Personality across cultures Ype H. Poortinga (Prof Em) Tilburg University, Netherlands & University of Leuven, Belgium

Personality refers to the consistency of an individual's reactions over time and situations In ccp there is (still) a divide between two approaches, emphasizing the culture-common and the culture-specific: 1. Personality is best seen as a set of predispositions of the individual organism that is shaped by cultural context (traits tradition, culture-common) 2a. Personality is the reflection of an individual's accumulated experiences and, thus, essentially cultural (self-tradition, culture-specific) 2b. Personality within a cultural context should be understood in terms of concepts and meanings prevalent in that context (indigenization traditions, culture-specific)

Non-Western conceptions of the person Africa: descriptions tend to emphasize the importance of (non-observable) spiritual principles, and the embeddedness of the person in the social context, including ancestors Japan: a famous concept is amae (seeking indulgence, passive love) in mother-infant relations with consequences also for adult personality India: conceptualizations of the person rooted in Hindu scriptures (e.g., having karma) and dispositional concepts, such as an-asakti (non- detachment [= stress?]) Philippines: emphasis on local methods, such as pagtanong-tanong, a form of informal interviewing where the "subject" also is asking questions China: emphasis on “harmony” and “face”; see Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI) (Cheung et al. article in your readings)

Self in cultural context With self and personhood being seen as social constructions, essential differences across cultures can be expected Well-known is a distinction (reminiscent of Individualism- Collectivism) between "independent" and "interdependent" self- construals, characteristic of USA and Japan/Asia respectively (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) An earlier similar distinction is between relational self vs separated self (Kagitcibasi)

Traits across cultures This tradition is often examining in how far there are cc differences in dimensions identified in Euro-American research Achilles heel: Concepts and instruments from the USA amount to cultural impositions elsewhere and, hence, scores may be “inequivalent” or “culturally biased” Analysis of equivalence: A variety of distinctions and tools have been developed to examine equivalence (or comparability) of scores across cultures - distinctions concern levels of equivalence - tools mainly are checks on psychometric conditions for various levels of equivalence

Conditions for comparison of cc data (equivalence) Under which conditions can one meaningfully compare scores obtained by persons belonging to different cultural populations? Comparison always requires that there is conceptual equivalence (one cannot compare apples and oranges) Claims of non-identity include: - less "traitedness" in collectivist societies - indigenous concepts Beyond this one can distinguish between levels of comparability or equivalence of cross-cultural data

Distinctions in levels of equivalence of data - Structural or functional equivalence, viz., a test measures the same trait (or set of traits) cross-culturally, but not necessarily on the same quantitative scale (cf. Celsius and Fahrenheit scales) - Metric or measurement unit equivalence, viz., measurement units on a scale are the same across cultures, but there is no common scale anchor (origin). A difference between two scores has then the same meaning, independent of the culture in which it was found (cf. Celsius and Kelvin scales) - Scale or full score equivalence, viz., scores of a given value in all respects have the same meaning cross-culturally and can be interpreted in the same way (cf. Celsius and Celsius)

Levels of equivalence, examination For each level there are statistically testable conditions, both for test scores and for item scores that presumably are satisfied by equivalent scores, but not by inequivalent or culturally biased scores Structural (+ conceptual) equivalence: Correlational techniques, e.g., similarity in factor loadings Metric equivalence: Patterns of measures (items, occasions), e.g., interaction of items by culture in ANOVA Full score equivalence: Analysis of covariance structures NB These are generally necessary rather than sufficient conditions; strict evidence of full score equivalence of hypothetical constructs in cc settings is elusive (NB Not everyone thinks so!)

Equivalence of personality inventories, findings Conditions of structural equivalence tend to be met across a wide range of cultures (literate samples!) with inventories, like - Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), - NEO-PI-R (measuring the "Big Five" dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) The paper by Cheung et al. in your readings describes the development of a Chinese instrument (CPAI) that identified another dimension, Interpersonal Relatedness, beyond the Big Five Recent evidence suggests that this dimension is also found when Americans are administered the CPAI (Cheung et al. 2003) The article by Schmitt et al reports a recent culture-comparative study including a fairly large number of (ad hoc) samples Please note how the authors emphasize (push for??) (i) structural identity and (ii) quantitative cc differences