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ALLIKPERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES
Jüri Allik, PhD
In order to generalize the dimensional structure of personality—relatively
independent groups of covarying traits—across languages and cultures,
a large number of cultures must be studied. Until recently only a few
worldwide personality datasets have been available. The first large–scale
studies indicate that the pattern of covariation between personality traits
is universal and is relatively easily generalizable across languages and
cultures. In contrast to the structure of personality, the comparison of
the mean trait scores across cultures is much more problematic because
cross–cultural differences turned out to be very small in their magnitude,
about one–third of the magnitude of individual differences within cul-
ture. More integral (e.g., the similarity between personality profiles) or
subtle (e.g., the disparity between positively and negatively worded items)
measures can reveal more systematic relationships with relevant socio-
economic and geographic variables than the mean scores themselves.
Relatively modest sizes of cross–cultural differences in the mean values
may imply that a reasonable scalar equivalence can be achieved, and all
individuals, irrespective of their language and culture, can be
represented in a common metric.
Many popular psychological assessment instruments, originally developed
in English, have been translated into numerous languages and are now
commonly used throughout the world. Most of these translations were made
with an explicit or at least tacit assumption that the core psychological con-
structs assessed by the measures substantively transcend human language
and culture. The generalizability across languages and cultures, however,
was in most cases presumed, not demonstrated. Therefore it is not surpris-
ing that some researchers have expressed concern with this assumption,
and especially with practices guided by this assumption (Shweder, 1991).
Skeptics have questioned, for instance, whether the uncritical extension of
“Western” ways of thinking to the rest of the world should serve as standard
procedure in psychological science. From a cultural constructionist point of
view, all personality models are based on conceptions of personhood and
Journal of Personality Disorders, 19(3), 212-232, 2005
© 2005 The Guilford Press
212
From the Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonia, and The Estonian Center of
Behavioral and Health Sciences.
The author thanks Jeff McCrae and Dave Schmitt for discussions, collaboration, and sharing
their data.
The preparation of this article was supported by the Estonian Science Foundation and the Es-
tonian Ministry of Science and Education.
Address correspondence to Jüri Allik, Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78,
Tartu 50410, Estonia; E-mail: juri.allik@ut.ee.
standards of culturally appropriate behavior that have evolved, as a rule, in
Anglo–American societies. It may be even more so in regard to personality
disorders which are, as some researchers believe, quintessential cultural
products that owe their meaning and descriptive content to a distinctive cul-
tural tradition (Fabrega, 1994). It is also claimed that studies of mental
health are culturally insensitive partly due to the uncritical transfer of tools
and concepts from one language and culture, typically English and the
United States, to other countries (Rogler, 1999).
Eysenck was one of the pioneers who started to think that the pattern of
covariation between personality traits—the personality structure—might be
universal and rises above the diversity of human cultures (cf. Allik, 2002).
One of the main reasons for this conclusion was his study of twins that dem-
onstrated a considerable genetic impact on all personality traits and almost
no influence from the shared environment (Eysenck, 1990). In 1997, Mc-
Crae and Costa made a bold proposal about the cross–cultural
generalizability of the Five–Factor Model of Personality. By studying six
translations of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae,
1992) into German, Portuguese, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese
they observed that all translations showed similar structures after varimax
rotation of five factors and almost identical factor structure when the
varimax solution was targeted toward the original American factor struc-
ture. For some reason, people from different places around the world are in-
clined to think that individuals who, for example, talk a lot are at the same
time optimistic and very happy, or those who often get disgusted with other
people are also inclined to feel inferior to others. Because the samples stud-
ied represented highly diverse cultures with languages from five distinct
language families, McCrae and Costa proposed that personality trait struc-
ture is universal (McCrae & Costa, 1997). The proposal that the personality
structure is largely or even completely independent from the culture (Mc-
Crae & Costa, 1996; McCrae & Costa, 1999) was rather unorthodox and was
expectedly met with skepticism and denial (Allik & McCrae, 2004a;
Toomela, 2003). It is also important to notice that although the replicability
of the pattern of covariations across cultures turned out to be a rather ro-
bust phenomenon (cf. Rolland, 2002), this fact does not necessarily imply
that all of the finest details are always replicated in every new culture.
Universality by itself is a relative concept implying that something must be
variable as well; it is not an all–or–nothing phenomenon, but a degree of
invariance.
PROBLEMS IN COMPARING PERSONALITY TRAIT SCORES
ACROSS CULTURES
For psychologists seeking to investigate personality traits across cultures,
one of the more inconvenient problems has centered on whether personality
trait scales possess conceptual equivalence across cultures or not (van de
Vijver & Leung, 1997; van de Vijver & Leung, 2000). It has been particularly
troublesome to establish whether the mean scores across different cultures
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 213
show metric or scalar equivalence (Byrne & Campbell, 1999; Little, 2000).
That is, when comparing the mean scores of different cultures on a person-
ality trait scale, any observed differences may be due not only to a real cul-
tural disparity on some personality trait, but also to inappropriate
translations, biased sampling, or the nonidentical response styles of people
from different cultures. All of these factors can be difficult to control fully,
making some methodologists extremely skeptical about achieving true met-
ric comparability of scores on the same test in different languages or cul-
tures (Bijnen & Poortinga, 1988; Heine, Lehman, Peng, & Greenholtz, 2002;
van de Vijver & Leung, 1997). Although much of this skepticism is certainly
warranted, a recent, large–scale intercultural comparison provided evi-
dence that personality scales may be more robust than methodologists had
initially presumed (McCrae, 2001; McCrae, 2002). Perhaps because the
many sources of error cancel out, it is possible to obtain meaningful results
when scores are compared across cultures (Allik & McCrae, 2002).
