Personality in Cultural Context: Methodological Issues

TLDR

Cultural and cross‑cultural personality research faces methodological challenges. The authors present a taxonomy of studies—exploratory versus hypothesis‑testing, with or without contextual data—highlighting bias and equivalence concerns, outlining statistical procedures for structural equivalence, and describing multilevel models that assess personality at individual and cultural levels. The paper illustrates that cultural and cross‑cultural approaches, though often viewed as opposing, can be successfully integrated.

Abstract

Methodological issues in cultural and cross-cultural personality research are described. A taxonomy of these studies is presented, based on whether a study is exploratory or tests hypotheses, and whether or not contextual information is measured. Core methodological issues are bias and equivalence: a taxonomy and a brief overview of statistical procedures to examine equivalence are presented, with a focus on procedures for assessing structural equivalence (i.e., similarity of meaning of an instrument across cultures). Examples are given of studies in which cultural and cross-cultural approaches, often seen as antithetical, have been fruitfully integrated. Finally, multilevel models are described in which personality characteristics are examined at individual and cultural level.