Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Psychological anthropology and cross-cultural psychology are partners in pursuit of an empirically grounded understanding of human psychology in variable cultural contexts. This article summarizes some of the main contributions of psychological anthropology to this joint endeavor. It adopts a broadly intellectual and historical approach. For psychological anthropology, the early work of Freud was critical. Before World War II, anthropologists adapted it to their varied purposes, eventuating in the school of culture and personality (circa 1940-1965). Developments from, as well as in opposition to, this school are traced, as are new departures. Careers of major figures, as well as the lavishly interdisciplinary content of psychological anthropology throughout the 20th century, are highlighted.

In this article, we examine the rationale for cross-cultural studies of personality, (including the search for cultural universals). Note the uncertain cross-cultural relevance of mainstream personality theories, and address current cross-cultural research on the following personality-relevant topics: personality structure and assessment, implications of individualism-collectivism for traits and their measurement, values and beliefs, emotions and subjective well-being, and motivation. Some of the best support for cross-cultural universality has been obtained in studies of the five-factor model of personality, the content and structure of values, a limited number of basic emotions, and higher order mood dimensions. Topics that need to be studied further include the following: (a) how to separate the many factors that influence personality scores across cultures, (b) the degree of cross-cultural comparability of the nomological nets of personality dimensions, and (c) the integration of trait-psychology and cultural-psychology perspectives.

Research in cultural psychology suggests that person is a social and collective construction made possible through an individual's participation in the practices and meanings of a given cultural context. This perspective can make a contribution to some contemporary controversies in personality. In the current article, it is argued that although most conceptions of personality in academic psychology are rooted in a model of the person as independent, in many Asian cultures, personality is constructed on the basis of an alternative model of the person as interdependent. In these cultures, then, personality is experienced and understood as behavior that is characteristic of the person in relationship with others in particular social contexts. Some initial evidence is reviewed and questions for future research are suggested.

To clarify the arguments for and against indigenization, the author constructs a metatheory of cross-cultural comparisons between theories, theorists, and cultures. This metatheory makes clear that cross-cultural psychology encompasses both indigenous and exotic theories; accordingly, indigenous psychologies may be regarded as a subdomain of cross-cultural psychology. The case for indigenization rests on acknowledging a critical point: The conceptualization of psychological phenomena is a psychological phenomenon in itself and is, therefore, subject to investigation. Illustrations are provided on how indigenous theorizing derived from Filipino and Confucian heritage cultures makes a conceptual and methodological contribution. To go beyond indigenization, methodological relationalism is explicated as a conceptual framework originating from Asia toward the realization of a universal psychology.

The controversy over the existence of etic (universal) and emic (idiosyncratic) psychological concepts and principles can be best resolved empirically. Data and theory pertinent to the generalizability or specificity of theory and measurements in the area of personality are presented. The study of personality traits involves at least two fundamental aspects: (a) the conceptualization of the construct and its characteristics, and (b) the operationalization of constructs, usually through objective psychological tests. From the cultural perspective, it is indispensable to assess the validity of the universalistic (etic) or the particularistic (emic) approach to the various psychological concepts and phenomena. In an effort to clarify this problem, Mexican findings that support the need for the development of "ethnopsychologies" to explain the interaction of psychological phenomena and social and cultural contexts are presented.

Following areview of evolutionary approaches to the five-factor model (FEM), I develop a synthetic perspective that incorporates three levels of analysis: personality systems as universal psychological mechanisms, systematic group (i.e., gender, birth order, age, ethnic) differences that can be illuminated by evolutionary theory, and individual differences. At the level of universal mechanisms, personality systems are species-typical systems with adaptive functions in the human environment of evolutionary adaptedness. At the level of group differences, the evolutionary theory of sex, parent-offspring conflict theory, and life history are used to analyze sex, age, and ethnic differences in personality systems. At the level of individual differences, variation in personality consists of a range of viable evolutionary strategies for humans. Humans evaluate and act on the genetic and phenotypic diversity represented by this range of viable strategies to solve adaptive problems. Evolutionary perspectives on cross-cultural variation are noted and illustrated.

The purpose of this article is to review several popular, structured, personality questionnaires in terms of their applicability in cross-cultural assessment contexts. Prior to our review, we describe the types of psychometric data that can be used to support claims of a measure's cross-cultural applicability. More important, we list several factors, not all of which have to do with the measure itself, that can undermine such cross-cultural evidence. We then review relevant cross-cultural data on the California Psychological Inventory, the Comrey Personality Scales, the 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire, the Pavlovian Temperament Survey, the Personality Research Form, and the Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire. We show that those inventories have each demonstrated mostly replicable factor structures across cultures. In contrast, relatively little data are available regarding the cross-cultural generality of their criterion validities.

The five-factor model (FFM) is a representation of the patterns of covariation of personality traits in terms of five broad factors. The Revised NEO Personality Inventory, a questionnaire measure of the FFM, has recently been translated into a number of different languages, permitting tests of its cross-cultural replicability. Data from Filipino and French translations are presented, showing clear and detailed replication of the American normative factor structure when targeted rotation is used. Results from these and other cross-cultural and behavior genetic studies suggest that the FFM is a biologically based human universal. Applications of trait psychology in clinical, educational, and organizational settings may prove generalizable across cultures, and cross-cultural psychologists can profitably explore the expression of the same personality traits in different cultural contexts.

The cross-cultural use of objective instruments to assess personality and psychopathology has increased markedly in recent times. The most widely used clinical personality inventory in international settings is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI/MMPI-2.) The present article describes the procedures characteristically followed by international scholars to adapt the MMPI-2 for their clinical applications. Steps in the translation and adaptation process are described and methods of assuring test equivalence discussed. A number of international MMPI-2-based research programs are highlighted and some limitations to the application of the MMPI-2 in cross-cultural research are noted.

Data sets from seven original trait taxonomies from different languages, American English, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Italian, Czech, and Polish, are used for a cross-cultural study. The taxonomic procedures, involving culling trait terms from the various lexicons and the construction of representative samples of trait terms, are briefly discussed. Factor structures, presumably Big Five structures, within these languages, based on ratings from an average of about 640 subjects on an average of approximately 430 trait variables per language, are used for comparison. Congruence coefficients are calculated for the corresponding factors in the different languages, based on their independent positions and on their positions after rotations, using the American English solution as target. In a relative sense, the congruences show replicability of the first four American English, Big Five factors in the other languages.

This article reviews the Chinese historical context of personality testing. Issues of interpretation and methodology related to initial adaptations of English-language personality tests are discussed. The deficiencies of the imposed-etic approach are addressed by the recent development of indigenous personality measures. Three large-scale indigenous personality inventories developed for the Chinese people are introduced and evaluated: Ko's Mental Health Questionnaire, Multi-Trait Personality Inventory, and Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI). Research with indigenous Chinese instruments has provided relevant personality measures for use in local cultures. In addition, it has offered a means to examine the broader theoretical question of the universality and relevance of current Western personality theories, as illustrated by research with the CPAI.

After noting the need for indigenous scale construction efforts in the Philippines, the current article focuses on the development and current status of two multidimensional measures of Filipino personality constructs, plus two projects that are investigating indigenous Filipino personality structure. In a final section, we note apparent convergences between the personality dimensions identified and assessed by these four projects and consider how these dimensions might relate to purported universal dimensions of personality (i.e., the "Big Five" dimensions).