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Personality dimensions across cultures.

Jüri Allik1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78, Tartu 50410, Estonia. juri.allik@ut.se

Journal of Personality Disorders
|September 24, 2005
PubMed
Summary

The universal structure of personality traits is generalizable across cultures. However, cross-cultural differences in average personality scores are small, suggesting a common metric for global personality comparison is achievable.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cross-cultural Psychology
  • Personality Science

Background:

  • Generalizing the dimensional structure of personality across diverse cultures requires extensive cross-cultural data.
  • Previous research had limited global personality datasets, hindering broad cultural comparisons.
  • Early large-scale studies suggested universality in personality trait covariation patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the generalizability of personality structure across languages and cultures.
  • To examine the magnitude and implications of cross-cultural differences in mean personality trait scores.
  • To explore alternative measures for revealing systematic relationships with socioeconomic and geographic variables.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of large-scale, worldwide personality datasets.
  • Comparison of personality trait covariation patterns across cultures.
  • Examination of mean trait score differences and their magnitude.
  • Utilizing integral and subtle measures for cross-cultural comparisons.

Main Results:

  • The pattern of personality trait covariation is universal and generalizable across cultures.
  • Cross-cultural differences in mean personality trait scores are small, approximately one-third of within-culture individual differences.
  • Integral or subtle measurement approaches reveal more systematic relationships with socioeconomic and geographic variables than mean scores.

Conclusions:

  • Personality structure is remarkably consistent across cultures, supporting a universal model.
  • Small mean differences suggest scalar equivalence is achievable, enabling a common metric for individuals globally.
  • Subtle measurement nuances are crucial for understanding culture-specific personality variations and their correlates.

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