The cross-cultural perspective in the study of personality - Rationale and current research

In this article, we examine the rationale for cross-cultural studies of personality (including the search for cultural universals). Note the uncertain cross-cultural relevance of mainstream personality theories, and address current cross-cultural research on the following personality-relevant topics: personality structure and assessment, implications of individualism-collectivism for traits and their measurement, values and beliefs, emotions and subjective well-being, and motivation. Some of the best support for cross-cultural universality has been obtained in studies of the five-factor model of personality, the content and structure of values, a limited number of basic emotions, and higher order mood dimensions. Topics that need to be studied further include the following: (a) how to separate the many factors that influence personality scores across cultures, (b) the degree of cross-cultural comparability of the nomological nets of personality dimensions, and (c) the integration of trait-psychology and cultural-psychology perspectives.