the 45 ISDP [International Sexual Description project] countries where we had blood pressure data, the absolute difference between men and women in their blood pressure was significantly correlated with national HDI [Human Development Index] levels. … Thus, like the widening gap in personality traits, men’s blood pressure and women’s blood pressure widens as cultures become more modern. (Schmitt et al., 2008, p. 176)

The significance of these findings in terms of their identification of difference, and the correlation of physical and psychological phenomena with measures of human development, are not being questioned here, though it is worth acknowledging that the HDI is criticized by some for its inaccuracy in measuring actual development (McGillivray & White, 2006; Sagara & Najam, 1998). Our focus is the rhetorical function of the interpretation in the final sentence. It frames this difference in a way which is not explicitly verified, and is therefore a problematic approximation of the truth. The description of a difference between personality traits as a “widening gap … as cultures become more modern” opposed to the “more traditional” (Schmitt et al., 2008, p. 176) is a stark illustration of allochronic discourse.

A later comment cements the spatial metaphor of a growing difference: “the widening gap between the personalities of men and women with the development of more prosperous and egalitarian societies” (Schmitt et al., 2008, p. 179). “Widening” perhaps implies that men and women within “more prosperous and egalitarian societies” are here being compared to a historical or longitudinal data set—the same women and men when they were younger or a similar demographic within the society. They are not—the comparison is between different societies, or, more accurately, between samples of people living in different nation-states who are implied to stand in adequately for “our” past. It is similarly claimed that “changes in men’s personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures” (p. 168), but there is no change being detected here. Change would indicate a shift in an overall group (men) from one state to another using longitudinal data to gain a baseline figure from which change can be detected and subsequently measured in relation to time (see, e.g., Clark-Carter, 2004; Coolican, 2004). However, within these data we are actually looking at between-group difference as opposed to within-group change. A discourse of change implies a developmental trajectory; the men of “developing” cultures may or may not change into the men of “developed” cultures regarding personality measurements.

The term “widening” has another implication, perhaps more important. It adheres closely to a linear model of socio-evolutionary time: “their” culture (Asia and Africa) is located as both temporally and spatially distant from “our” culture (Europe and America). “Widening” refers to movement over time and space. The movement is from an implied though non-specific point in the past which “traditional” culture is still coordinated by, through time, but in a co-existing contemporary space (the globe) to “modern” culture. Perceived differences between male and female gender roles in different cultures are mapped on to an archetypal and “timeless” man and woman who in one culture’s present are represented as a point of narrowness—undifferentiated gender roles. Time is subtly conceptualized here as one culture’s present is subtly elided with another’s past via the metaphor of widening: movement from a lack of differentiation (the other’s present, our past) to extensive (our present, the other’s future) gender differentiation. In sum, two groups are identified, and then constructed as inhabiting different times in the same global space. It is in this way that they are constructed as allochronic to one another (Bowers, 1991, p. 555). “Other” less developed cultures are assigned a place further back on the timeline of the development of “our” progressive cultures. The resultant portrayal of “other” cultures is as literally backward.

In Schmitt et al.’s (2008) interpretation, all three of the points raised here often coincide to construct a profoundly ethnocentric allochronic discourse. A developmental and temporal continuum between “developed” and “developing” countries is established through constant reference to movement between the two groups. But this movement is metaphorical and rhetorical because there is no evidence of any such movement, only of difference. For example: “With improved national wealth and equality of the sexes, it seems differences between men and women in personality traits do not diminish. On the contrary, the differences become conspicuously larger” (p. 169). “Improved,” “diminish,” and “larger” all imply that developed cultures have advanced from a state they were once in, a space which is still occupied by “developing” cultures. To reiterate, whilst this assumption may persist in common-sense social representations of “other” cultures, it has been substantially interrogated in a number of social science disciplines such as sociology, cultural studies, economics, and anthropology. On the basis of evidence presented in this paper, ethnocentric assumptions still go unchallenged in social and personality psychology, and critique is long overdue.

Implications and alternatives

Throughout this paper it has been argued that, despite professing to be truly “cross-cultural,” research into the big five personality traits falls victim to what Fabian (1983) calls “the denial of coevalness.” It is through the construction of “otherness” and western superiority under the guise of “scientific objectivity” that an allochronic discourse can seemingly operate unnoticed. In our attempt to make visible a subtle deployment of an allochronic discourse within contemporary “objective” “cross-cultural” psychology, we hope to have made an attempt to address Kabbani’s suggestion that:

In order to arrive at a West–East discourse liberated from the obstinacy of the colonial legacy, a serious effort has to be made to review and reject a great many inherited representations. For these inherited representations are so persistent, and so damaging…that they cloud our urges to see beyond them, to our common humanity. (Kabbani, 1986, p. 13)

How might ethnocentric and colonial implications be overcome? There is space here only to briefly explore two of many possibilities: one theoretical, one methodological. First, at the very least there is a need to dispense with tendentiously simplistic explanations of competing social psychological explanations. Schmitt et al. are not alone in caricaturing social role explanations before dismissing them (e.g., Lippa, 2010). As a result, the possibility of a genuine understanding of cross-cultural difference, where it exists, suffers. To take just one example, the fact that “men and women occupy social roles that are more similar” in “more progressive and egalitarian cultures” (Schmitt et al., 2008, p. 169) is presented as a premise for rejecting the predictive power of social role explanations. Schmitt et al. assert that from the standpoint of social role theories, an apparent equalization of social roles should accord with an accompanying convergence of socially derived personalities. Their results, as we have seen, suggest the converse. This is an extremely simplistic invocation of a social role explanation, however: the occupation of similar social roles does not prescribe gender-specific demands upon how those roles are subsequently performed.