Among the more common methods for establishing the cross–cultural
comparability of personality trait measures is first to show that the trait
scales contained in the measures are internally reliable across all targeted
languages and cultures. A second frequently employed technique is to dem-
onstrate a high degree of factorial structure invariance across different lin-
guistic and cultural contexts (Barrett, Petrides, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1998;
Caprara, Barbaranelli, Bermudez, Maslach, & Ruch, 2000; Rolland, 2002).
Metric equivalence can also be established through differential item analy-
sis and bilingual administrations. The number of bilingual studies is sur-
prisingly small, however, and theses studies rarely demonstrate consistent
differences between languages (e.g., Konstabel, 1999). However, if the ques-
tionnaire format is replaced with autobiographical narratives, then indeed
language may, to some extent, dictate how individuals describe themselves
(Marian & Kaushanskaya, 2004). Historically, if trait scales from a person-
ality measure showed high internal reliability, invariant factor structure,
and item equivalence across different languages and cultures, comparing
the mean scores across cultures was often deemed a reasonable next step
(Steel & Ones, 2002; van de Vijver & Leung, 2001). However, even with evi-
dence of reliability, factor invariance, and item equivalence, problems can
remain in how to metrically interpret mean–level differences in personality
traits across cultures. For example, it is possible that people from different
countries have different internal standards and make their judgments in the
relation to these standards (cf. Heine et al., 2002).
Another way to increase confidence in the cross–cultural comparability of
personality measures is to show that the mean levels of different assessment
instruments that intend to measure the same construct, or approximately
the same construct, are highly correlated across multiple languages or cul-
tures. For example, if two conceptually similar personality trait scales are
used in a large number of different cultures, a positive association between
the mean levels of those trait scales across the broad set of cultures would
provide evidence that both measures are tapping the same underlying con-
struct (Campbell & Fiske, 1959). Of course, in order to analyze the compara-
214 ALLIK
bility of personality measures using this cross–cultural convergent
validation strategy, large numbers of cultures must be studied using
conceptually similar measures of personality.
LARGE–SCALE CROSS–CULTURAL STUDIES
There have been many studies in which pairs of cultures have been com-
pared on personality measures (cf. Katigbak, Church, & Akamine, 1996; cf.
Katigbak, Church, Guanzon–Lapena, Carlota, & del Pilar, 2002), but there
have only been only a few in which a sufficiently broad sample of cultures
was examined. Although many personality instruments like the Tempera-
ment and Character Inventory (Cloninger, 2004) have successfully trans-
lated into different languages, only few worldwide personality datasets have
been available for statistically meaningful comparisons to be made.
One of the first comprehensive personality trait measures to enjoy world-
wide popularity and a fairly large number of translations into different lan-
guages was Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ; Eysenck &
Eysenck, 1975). In 1984, mean–level trait scores from 25 countries were
made available (Barrett & Eysenck, 1984). Ten years later, the number of
countries in which three broad personality traits—Neuroticism,
Extraversion, and Psychoticism—were measured by the EPQ was expanded
to 37 (Lynn & Martin, 1995). Soon it was found that the internal reliability
and factorial structure of the EPQ across languages and cultures appeared
to be replicable (Barrett et al., 1998). Although evidence of the cross–cul-
tural generalizability of the EPQ seemed overwhelming, there was still some
room for reservations. Some of these doubts were met by van Hemert and
colleagues (van Hemert, van de Vijver, Poortinga, & Georgas, 2002) who crit-
ically reanalyzed available EPQ data both at the individual and the country
level. Many previous studies were dropped because of insufficient informa-
tion (e.g., the number of women and men was not specified). The final set
contained studies in 38 countries with a total of 68,374 respondents. Using
the multilevel factor analysis, they found that the EPQ has a different facto-
rial structure at both levels. In some countries (China, India, Japan, and
Uganda) the pattern of correlation between EPQ scales, differed from those
found elsewhere. From the exploration of the meaning of the EPQ scales,
country–level correlations were found with a variety of country characteris-
tics, such as Hofstede’s measures of cultural differences and Diener’s sub-
jective well–being. A disappointing result of this analysis was that Lynn and
Martin’s (1995) findings were not replicated, as no expected correlations
were found, for example, between extraversion and the death rate.
However, because no other large personality datasets were available for
comparison, it remained unclear as to whether mean–level differences in
EPQ scores across cultures converged with other similar measures. Again,
such cross–cultural construct validity evidence would have made it more
likely that national differences in personality, as measured by the three
broad trait scales of the EPQ, were due to real cultural disparities, and not
some other biasing factors.
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 215
The most comprehensive instrument thus far designed to measure the Big
Five or FFM is the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO–PI–R; Costa &
McCrae, 1992). Recently, the NEO–PI–R was translated into many different
languages and administered to samples from over two dozen countries. In
2001, NEO–PI–R data from 26 countries or cultural regions became avail-
able to the research community (McCrae, 2001) and the database was soon
expanded by 10 additional cultures covering 5 major language families:
Indo–European, Uralic, Altaic, Dravidian, and Sino–Tibetian (McCrae,
2002). In every culture and language that has been studied, the trait scales
of the NEO–PI–R have displayed adequate levels of internal reliability, and
the factorial structure of the NEO–PI–R has been considered robust
(McCrae, 2001; McCrae, 2002).
