Sociability across Eastern-Western cultures: Is it the same underlying construct?

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cross-cultural Psychology
• Personality Psychology

Background:

• Sociability, a personality facet of extraversion, has been reported at lower levels in Eastern compared to Western cultures.
• East-West cultural comparisons of sociability, a Western-defined construct, are limited despite extraversion's global relevance.
• Understanding personality across cultures requires examining both universal traits and culturally specific facets.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine cross-cultural differences in sociability between Chinese and Canadian young adults.
• To assess measurement invariance of the Cheek and Buss sociability scale across these cultural groups.
• To determine if mean-level comparisons of sociability are valid across cultures.

Main Methods:

• Assessed measurement invariance (MI) of the Cheek and Buss sociability scale using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis.
• Compared Chinese (n=816) and Canadian (n=995) young adult samples.
• Utilized both exact and approximate (alignment method) invariance testing.

Main Results:

• Found significant measurement non-invariance at the scalar level for sociability across country and country by sex.
• Confirmed these findings using the alignment method, indicating biased and noninformative mean-level comparisons.
• Sociability facets are not clearly delineated across cultures, unlike some higher-level personality dimensions like extraversion.

Conclusions:

• The Cheek and Buss sociability scale is not equivalent across Chinese and Canadian cultures, invalidating direct mean-level comparisons.
• While higher-order personality traits like extraversion may be universal, their underlying facets like sociability can be culturally specific.
• Future cross-cultural personality research should consider indigenous measurement and focus on lower-level facets embedded within cultural contexts.