Chapter 32: Personality in Cross-Cultural Perspective

The historical "Culture and Personality" movement, spearheaded by cultural anthropologists, investigated psychological phenomena in cultural contexts by testing psychoanalytic formulations regarding how early experiences like parent-child interactions might determine adult personality features, leading to influential concepts such as the modal personality,. However, this movement was eventually dismissed as a "magnificent failure" due to methodological issues, including questionable assumptions like childhood experiences being the primary determinant of adult personality and the difficulty of assessing personality patterns across cultures. Contemporary comparative research utilizes global resources, such as the Human Research Area Files (HRAF), to test personality theories worldwide, notably supporting Rohner's Parental Acceptance-Rejection Theory, which linked rejection (coldness, hostility, neglect) to consequences like low self-esteem and a pessimistic worldview,. A major comparative tool is Geert Hofstede's framework, which uses five dimensions to describe cultures (not individuals): power distance, individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity-femininity, and long-term versus short-term orientation,. Research has linked these dimensions to personality traits across nations, showing, for instance, a positive relationship between individualism and Extraversion, and between uncertainty avoidance and Neuroticism. Complementing this dimensional approach is the search for universal personality traits, primarily through the Five Factor Theory (FFT) and the NEO Personality Inventory Revised (NEO-PI-R), which identifies Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. While Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness exhibit strong cross-cultural invariance, there is an ongoing debate about whether personality traits are biologically determined, with culture only shaping their expression (McCrea’s view), or if culture exerts a direct impact (Hofstede’s view),. Cultural differences are also profoundly reflected in the concept of the self, contrasting the Western, unique, and differentiated self with the non-Western or East Asian interdependent self, which is more responsive to social context. East Asians, for example, tend to view the self as more malleable, are less likely to assign generalized trait names to themselves, and value effort and persistence over inherent ability. Furthermore, attempts to capture unique, culture-specific psychological structures—or emics—have led to the development of indigenous psychologies, featuring concepts like the Mexican emphasis on simpatía (geniality) or the Japanese concepts of amae (presuming on another's benevolence) and ki (co-humanity),. Finally, while the concept of national character, defined by culturally shared responses to conflicts and authority, has persisted, aggregate self-report data suggests cross-cultural perceptions of national character are illusory, a finding often attributed to the reference group effect, where individuals compare themselves against standards implicit within their own culture,. Future work aims to bridge the gap between universal (etic) findings and culture-specific (emic) phenomena, focusing on studying personality changes resulting from globalization and applying these findings in various professional settings,.