Direct comparisons of the NEO–PI–R with the EPQ have suggested that
translations of both instruments provide reasonably comparable estimates
of mean levels of extraversion and neuroticism across cultures. For exam-
ple, the mean–level scores of neuroticism and extraversion as measured by
the NEO–PI–R and the EPQ were significantly correlated across 18 nations, r
= .80 and r= .51, respectively (McCrae, 2002). Thus, if a nation scored rela-
tively high on the EPQ Neuroticsm and Extraversion scales, it was likely to
score high on the NEO–PI–R Neuroticism and Extraversion scales as well.
For this result, however, it was necessary to omit EPQ data from India as a
suspected outlier. These empirical findings, though limited to 18 cultural
regions, can be taken as supportive evidence that at least two of the Big Five
dimensions, neuroticism and extraversion, can be comparably measured
across human languages and cultures.
Recently McCrae and Terracciano initiated a large cross–cultural project
to extend findings on the universality of personality traits in several impor-
tant ways (McCrae et al., 2005). Most of cross–cultural studies have relied
exclusively on self–report methods, leaving the possibility that, for example,
the self–serving bias distorts findings. For this reason the third–person ver-
sion of the NEO–PI–R was used instead. College students in 50 cultures
identified an adult or college–age man or woman who they knew well and
rated the 11,985 self-nominated target persons. Factor analyses within cul-
tures showed that the normative American self–report structure was clearly
replicated in most cultures, and was at least recognizable in all 50 cultures.
The other–report findings replicated some regularities that were identified
on the basis of self–reports. For example, like earlier self–report results, sex
differences were the most pronounced in Western and less in Eastern and
African cultures (cf. Costa, Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001). Cross–sectional
age differences for three factors followed the pattern identified in self–re-
ports, with moderate rates of change during college age and very slow
changes after age 40. The authors conclude that with a few exceptions, their
data support the hypothesis that features of personality traits are common
to all human groups (McCrae et al., 2005).
Perhaps David Schmitt conducted the largest cross–cultural study of per-
sonality so far as a part of the International Sexuality Description Project, a
collaborative effort of over 100 social, behavioral, and biological scientists
216 ALLIK
from 56 countries (Schmitt et al., 2003). All studied samples were adminis-
tered the Big Five Inventory (BFI) of personality traits (Benet–Martinez &
John, 1998). The BFI, a short version of the Big Five family of question-
naires, was translated from English into 29 languages and administered to
17,837 individuals from 56 nations. Results indicated that the five–dimen-
sional structure of the BFI was highly robust across major regions of the
world (Schmitt, Allik, McCrae, Benet–Martínez et al., submitted). However,
the correlation between BFI scales and their counterparts from the EPQ and
NEO–PI–R was disappointingly low. Although the EPQ and the BFI do not
conceptualize Neuroticism and Extraversion in a completely identical way,
it is reasonable to expect at least modest convergent correlations. There
were 26 countries for which the mean scores of Neuroticism and
Extraversion were measured by both the EPQ (Lynn & Martin, 1995; van
Hemert et al., 2002) and the BFI. As expected, the Neuroticism scales of the
two instruments were significantly correlated, r= 0.49, p= .01, but the cor-
relation between the BFI Extraversion scale and its EPQ counterpart was
disappointingly low and did not reach statistical significance, r= 0.18. The
problems with convergent correlations were not only due to conceptual dif-
ferences between instruments of measure. In some cases, the convergent
correlation was absent when two conceptually similar the Big Five instru-
ments, the BFI and NEO–PI–R, were compared. There was an overlapping
set of 27 countries (i.e., Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic,
Estonia, France, Switzerland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy,
Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa,
South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, United States, Serbia, and Zimbabwe)
in which the correlations between the BFI and NEO–PI–R scales were possi-
ble. Although the convergent correlations of BFI and NEO–PI–R nation–level
scores on Neuroticism, r= .45, p<.05; Extraversion, r= .44, p<.05; and
Conscientiousness, r= .45, p<.01, were significant, two remaining conver-
gent correlations, Agreeableness (0.22) and Openness (0.27), failed to reach
the level of statistical significance. There were even more problems with the
discriminant correlations. For example, the BFI Openness scale was very
strongly correlated with the NEO–PI–R Extraversion scale, r= .73, p<.001,
not with its intended counterpart. Thus, two independent measures of the
Big Five (the BFI and the NEO–PI–R) demonstrated only partial cross–cul-
tural agreement. Indeed, in some cases parallel measures were rather con-
sistent. According to both the BFI and NEO–PI–R, for example, Japan’s level
of neuroticism was among the highest of all cultures, and according to the
EPQ, Japan’s neuroticism was the third highest (Lynn & Martin, 1995). In
most other cases, however, agreement between parallel personality
measures across cultures was modest at best (Schmitt et al., submitted).
