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The Big Five.

Since genetic factors contribute to personality they are probably responsible for the stability we associate with the concept of personality. In turn reliability of personality allows us to compare personality traits between individuals within a culture and also for possible differences between cultures. The relationship of genes to personality has found support in several recent studies (Brummett, Siegler, McQuoid, Swenson, Marchuk, & Steffens, 2003). Personality traits might, like other psychological constructs, have grown out of evolutionary needs to adapt and survive. Adaptation to the environment has overlapping components in varying cultures producing universal personality traits, although as we shall see culture may also nurture specific traits. McCrae and Costa (1987) found support for the presence of what is called the Big Five super traits (Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness). These traits appear universally in all cultures as determined by factor analyses of trait adjectives from surveys asking for a description of the self. Cross-cultural research based again on factor analysis of trait adjectives, but also personality inventories, found support for the presence of the Big Five in varying cultures (McCrae, Costa, Del Pilar, & Rolland, 1998). In a study of 51 cultures McCrae, Terracciano, Leibovich, Schmidt, Shakespeare-Finch and Neubauer (2005) using a 240 item personality test found utilizing factor analysis that the survey items fell into one of the five major categories, and that some of these traits proved useful in cross-cultural comparisons. Americans for example are high on extraversion, and moderate on neuroticism, whereas Iranians are low on extraversion but also moderate on neuroticism.

A problem in all psychological testing is the effect of social desirability that confounds responses and interpretations. For example, respondents will often respond not with personal opinion but rather according to desirable values or norms in society. To avoid this problem Allik & McCrae (2004) asked respondents in 50 cultural groups to rate, not themselves, but someone they knew, on the 240 item scale. Again the five-factor model made an appearance from factor analysis showing that the previous results were not dependent on social desirability in enhancing the self. Of interest research showed that personalities were more similar when the cultures were geographically close, probably from sharing common cultural heritage. However, the relative strength of the traits varied between cultures (Paunonen, 2003), and recent research cast doubt on whether the five factor solution can be applied in all cultures (Xinyue, Saucier, Gao, & Liu, 2009).

Despite doubt about universality the research on the Big Five is convincing and the generalizability of the research cannot be underestimated. In the complex domain of cross-cultural psychology there are no similar comparative congruence pointing to universal traits. In a significant survey (Schmitt, Allik, McCrae & Benet-Martinez (2007) found that the five-dimensional personality structure previously discovered was robust across all nations and regions of the world. These findings are notable since they were based an International Sexuality Description Project that included the Big Five Inventory. In turn this inventory was translated into 28 languages and administered to 17837 persons living in 56 countries. Trait levels of the Big Five related in predictable ways to self esteem, to sociosexuality and to national personality profiles. Regional differences were meaningful. For example results for South America and South East Asia yielded less openness scores compared to other regions perhaps based on collectivistic versus individualistic cultural values. These values may also have contributed to the greater homogeneity in Asian and African cultures as compared to Europe and the U.S where trait heterogeneity is the greatest (See also McCrae, 2002; Allik & MaCrae, 2004). Examination of the relationship of personality structures with the U.S. sample as target yielded nearly perfect (.98) congruence, and coefficients between national samples exceeded .90 except for African and Asian regions. Further, the Big Five Inventory produced reliable results for both genders across all cultures measured lending further support to the universal nature of the Big Five construct. Finally, two independent measures included in the Schmitt et all investigation yielded strong cross-cultural agreement.



Other cross-cultural researchers have argued that the Big Five personality traits do not describe very well the relatedness issues important to Asian interdependent societies. Personality dimensions described as interpersonal relatedness have been found in both mainland China, but also Hong Kong and in other locations (Cheung, Cheung, Leung, Ward & Leung, 2003; Lin & Church, 2004). Other researchers have emphasized the universal importance of authoritarianism (Hofstede, Bond & Luk, 1993), and the presence of particular indigenous traits in other societies (Katigbak, Church, Guanzon-Lapena, Carlota, & del Pilar, 2002).


Date: 2015-01-11; view: 837


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