Personality Research

Reading: Oishi, S., Kuchlev, K., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2021). Culture and personality: Current directions. In O.P. John & R.W. Robins (Eds.), Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research (686-703).The Guilford Press.

Note 1: I (Bryan) tracked down the original source of the opening quote that is attributed to Rozin (2003). In doing so, I learned some context about this quote, and also something about specific words in the quote. In terms of context, this quote comes from the closing paragraph of an article about how to understand “cultural differences in relation to individual differences” (p. 273). Rozin was juxtaposing evolutionary approaches (which tend to consider how humans have evolved as a species) with cultural approaches (which tend to examine culture as a driving force in shaping how humans think, feel, and behave). From this perspective, Rozin (2003) was linking the perspectives, starting at a very broad level - a species level that all humans have in common - and then gradually depicting aspects of culture that have shaped who he is:

I am a Homo sapiens, I am an American, I am a male, and I am upper middle class. I live in the world created by Americans, with its fast food, rapid access to Internet, cell phones. It is hard to believe that each of these attributes and influences do not contribute substantially to how I think, how I feel, and how I behave. (p. 281).

And thus, each of us could generate our own description of contexts within which we have developed.

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Note 2: Notice that the authors cite Google Scholar and a unique search they could do – we will attempt to replicate this in lab.

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Note 3: The authors make reference toward the end of the Chapter to “Multi-level modeling and latent-class techniques”. These are fairly sophisticated statistical analyses that are being used in this field. You do not need to know what they are for the purposes of this reading/prompt set.

Prompts

The authors put forth the notion that culture is not deterministic, but rather interactive and probabilistic. What does this mean? Try to respond in a way that is specific to human behavior…what does it mean that culture is interactive and probabilistic in explaining human behavior?
1. Culture is constantly changing in response to current events, trends, discoveries, and transitions. Those changes in culture come from human behavior to start and subsequently feed into human behavior after-the-fact. The probabilistic nature of culture in relation to human behavior is that we can expect culture to reflect the groups of people change impacts. Culture will not shift without human behavioral input and human behavior will not shift without cultural input.
The authors give an overview of 6 “notes” regarding “factors that led to” a resurgence in research regarding cultural influences on personality. They also add a 7th. List these seven ideas, and ask yourself if you understand each one. (If not, bring that as a question to class!)
1. Refinement of the concept of personality and its ability to predict behavior across situations
2. Acceptance of the five-factor model (FFM) as an adequate taxonomy to organize personality differences
  1. Five Factor Model: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience
3. Emergence of individualism and collectivism (I-C) as dimension that may link ecology, culture, and personality
  1. Individualism: fosters independence / individual achievement, self-expression, egalitarian relations, private property, individual ownership
  2. Collectivism: fosters interdependence / group success, adherence to norms, respect for elders, hierarchical roles, shared property
4. The multicultural movement in the United States
  1. Multicultural: idea that an individual can express variance within a culture
5. Refinement of statistical methodology to address cross-cultural conceptual linguistic, and measurement equivalence issues
  1. r = .3 <--- variation w/in a sample
6. Internationalization of scientific activity which makes cross-cultural collaboration easier
7. The internet has made it easier to conduct large-scale cross-national studies
Describe the cultural psychology approach, as well as the cross-cultural approach.
1. Cultural Psychology Approach: culture shapes personality directly and cannot be separated from other forces
2. Cross-Cultural Psychology Approach: personality is measurable and comparable across cultures but is expressed by a culturally ingrained response
Fill in either Etic or Emic in the appropriate place:

   Cultural psychology reflects an EMIC view

   Cross cultural psychology reflects an ETIC view

In your own words, explain why the authors view culture as critical to the understanding of human personality.
1. Culture, whether from an EMIC or ETIC view, influences human personality and can dictate an individual’s behavior within their culture and within general society.
Name and describe the 5 methodological developments of recent years over the past 10-14 years.
1. The increasing availability of large international data facilitated a surge in cross-cultural personality studies due to the Internet.
2. Researchers have utilized non-self-reports such as informant reports, naturalistic facial expressions, semi-structured interviews, and free association to deepen our understanding of issues at the interface of culture and personality.
3. Use of sophisticated statistics has increased, including latent class analysis, multilevel structural equation modeling, and multigroup confirmatory factor analysis.
4. Utilization of anchoring vignette ratings to control for response styles and using extreme and neutral data to account for self-bias.
5. Researchers also use archives that are created by ordinary citizens in naturalistic settings.
In terms of traits, what conclusions have been drawn from cross-cultural research, and what conclusions have been drawn from cultural research?
1. In cross-cultural research, there are similarities in the structure of personality that are demonstrated (extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness) but differences in how those structures are described. Social self-regulation (honest, kind, generous) and dynamism (active, brave, bold) were the two universal dimensions of description.
2. Cultural research concluded that collectivist nations endorse contextualist ideologies more than individualist nations. Additionally, contextualism was associated with ingroup favoritism and differentiated trust.
Look back to your answer to #6, and then consider: Where can personality be found? (Where is it seen, observed?)
1. Personality can be found in the conscious and nonconscious decisions of an individual. Does the individual like to keep to themselves naturally? Do they like bright colors over dark colors? When they recognize an issue with their actions, do they correct it or brush it off? It is the choices an individual makes, whether intentional or not, that builds that individual’s personality.
Deterministic vs. Probabilistic
1. Deterministic: idea that something will 100% happen
2. Probabilistic: idea that something may happen
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