These cross–cultural convergent correlations between the BFI and the
NEO–PI–R domain scales were noticeably smaller than cross–instrument
convergence at the individual level (i.e., when the same individuals simulta-
neously complete both measures). At the individual level, even the smallest
convergent correlations typically exceed the .60 level with the BFI scales
(Benet–Martínez & John, 1998). Apparently, biases and measurement er-
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 217
rors prevented the convergent correlations between two instruments of
measure from being more substantial at the intercultural level. An indica-
tion that the low cross–instrument agreement may be caused by a bias be-
came apparent after controlling for acquiescence bias. Indeed, after
controlling for acquiescence, the partial correlations increased slightly; in
the case of the BFI and NEO–PI–R Openness scales the association rose from
r= .27, ns to r= .40, p<.05. Agreeableness cross–instrument correlations
were also affected by partialing out the acquiescence from the BFI, shifting
from r= .22 to r= .27. Thus, the acquiescence bias was likely one of the
causes for the lowered convergent correlations between parallel
instruments across 27 nations (Schmitt et al., submitted).
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONALITY TRAITS
How are personality traits distributed throughout the world? Until recently,
it was impossible to give any informed answer to this question. However, the
first known attempt to examine a systematic pattern in the worldwide distri-
bution of personality traits has already proven to be rather rewarding (Allik
& McCrae, 2004b). Although the translation quality of the NEO–PI–R varied
considerably, and some of the studied cultures were represented by very
small (<100) and convenient (e.g., only college students) samples, the
NEO–PI–R dataset provided strong and reliable evidence that the geograph-
ical distribution of the mean–level trait scores produced meaningful pat-
terns. Not only the mean–level personality trait scores were predictably
related to other culture–level indicators, such as Hofstede’s dimensions of
culture (Hofstede & McCrae, 2004; McCrae, 2002), but their distribution in
geographic space seemed to have regular, systematic patterns. Neighboring
countries tended to have, as a rule, similar personality means, and regions
separated geographically or historically had less similar means on personal-
ity trait scales (Allik & McCrae, 2004b). Figure 1 shows the result of multidi-
mensional scaling in which a clear contrast of European and American
cultures with Asian and African cultures is visible: The former were higher
in Extraversion and Openness to Experience and lower in Agreeableness. A
second dimension reflected differences in psychological adjustment with
the largest correlations with Neuroticism and Hofstede’s Uncertainty
avoidance.
It seems that the distribution of self–reported personality traits is orga-
nized geographically. However, the question about the cause of this regular-
ity is without proper answer. One explanation is that the response style to
personality questionnaires varies from country to country producing an ap-
pearance of geographic regularity. Indeed, it was found that acquiescence
response bias is higher in nations that are high on family collectivism and
tend to avoid uncertain situations (Smith, 2004). Another possibility is that
cross–cultural differences in the personality trait levels are substantial. Al-
though psychologists have a long–standing bias toward cultural explana-
tions, genetical factors also cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, the
separation of cultural and genetic causes from all other factors is a compli-
218 ALLIK
cated and sometimes impossible task. Geographically adjacent cultures of-
ten share both geophysical features, like climate, and cultural features, like
religion or language family. In addition, however, they are likely to share an-
cestry and thus have overlapping gene pools (Cavalli–Sforza, Menozzi, & Pi-
azza, 1994). A direct test of this view provided modest support (Allik &
McCrae, 2004b). Cavalli–Sforza et al. (1994) provide data on genetic dis-
tances between cultures, which are determined by similarity in the distribu-
tion of a variety of alleles. By and large, these genetic distances correspond
to known patterns of human migration. From the data in Table 3 of McCrae
(2002) we can calculate personality profile distances, most simply as the
Euclidean distance between the five factor scores. Genetic distances are
given by Cavalli–Sforza et al. for 16 of the cultures in McCrae; the correlation
between genetic and personality profile distances across the 120 pairs of
cultures is r= .19, p<.05. When Serbia, which is identified as an outlier by
Cavalli–Sforza et al. (1994, p. 268), is omitted, the correlation rises to r= .24,
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 219
Americans
Austrians
Belgi ans
Canadians
Croatians
Czechs
Danes
Dutch
Estonians
Filipi nos
French
Swiss
Germans
Hispanic Americans
HK Chinese
Indonesians
Italians
Japanese
Norwegians
Peruvians
Portuguese
PRC Chinese
White S. Africans
S. Koreans
Spaniards
Swedes
Zimbabweans
Taiwan
Turks
Serbians
-1.2 -0.8 -0.4 0.0 0.4 0.8 1.2
X
-1.2
-0.8
-0.4
0.0
0.4
0.8
1.2
Y
Marat hi
Telugu
Malaysians
Hungarians
Russi ans
Black S. Africans
FIGURE 1. Multidimensional scaling plot of 36 cultures. As a mnemonic, it can be noted that
“North” in the Figure is associated with N (Neuroticism) and “East” with E (Extraversion). Re-
produced from Allik, J., & McCrae, R.R. (2004).
N= 105, p<.05. These correlations are modest in part because there is rela-
tively little genetic differentiation within European countries, and corre-
spondingly little variation in mean personality levels. If the analysis were
conducted on samples from around the world, larger associations would
probably be found. Of course, even very large correlations would not prove
causal associations. Genetically related groups tend to share geography,
history, and culture as well as genes, and genetic distance may simply serve
as a marker of cultural distance (Allik & McCrae, 2004b).
