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Key Words individualism, collectivism, Big Five, indigenous psychologies, universals
* Abstract Ecologies shape cultures; cultures influence the development of personalities. There are both universal and culture-specific aspects of variation in personality. Some culture-specific aspects correspond to cultural syndromes such as complexity, tightness, individualism, and collectivism. A large body of literature suggests that the Big Five personality factors emerge in various cultures. However, caution is required in arguing for such universality, because most studies have not included emic (culture-- specific) traits and have not studied samples that are extremely different in culture from Western samples.
INTRODUCTION
Recent Annual Reviews of Psychology have had chapters dealing with personality (Wiggins & Pincus 1992, Magnusson & Toerestad 1993, Revelle 1995) and with culture (Shweder & Sullivan 1993, Bond & Smith 1996a, Cooper & Denner 1998), but not with both culture and personality. The culture and personality topic is controversial. Bruner (1974) assessed the field as a "magnificent failure." Shweder (1991) saw little that can be considered positive in this field. For instance, Shweder argued that (a) individual differences in conduct are narrowly context dependent and do not generalize across contexts. Thus, global traits do not exist. Shweder further argued that (b) early childcare practices per se do not have predictable consequences for adult character, (c) the greater the cultural variation, the smaller is the situational comparability, and that (d) "objective" conditions, such as reinforcers and other "external" stimulus events, do not predict the accommodation of an organism to its environment.
More positive evaluations have emerged recently (e.g., Lee et al. 1999a). Lee et al. (1999b) edited a book that vigorously defended the utility of culture and personality studies, summarized the history of this topic, and provided chapters about Mexican, Chinese, African, German, Indian, and Japanese personality, as well as studies for the improvement of interaction across cultures. Piker (1998) thought that Shweder's objections to previous work employed "straw dummy tactics" (p. 21).
McCrae and his colleagues (McCrae 2000, McCrae et al. 2000) also presented a view diametrically opposite to Shweder (1991). According to McCrae et al., global traits do exist. They claim that "studies of heritability, limited parental influence, structural invariance across cultures and species, and temporal stability all point to the notion that personality traits are...