Localizing the imperial outreach - The Big Five and more in Chinese culture

Comprehensive measures of the personality sphere have been developed in the West and widely used in other cultural settings. Such importation has advantages for economizing resources but short circuits the development of local personality theory This article describes work on indigenous personality measurement in Chinese cultural settings using the lexical and questionnaire approaches of trait theory. In both cases, locally developed measures define the personality sphere differently and reveal a dimension of personality variation not detected by imported and purportedly comprehensive instruments. The additional dimension revealed from the questionnaire approach has been labeled Chinese Tradition. Facets from this dimension have been shown to add power to the imported measures in predicting social outcomes. It may thus be prudent to encourage the development of measures derived from local cultural traditions to ensure a truly comprehensive and effective coverage of the personality sphere.