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES: PROBLEMS
AND CHALLENGES
THE CULTURE–LEVEL FACTOR STRUCTURE
When the number of studied cultures becomes large enough, it is possible to
aggregate data within one culture and to treat aggregates as single cases for
further cross–cultural analysis. Hofstede referred to this as ecological factor
analysis and used it to identify dimensions of culture (Hofstede, 1983).
However, even a few dozen cultures may be not enough for a meaningful in-
terpretation of the results of the factor analysis. One potential method of in-
creasing the number of studied cases, for example, is to aggregate men and
women separately and also treat different age groups as separate cases (Mc-
Crae, 2001; 2002). Besides reflecting sex and age differences the factorsalso
reflect the covariation of traits across cultures. It is typical to believe that
there is no logical requirement that the culture level or ecological factor
structure will bear any resemblance to the factor structure observed when
individual data are analyzed. The main reason for this belief is that correla-
tions that emerge from aggregated data do not necessarily repeat individual
correlations: they can be stronger than, weaker than, or equal to individual
correlations (Ostroff, 1993). This may mean, for example, that talkativeness
is related to optimism on the individual–level but not on the culture–level
analysis. Cultural norms may impose restrictions on how extraversion is ex-
pressed and in some cultures it is impossible to judge on the basis of talk-
ativeness how energetic and optimistic somebody is. In fact, the observed
culture–level factors closely resemble individual–level factors, and can
readily be identified with the FFM (McCrae, 2001; 2002).
Initially, it was thought that the close resemblance of the culture–level fac-
tor structure to the individual–level factor structure is surprising and tells
us something meaningful about generalizability across cultures (Allik & Mc-
Crae, 2002; McCrae, 2002). In reality, however, the resemblance of these
two different levels’ factor structures is quite expectable due to purely statis-
tical reasons. For example, when in a large dataset all subjects are reas-
signed randomly to arbitrary groups (“cultures”), it is very likely that such a
grouping retains the individual–level factor structure. This result becomes
less mysterious if we think that when two variables covary, groups that hap-
pen for any reason to be high on one will tend to be high on the other as well.
When group–level data are analyzed, these two variables will still covary.
220 ALLIK
Thus, the replication of the individual–level factor structure on the ecologi-
cal level of analysis, where each culture is represented as a single case is not
surprising, but all deviations from the exact replication are. These are devia-
tions from the individual–level factor structure that are informative, sug-
gesting that grouping—in this case, belonging to different cultural
groups—adds something beyond interindividual variation. This addition, of
course, can be due to measurement error (e.g., different sampling proce-
dures in different cultures) or due to meaningful cultural differences. The
culture–level factor analysis of personality traits has revealed only modest
deviations from the individual–level factor structure (McCrae, 2001; 2002).
This seems to indicate that if the culture–level aggregation adds anything
that goes beyond interindividual variation then it is relatively modest in its
size.
COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE BIG FIVE
It has been argued that the administration of an instrument like the
NEO–PI–R in nonWestern and especially illiterate societies will not neces-
sarily lead to the similar factor structure. The main reason is that
nonWestern cultures may lack the notion that an individual is clearly dis-
tinctive from others. Indeed, Luria’s expeditions to the mountain regions of
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 1931 to 1932 showed that inhabitants of vil-
lages who had no formal schooling were very inept or even incapable of ana-
lyzing their subjective qualities and personality (Luria, 1976). They
frequently found it much easier to characterize other people than them-
selves and instead of describing their own personality they referred to the
group to which they belonged, or they described external
circumstancesinstead of their personality traits or character (p. 144 ff.)
However, illiteracy by itself is not an obstacle for an appropriate personality
description because questionnaires can be administered orally to the par-
ticipants (e.g., Lima, 2002). Also, the inability to describe one’s own person-
ality does not imply that personality is absent or that external observers who
have mastered the analysis of personality with sufficient sophistication can-
not provide consistent descriptions of their targets. Like children, one needs
to have the minimally required cognitive capacities to analyze and report of
her on his own personality traits (Allik, Laidra, Realo, & Pullmann, 2004).
It is also questioned whether the Big Five is sufficient or not to describe
personality traits in all cultures. Cultures may differ in traitedness and
some traits typical to Western cultures are not appropriate, for example, to
Eastern ones (cf. Church, 2000). This proposal is a cultural-level equivalent
of Allport’s idiographic hypothesis (Allport, 1937): not all traits are equally
applicable to all cultures. For instance, it was found that among Chinese
students there is a unique Interpersonal Relatedness factor that is absent in
the Big Five and could not be consistently explained by a combination of
these factors (Cheung et al., 2001). However, this supposedly indigenous in-
terpersonal relatedness factor was replicated in European American sam-
ples (Cheung, Cheung, Leung, Ward, & Leong, 2003; Lin & Church, 2004)
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 221
indicating that these dimensions are not unique to Chinese populations.
Contrary to previous interpretations of the Interpersonal Relatedness di-
mension in terms of interdependent self–construals, the dimension was
only modestly correlated with the relational and collective aspects of the self,
two aspects of interdependent self–construals (Lin & Church, 2004).