The role of television newsreader may be open to both men and women in contemporary North American culture, for example, but clearly the characteristics that are required of men and women in fulfilling that role still tend to differ substantially and usually alongside existing and established gender norms, thus reinforcing them. In fact in a recent content analysis of US television, female news reporters were “more likely to present human interest and health related stories, while males were more likely to present political stories” (Desmond & Danilewicz, 2010, p. 822).

A related argument made in the analysis of social class suggests that as historically dominant groups become more indistinct from the historically dominated, a mechanism comes into play increasing the apparent distinctiveness of and by the dominant group (Lawler, 2005; Sayer, 2005). As all of the significant difference in Schmitt et al.’s study is recorded in men’s personalities, particularly in societies where women appear to have opportunities on a parallel with men, by some indicators at least, it could be speculated that as women come to equal men, men “perform” masculinity in greater measure, reflecting contingencies of local cultures. These brief but plausible arguments suggest how “social role” theories operate at a greater level of complexity than cross-cultural work relying on evolutionary psychological arguments gives credit. Engaging with a more complex understanding of social roles is therefore a necessity.

Richard Shweder (1991) points out that “the portrait one gets of a culture is intimately related to the methods used to study it” (p. 281). The unreflexive production of allochronic discourse is also in part a reflection of methodological shortcomings. Despite offering the quantification of personality on the kind of global scale obviously desired by research programmes such as the International Sexual Description Project, the numbers inevitably mask a messier reality on the ground. Self-report is limiting in numerous ways established in critical discussion, and whilst observer-reports overcome some problems, they cannot generate the thick description perhaps most necessary to challenge established and unacknowledged precepts involved in representing “others” (Geertz, 1973). Fabian (2006) pithily states that “speaking about others needs to be backed up by speaking with others” (p. 148). There is not the space here to consider in any detail what this might entail theoretically and methodologically, but there are many existing pointers, not least in the field of cultural psychology, which has attempted to study issues of self and identity cross-culturally advocating a range of methods inspired by anthropology (e.g., Cohen, 2007; Cole, 1998; Quinn, 2005; Shweder & Bourne, 1984).

One example is Michael Chandler and colleagues’ research, which explicitly grapples with issues of personal persistence, change, and time as they are embedded in cultural processes, whilst making cross-cultural comparisons (Chandler, 2000; Chandler & Lalonde, 2008; Chandler et al., 2003; Chandler & Proulx, 2007). In this research, based on a novel form of narrative analysis, participants were exposed to different narrative genres, interviewed about their responses, and engaged in self-reflection on their own life-course. Findings were combined with suicide statistics and community practices deemed to facilitate the continuity of cultural practices, in an attempt to explain cross-cultural variability in youth suicide rates. In these studies, cultural groups are all assigned contemporaneous status, self-reports generate thick descriptions which are then combined with other methods related to concrete cultural context, whilst generating robust and meaningful results regarding situational variability in suicide and attempted suicide rates. We are skating over significant differences in epistemological and ontological approach underpinning methodological decisions here, of course, so the remedy lies not in simply adopting mixed methods, but in a more thoroughgoing interdisciplinary engagement.

Conclusion

The critical points made here address the way in which nation-state samples were categorized by Schmitt et al., and the problematic use of particular temporal-spatial metaphors of “widening” gaps in personality and “change” across samples. Alongside the issue of an inaccurate portrayal of cultures and individuals, this particular application of evolutionary theory unwittingly perpetuates ethnocentric attitudes towards “others.” Recent cross-cultural studies of personality have been ambitious in reaching around the globe to study individuals in an array of national contexts. They reveal interesting differences, not least the finding that societies which appear to provide greater opportunities for women relative to others appear to produce individuals with more marked differences in their personality according to their sex. However, it has been claimed in this paper that personality psychologists should be wary of embracing evolutionary models uncritically in the rush to explain these fascinating findings, or of marginalizing social explanations in the process.

The aim of this paper was not to explore social explanations in any detail. Arguably, socialization and socially sanctioned behaviour in “more progressive and egalitarian cultures” may still have a clear gender divide despite some equalization of opportunity, just in different ways to those cultures deemed “traditional.” It is also possible that there are lessons to be learnt from social approaches which take emic cultural processes seriously, indicating, for example, that the traditional–modern dichotomy does not hold up when applied to lived experience embedded in concrete cultural settings. “Modern” cultures are not free of traditions, nor should we expect that “traditional” cultures are unreflexively traditional or ignorant of whatever “modernity” is taken to stand in for (Adams, 2004; Alexander, 1996).

This discussion has drawn on established criticism in anthropology but also economics and international development studies, history, and philosophy. If other disciplines have found that “it was necessary to throw the wrench into the wheels of allochronic discourse” (Fabian, 2006, p. 143), perhaps personality psychology should embrace the same necessity, however belatedly. Conceptualizations of time form the taken-for-granted building blocks of much social psychology. Reflexive acknowledgement of the anthropological insight that “different kinds of time do different kinds of work” (Levine, 2003, p. 68) underpins a more suitably complex and transdisciplinary conceptualization of personality in a global context, building on the significant developments already achieved.