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Personality trait structure as a human universal

R R McCrae1, P T Costa

  • 1Personality, Stress, and Coping Section, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA.

The American Psychologist
|May 1, 1997
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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The five-factor model (FFM) of personality traits shows universal structure across diverse cultures. This study confirms the FFM

Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cross-cultural Psychology
  • Personality Psychology

Background:

  • The five-factor model (FFM) describes personality trait covariation in English-speaking populations.
  • Assessing the cross-cultural generalizability of the FFM is crucial for understanding universal personality structures.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the cross-cultural applicability of the five-factor model (FFM).
  • To compare personality structures across diverse linguistic and cultural groups.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized data from 6 translations of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory.
  • Compared American factor structure with German, Portuguese, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese samples (N = 7,134).
  • Employed varimax and targeted rotations for factor analysis.

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Main Results:

  • Observed similar five-factor structures across diverse cultural samples after varimax rotation.
  • Closely reproduced the American FFM factor structure using targeted rotations, including secondary loadings.
  • Demonstrated structural similarity despite samples representing 5 distinct language families.

Conclusions:

  • The findings strongly suggest that the structure of personality traits is universal.
  • The FFM provides a robust framework for understanding personality across diverse cultures.
  • Personality trait structure transcends linguistic and cultural boundaries.