STEREOTYPES AND EXPERT OPINIONS
Can one interpret mean personality trait scores as an indicator of common
personality features, and can one compare cultures on these traits? The ag-
gregate personality scores vary systematically across cultures and demon-
strate interpretable correlations with other culture–level indicators. This
seems to suggest that aggregate personality scores make sense. However,
these scores did not match the intuitive assessments of both laypersons and
a panel of expert cross–cultural judges: Japan, for example, showed a low
score for Conscientiousness, despite the widespread perception that the
Japanese are an industrious people. Perhaps only the lack of sufficient
ethnographic knowledge prevents us from being too surprised that the most
purposeful and strong–willed individuals, according to their own self–re-
ports at least, are the Telugu and Marathi Indians (McCrae, 2002). In order
to collect expert opinions, McCrae (2001) asked eight prominent cross–cul-
tural psychologists to identify the personality factor that had been used to
rank 26 cultures based on their mean NEO–PI–R scores. He asked, for ex-
ample, which personality factor is lowest among Hong Kong Chinese and
South Koreans, but highest among Norwegians and Americans? Rather sur-
prisingly, these experts all considered this a difficult task and were unable
to identify factors at a better–than–chance level.
The most focused and systematic attempt to compare national stereotypes
with the means of self–reported personality traits was undertaken by
Church and Katigbak (2002). In this study, 43 judges who had lived in both
the Philippines and the United States for a considerable time, rated whether
Filipinos or Americans would tend to show a particular trait more. They
wrote, “The backgrounds of our bicultural judges would seem to be fairly
ideal for their task. Thus, if their judgments of average cultural differences
are not valid, it is not clear whose judgments would be” (p. 149). These
bicultural judges were in high agreement with each another, but were not
consistent with the mean NEO–PI–R profiles (Church & Katigbak, 2002).
These negative findings suggest that mean trait levels and national stereo-
types, even those held by experts, are not necessarily compatible. This is, of
course, puzzling although there are several obvious reasons for the discrep-
ancy. One attractive interpretation, which has already been proposed, is to
discount beliefs about national character as a form of mythology. National
stereotypes may be historical accidents or self–serving attributions or to-
tems that serve the function of cementing group identity, rather than
veridical accounts of aggregate personality traits (Allik & McCrae, 2002).
This interpretation runs against numerous facts where national stereotypes
are well motivated and may reflect actual differences between groups (Pea-
222 ALLIK
body, 1985). Another possibility is that except in extreme cases, it is in prin-
ciple complicated if not impossible to reach correct judgments of mean
personality profiles. The actual differences are rather small for most traits,
and it may be impossible for individuals to conceive of them accurately.
Studies show that cross–cultural differences in the mean values are rather
small compared to interindividual differences within each culture (McCrae,
2001, 2002). The distance between the standings of any two individuals,
who were selected randomly from the same culture, on the basic personality
dimensions is almost certainly larger than the difference between any two
who were arbitrarily chosen on the same personality dimension.
SUBSTANCE VERSUS STYLE
Although cross–cultural personality assessment has been concerned with
establishing the validity of self-reports, it is more complicated to achieve
than, for example, in clinical psychology. Besides careless responding, some
people are more inclined to present themselves in a false or disproportion-
ately favorable light. This self–enhancement is not necessarily a result of de-
liberate distortion. Socially desirable responding may also be a consequence
of a general disposition to be cooperative and helpful, about which the test
taker is not even fully aware. It is also very likely that different cultures en-
dorse this general disposition to a different extent. Researchers and clini-
cians, who were particularly concerned with defensive or self–denial
responding, have invented several methods on how to identify dishonest test
takers. One strategy for taking this social desirability into account was the
creation of validity scales. Edwards asked judges to rate the social desirabil-
ity of items on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and
selected a set of highly evaluated items (Edwards, 1957). He reasoned that
people who answer affirmatively to the desirable items are likely those who
are wishing to make a good impression. In order to extend the validity scales
beyond clinical application, Crowne and Marlowe looked for everyday exam-
ples that were highly desirable but unlikely to be true (Crowne & Marlowe,
1964). It was also assumed that pretending to be honest is a relatively stable
disposition that generalizes from one testing situation to another. Surpris-
ingly, however, the use of validity scales did very little to improve the accu-
racy of self–report personality measures. Many studies have confirmed that
when social desirability scores (Edwards’s scale) were partialed out the cor-
relation between self–ratings and ratings of knowledgeable others de-
creased, not increased (Dicken, 1963; McCrae & Costa, 1983; Piedmont,
McCrae, Riemann, & Angleitner, 2000). This result seems to support an in-
terpretation according to which social desirability scales measure substan-
tive personality characteristics rather than a superficial style of responding
(Block, 1965; McCrae & Costa, 1983; Smith & Ellingson, 2002). This inter-
pretation is also consistent with meta–analytic findings that various social
desirability scales demonstrate a considerable overlap with personality
measures, particularly with Neuroticism (on average r= –.37),
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 223
Conscientiousness (R= .20), and Agreeableness (r= .14) (Ones,
Viswesvaran, & Reiss, 1996).
A regularity seems to emerge from recent large–scale cross–cultural stud-
ies of personality. The strongest correlation with culture-level indicators like
Gross National Product (GNP) is observed not with the mean scores of per-
sonality traits but with the scales supposedly measuring social desirability
and different indicators of response bias. For example, van Hemert and col-
leagues (2002) discovered that the most striking finding was a substantial
negative correlation between the EPQ Lie scale and indicators of economic
prosperity: people from more wealthy countries are less prone to conformity
and their answers depend less on the approval of other people. Thus, it is
likely that socially desirable responding is not a style of responding that
jeopardizes the cross–cultural equivalence of other personality dimensions,
but social desirability may be a relatively stable personality characteristic
that is influenced by cultural and socioeconomic conditions (Poortinga, van
de Vijver, & van Hemert, 2002).
