Studying Personality Traits Across Cultures: Philippine Examples

Trait perspectives are dominant in the study of personality cross-culturally. We review the questions addressed by researchers who study personality traits across cultures, including, among others, whether traits are used in all cultures to understand persons and their behavior, the universality versus culture-specificity of traits, the validity of imported and indigenous measures of personality traits, and the meaningfulness of trait comparisons across cultures. We then summarize evidence relevant to these questions in one collectivistic culture, the Philippines. Overall, personality research in the Philippines supports the applicability of traits and trait theory as a basis for understanding persons and their behavior across cultures

Lexical studies of Filipino person descriptors: Adding personality-relevant social and physical attributes

Lexical studies have focused on traits. In the Filipino language, we investigated whether additional dimensions can be identified when personality-relevant terms for social roles, statuses and effects, plus physical attributes, are included. Filipino students (N = 496) rated themselves on 268 such terms, plus 253 markers of trait and evaluative dimensions. We identified 10 dimensions of social and physical attributes - Prominence, Uselessness, Attractiveness, Respectability, Uniqueness, Destructiveness, Presentableness, Strength, Dangerousness and Charisma. Most of these dimensions did not correspond in a one-to-one manner to Filipino or alternative trait models (Big Five, HEXACO, ML7). However, considerable redundancy was observed between the social and physical attribute dimensions and trait and evaluative dimensions. Thus, social and physical attributes communicate information about personality traits, and vice versa. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

A Basic Bivariate Structure of Personality Attributes Evident Across Nine Languages

(Objective:) Here, two studies seek to characterize a parsimonious common-denominator personality structure with optimal cross-cultural replicability. Personality differences are observed in all human populations and cultures, but lexicons for personality attributes that contain so many distinctions that parsimony is lacking. Models stipulating the most important attributes have been formulated by experts or by empirical studies drawing on experience in a very limited range of cultures. (Method:) Factor-analyses of personality lexicons of nine languages of diverse provenance (Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Turkish, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Maasai, and Senoufo) were examined, and their common structure compared to that of several prominent models in psychology. (Results:) A parsimonious bivariate model showed evidence of substantial convergence and ubiquity across cultures. Analyses involving key markers of these dimensions in English indicate that they are broad dimensions involving the overlapping content of the interpersonal circumplex, models of communion and agency, and of morality/warmth and competence. (Conclusions:) These “Big Two” dimensions – Social Self-Regulation and Dynamism – provide a common-denominator model involving the two most crucial axes of personality variation, ubiquitous across cultures.The Big Two might serve as an umbrella model serving to link diverse theoretical models and associated research literatures

The manifestation of traits in everyday behavior and affect: A five-culture study

Consistent with trait theory and the density distributions approach (Fleeson, 2001), the Big Five traits predicted personality and affect states across 20. days in five cultures. Perceived autonomy in everyday situations did not moderate the strength of the trait-state relationships, but individuals manifested the positive pole of the Big Five traits more in situations in which they perceived greater autonomy. Consistent with the dynamic mediation model (Wilt, Noftle, Fleeson, & Spain, 2012), the relationships between trait extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience and positive affect states were generally fully mediated by the associated personality states. Cultural differences in the strength of the trait-state relationships were limited and were not accounted for by cultural differences in individualism-collectivism, dialecticism, or tightness. © 2013 Elsevier Inc

Investigating implicit trait theories across cultures

Implicit trait and contextual theories encompass lay people\u27s beliefs about the longitudinal stability (vs. instability) of traits; the cross-situational consistency (vs. variability) of behavior; the ability to predict (vs. not predict) individuals\u27 behavior from their traits; the ability to infer traits from few behavioral instances (vs. the difficulty of doing so); and the importance of traits in understanding people (vs. the greater importance of contextual factors such as roles and relationships). Implicit trait and contextual beliefs were investigated in two individualistic cultures, the United States and Australia, and two collectivistic cultures, Mexico and the Philippines. Hypotheses based on an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives were supported. The structure of implicit beliefs replicated well, and trait beliefs predicted judgments about crosss-ituational consistency of behavior in all four cultures. Implicit trait beliefs were stronger, and implicit contextual beliefs weaker, in the United States as compared to Mexico and the Philippines. © 2005 Sage Publications

Culture, method, and the content of self-concepts : testing trait, individual–self-primacy, and cultural psychology perspectives

Three theoretical perspectives on cultural universals and differences in the content of self-concepts were tested in individualistic (United States, n = 178; Australia, n = 112) and collectivistic (Mexico, n = 157; Philippines, n = 138) cultures, using three methods of self-concept assessment. Support was found for both trait perspectives and the individual–self-primacy hypothesis. In contrast, support for cultural psychology hypotheses was limited because traits and other personal attributes were not more salient, or social attributes less salient, in individualistic cultures than collectivistic cultures. The salience of some aspects of self-concept depended on the method of assessment, calling into question conclusions based on monomethod studies

Only three personality factors are fully replicable across languages: Reply to Ashton and Lee

De Raad B, Barelds DPH, Mlacic B, et al. Only three personality factors are fully replicable across languages: Reply to Ashton and Lee. JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN PERSONALITY. 2010;44(4):442-445

Cultural differences in implicit theories and self-perceptions of traitedness: Replication and extension with alternative measurement formats and cultural dimensions

Cultural differences in implicit theories and self-perceptions of traitedness were examined in the United States (N = 198), Mexico (N = 257), the Philippines (N = 212), and Japan (N = 225). Participants in all four cultures endorsed beliefs about the longitudinal stability, cross-situational consistency, and predictive validity of traits. At the same time, Americans and Mexicans, more than Filipinos and Japanese, endorsed implicit trait or dispositionist perspectives and described their own behavior as traited or consistent (i.e., lower in self-monitoring). Alternative measurement formats were compared and led to the conclusion that forced-choice measures may be advantageous in some cases, particularly when acquiescence bias may impact cross-cultural comparisons. Cultural differences were observed in participants\u27 perceptions of the individualism-collectivism, dialecticism, and tightness-looseness of their respective cultures and these measures partially mediated some of the cultural differences in traitedness. Overall, the results supported an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between culture and personality. © The Author(s) 2012