In order to evaluate the quality and consistency of the NEO–PI–R data col-
lected from 50 cultures, McCrae and Terracciano developed an index based
on 6 indicators (e.g., the number of response protocols with more than 40
missing responses, acquiescence bias, whether the native or the second lan-
guage was used, etc.; McCrae et al., 2005). When countries were listed in de-
scending order on the data quality index, the entries at the top of the list
were from affluent, mostly Western nations, whereas those at the bottom
were from underdeveloped nations. It seems that in less affluent countries
careless or acquiescent responding and failure to understand the nuances
of language are more frequent than in better-educated and more affluent
countries. Indeed, the rank–order correlations between the data quality in-
dex and the Cronbach’s alphas for the Big Five dimensions were in the range
of from .63 to .81.
Perhaps the most informative is a recent study in which the Rosenberg
Self–Esteem Scale (RSES) was translated into 28 languages and adminis-
tered to 16,998 participants across 53 nations (Schmitt & Allik, 2005). It
was shown that with few exceptions (primarily due to a single item), the fac-
tor structure of the RSES was invariant across nations. As expected, the
RSES scores significantly correlated negatively with neuroticism and posi-
tively with extraversion within nearly all nations, providing some support for
the cross–cultural equivalence of global self–esteem. All nations scored, on
average, above the theoretical midpoint of the RSES, indicating that gener-
ally positive self–evaluation may be culturally universal. Although
psychometric studies have generally supported the unidimensionality of the
RSES (Carmines & Zeller, 1979; Marsh, 1996; O’Brien, 1985), there is still a
pervasive tendency to respond to negatively worded items slightly differently
than to positively worded items (Benson & Hocevar, 1985; Marsh, 1986). If
people from certain types of cultures respond differently to the phrasing of
negative items, this would indicate that direct cross–cultural comparisons
on the RSES are confounded by a negative item bias. Although positively
and negatively worded items of the RSES were strongly correlated on both
224 ALLIK
intracultural and intercultural levels, and were similarly related to external
personality variables, the difference between aggregates of positive and neg-
ative items was clearly smaller in more developed nations. Although na-
tional self–esteem levels had no relation to the Human Development Index
(HDI), nor to its three principal components—life expectancy at birth, adult
literacy rate, and standard of living measured by GDP per capita—the differ-
ence between sums of positively and negatively worded items was strongly
correlated with HDI, r= –.53, p<.001 and several other national–level indi-
cators. Thus, in developed countries, where people have better education
and live longer, negatively worded statements have slightly different mean-
ings compared with the same message formulated in the positive wording.
This type of inappropriate response to negatively worded items can be inter-
preted as a method artifact and may be responsible for the appearance of
separate factors associated with positively and negatively worded items in
previous exploratory factor analyses (Spector, Van Katwyk, Brannick, &
Chen, 1997). Marsh showed that the size of the negative item bias varied
substantially with age among several student samples. For example, the
correlation between aggregates of positively and negatively worded items
varied from close to zero for the youngest students to about .6 for the oldest
students (Marsh, 1986).
The results of this study suggest that comparing the raw scores of the
RSES across cultures has limited value, unless the inherent bias related to
the different functioning of positively and negatively worded items has been
taken into account (Schmitt & Allik, 2005). Together with other findings,
this result seems to suggest that not always the mean scores of personality
traits per se do not always have a strong and systematic relation to the na-
tional–level indicators. In many cases these are the “secondary” or
higher-order properties of the personality questionnaires that have perva-
sive associations with how much people in their respective countries are ed-
ucated, how long they are expected to live, and to what extent their economic
life is secured. For example, McCrae (2001, 2002) observed that the stan-
dard deviations around the national mean scores are clearly ordered: the
variation between individuals’ mean scores is higher in economically ad-
vanced nations and lower in stagnated countries. Interestingly, the magni-
tude of gender differences follows a similar pattern, with the largest gender
differences in European countries and the smallest in Asian nations (Costa
et al., 2001). Analogously, measures of social desirability (van Hemert et al.,
2002), acquiescence bias (Smith, 2004), and negative item bias (Schmitt &
Allik, 2005) were strongly and systematically related to national indicators
of socioeconomic development, often even more powerfully than the mean
levels of personality traits themselves. This fact can be interpreted as a nui-
sance of intercultural comparisons that impedes comparability of cultures
with respect to personality traits (Poortinga et al., 2002). According to an-
other interpretation, however, responding in a socially favorable manner
and other response biases have substantive cultural meaning and cannot
be eliminated after correcting for the response style (Smith, 2004). Although
cultures may differ in response style or self–presentation strategies, it is also
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 225
possible that the observed regularities represent real differences in person-
ality. It is possible, for example, that readiness to agree with the expressed
opinions and caution toward disparaging self–descriptions are, like socia-
bility and conservativism, some aspects of the basic personality traits. For
currently poorly understood reasons, these traits are more accurately “leak-
ing out” through what is known as the acquiescence or the negative item
bias than through the mean levels themselves. Unfortunately, our
knowledge concerning this question is seriously limited by the lack of
relevant facts and only future studies can build a stronger basis for
conclusions.
SOME CONCLUSIONS
The data reviewed above seems to point in the direction of the psychic unity
of humankind, at least that which concerns underlying personality disposi-
tions. Although cultural differences appear to be enormous, anthropolo-
gists are arguing that there is a common basic culture of all humanity in all
places and in all periods: “I would argue that in a real sense there is only one
culture—the culture of humankind—and that societal differences with re-
spect to cultural items are small” (D’Andrade, 2001). It is likely that cultural
unity is based, partly at least, on the psychic unity of all people. Perhaps due
to this unity, the quality of the translation of personality questionnaires,
conditions of their administration, and sampling that seldom represents a
given culture as a whole had little effect on the results: the dimensional
structure of personality—five relatively independent groups of covarying
traits—can be easily recovered from data that are not necessarily optimal for
it, not only in Western cultures but also in nonWestern cultures, including
Zimbabwe, Philippines, Malaysia, and China (McCrae, 2002). Today there is
much more justification than there was 10 years ago to agree with a hypoth-
esis that the pattern of covariation among personality traits is universal and
extends across languages and cultures (McCrae & Costa, 1997). This also
means that the FFM, which is the best summary of the pattern of
covariation, is generalizable to psychiatric samples as well (Widiger & Costa,
2002; Widiger & Trull, 1992). Unfortunately, the number of cross–cultural
comparisons of psychiatric samples is still very small. The first results, how-
ever, are promising and demonstrate that the FFM retains its main
properties also in a nonWestern psychiatric sample like China (Yang et al.,
1999).
In contrast to the generalizability of the FFM across languages and cul-
tures, the comparison of the mean trait scores is much more problematic.
The first wave of the large-scale cross–cultural projects revealed several par-
adoxes. Although the mean trait scores for different cultures were geograph-
ically organized, the pattern that emerged was not so easily interpretable. It
not only contradicts a layperson’s intuition but the knowledge of experts as
well (Church & Katigbak, 2002). Take for example an extravert who accord-
ing to the NEO–PI–R manual is sociable, assertive, talkative, and likes large
groups and gatherings (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Which nation fits best into
226 ALLIK
this psychological portrait? It is not very likely that any of the Scandinavian
countries are among the candidates from the most extraverted nations; ac-
cording to widespread stereotypes, Scandinavians are typically quiet and
reserved. In fact, according to self–reports the most extraverted individuals
live in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (McCrae, 2002). Thus, stereotypes do
not agree with the ranking of the mean scores on personality traits.
Another surprising result that emerged from the first wave of studies is a
relatively low agreement between parallel studies and instruments. The
convergent correlations were disappointingly low even between two instru-
ments belonging to the same family of personality measures. Particularly
problematic were, however, discriminate correlations: it was not uncommon
that one scale from one instrument has the strongest correlation not with its
counterpart from another questionnaire but with some other scale. Even the
pattern of convergent–discriminant correlations between two of the Big Five
questionnaires, NEO–PI–R and BFI, was rather confused (Schmitt et al.,
submitted).
One possible explanation for poor agreement is that the mean-level differ-
ences in personality traits across cultures are very small in their magnitude.
For example, the NEO–PI–R factor means of 36 cultures had standard devia-
tions equal to about one–third of the magnitude of individual differences
within culture (McCrae, 2002). Approximately the same ratio of between to
within culture variation was obtained among 56 cultures where the BFI was
administered (Schmitt et al., submitted). This means that even if the person-
ality measures were perfectly accurate, knowing a person’s nationality or
cultural background would tell us rather little about his or her own person-
ality (Allik & McCrae, 2002). The magnitude of the cross–cultural differ-
ences in the trait mean scores is smaller or comparable to the overall
measurement accuracy that can be compromised by many factors, includ-
ing biased sampling and small differences in translation, to say nothing
about random measurement errors. In the result it is not very likely that the
same “true” ordering of cultures on any of the Big Five personality traits
would be exactly preserved in two parallel studies. If these differences are
small, it is also improbable that people can accurately notice these tiny dif-
ferences between different groups and aggregate them into stereotypes that
reflect a true ordering on personality dimensions. Perhaps it may be possi-
ble in few extreme cases when two compared cultures are extraordinarily
polarized, like, for example, North American and Japanese on the scale of
self–esteem. But in all other cases the differences in the mean levels of per-
sonality traits may be too small to be consistently reproduced on two paral-
lel occasions. Nevertheless, some more integral (e.g., the similarity between
personality profiles) or subtle (e.g., the disparity between positively and
negatively worded items) features can reveal a systematic relationship with
relevant socioeconomic and geographic variables.
Fortunately, this may be good news for cross–cultural studies in general
and for cross–cultural studies of personality disorders in particular. The
prospect that for a proper psychological assessment of both normal and psy-
chiatric samples it would be necessary to develop culture– or even subcul-
PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS ACROSS CULTURES 227
ture–specific norms looks frightening—not only due to the enormous
amount of work that is required to develop these norms but even more due to
the increasing fragmentation and particularization of the psychological
measurement. A relatively modest size of cross–cultural differences in the
mean values may imply that a reasonable scalar equivalence can be
achieved, and all individuals, irrespective of their language and culture, can
be represented in a common metric.
228 ALLIK
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