Indigenous psychology arose in non-Western countries as a reaction to the dominance of Western psychology models, which are based on values of individualism, rationality, and objectivity. Given their emphasis on universal truths, these Western constructs are implicitly assumed by some to be universally applicable without recognizing possible cultural differences (Marsella, 1998). According to the experience of indigenous psychologists, these presumed universal models may not provide adequate, relevant, or meaningful understanding of human behavior that is contextualized in local cultural contexts. The indigenous psychology movement emphasizes studies of human behavior from the natives’ perspective using local cultural concepts and culturally relevant methodologies (Kim, Yang, & Hwang, 2006).
In Asia, the most active indigenous psychology movements are found in India, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan beginning in the 1970s. Asian psychologists from these locations have identified unique personality constructs relevant to their cultural experiences that were ignored in imported Western theories. F. M. Cheung, van de Vijver, and Leong (2011) noted that most of the indigenous personality constructs derived in Asia reflect the relational nature of human experience, as the concept of the self in Asian cultures is broadly defined to include the social and interpersonal context. For example, in Confucian cultures in Asia, personality may be viewed from multiple layers of social relationships. These social roles, norms, obligations, and practices anchor the individual’s coherent personality functioning (Yang, 2006). Yang proposed a four-tier concentric circle with individual-oriented personality attributes in the middle, followed by relationship-oriented and group-oriented attributes, and other-oriented attributes in the outermost circle. Thus, in studies of Chinese social behavior and personality in Taiwan, personality attributes of filial piety, harmony, reciprocal favors (Renqing), and face have been introduced as important indigenous constructs (Hwang, 2006). Filial piety, which means respect, obedience, and care for parents and elders in the family, is an important Chinese virtue, which anchors family relationships. Harmony includes not only avoidance of conflicts with other individuals but also balance and coexistence with nature and with society (Hwang, 2006). Renqing is an elaborate norm of reciprocal favors in social exchange, which is instrumental to acquiring social resources. Face is a form of impression management, which involves maintaining face, avoiding loss of face, and “face work” to enhance social status and esteem (Gabrenya & Hwang, 1996). Similarly, the indigenous concepts of kapwa (shared identity with others) in the Philippines (Enriquez, 1993), amae (the pattern of attachment and dependence between mother and child) in Japan (Yamaguchi & Ariizumi, 2006), and the construct of cheong (an affective emotion that binds individual members to a group) in Korea (Choi, Kim, & Choi, 1993) reflect the relational nature of personality.
Individual scales measuring some of these indigenous constructs have been developed for social psychology research in the local context. However, the research findings mainly focus on the role of these constructs in affecting social behaviors but not on the validity of the scales themselves. There is relatively scarce research on the development of comprehensive indigenous personality measures. General personality assessment in Asia mostly relies on imported Western measures that are translated into the local language. The issues involved in translating personality measures have been discussed in the literature (F. M. Cheung, 2009). In the following section, we review some of the efforts to develop indigenous personality measures in Asia.
In cultural psychology, measures to compare common or universal traits across cultures are called etic measures, whereas those focusing on culture-specific traits in a specific culture are called emic or indigenous measures. Most emic personality measures are developed as single scales to assess personality attributes for research purposes. F. M. Cheung, Cheung, Wada, and Zhang (2003) reviewed the omnibus personality measures developed indigenously in Asia. Early examples of these measures were reported in India, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Researchers in Hong Kong and China later joined the efforts to develop comprehensive emic personality measures. These indigenous efforts may be grouped into several approaches, which will be described in the following subsections with selected examples of Asian indigenous measures.
Many of the early approaches to develop indigenous personality measures began by translating and adapting items of familiar Western instruments. Some cross-cultural psychologists regarded the translation-adaptation method of test development as a derived etic approach (Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 2002). Enriquez (1993) referred to this approach as “indigenization from without,” while Sinha (1997) called it the “adaptive indigenization” approach in measurement.
Although Hindu concepts of personality have been discussed in theories of psychology in India, some psychologists adapted Western tests to the Indian context and then gave these tests new names without constructing new scales to incorporate the indigenous constructs. For example, Chattopadhyay, Som, and Biswas (1993) developed the Multiphasic Questionnaire based on the adaptation of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Four factors are extracted from the Multiphasic Questionnaire: Psychopathology, Self-acceptance, Sociability, and General Anxiety. However, Kapur (2000) criticized the practice of giving new names to adapted tests, as it led to “the erroneous impression that these tests have been developed especially in India” (p. 416).
In Taiwan, Ko (1977, 1981, 1997) attempted to develop a personality measure for clinical assessment that was appropriate for the Chinese culture. Initially, he adapted items from the MMPI based on his clinical experience and developed the Ko’s Mental Health Questionnaire (KMHQ). Subsequently, the KMHQ underwent many revisions with changes in item numbers and response format. Ko further added new scales to measure healthy personality traits based on his model of mental health. However, these new scales, including Independence, Empathy, and Ego Strength, are basically etic concepts of personality related to positive mental health, which were not covered by the clinical scales of the MMPI.
In Japan, Tsuji et al. (1997) constructed the Five Factor Personality Questionnaire (FFPQ) based on a reinterpretation of the Western Five-Factor Model (FFM; Goldberg, 1990) to fit the Japanese concepts of personality. Five factors were extracted from the FFPQ. While they found the universal FFM to be a useful framework, they renamed three of the factors: Naturality versus Controlling (analogous to Conscientiousness), Unemotionality versus Emotionality (analogous to Neuroticism), and Practicality versus Playfulness (analogous to Openness to Experience). The Agreeableness factor was replaced by Attachment versus Separateness, which captured the dependent and interdependent relationships encompassed in the indigenous concept of amae. The Introversion versus Extroversion factor was retained.
In the indigenization movement, local psychologists began to construct their own tools without borrowing from imported measures. Enriquez (1993) called this the “indigenization from within” approach, which emphasizes the development of theory, methods, and measures using emic concepts and local knowledge internal to the local context. Indigenous psychologists made reference to the early Western personality tests, many of which were constructed by selecting personality terms, especially adjectives, from the dictionary and subsequently reduced to major categories using clustering or factor analysis (John, Angleitner, & Ostendorf, 1988). The lexical approach assumes that the salient characteristics representing personality in a culture are encoded in its language (De Raad, Perugini, Hřebíčková, & Szarota, 1998). Similar methods were adopted by indigenous psychologists to derive personality measures by compiling personality vocabulary in their native language.
In the Philippines, the Panukat ng Mga Katangian ng Personalidad (PKP; Church, Katigbak, & Reyes, 1996) was constructed by collecting about 6,900 person-descriptors from a comprehensive Filipino dictionary, which were then rated and categorized by nine judges and a large sample of college students to generate a list of 1,297 trait adjectives. Church and his associates extracted seven dimensions purported to be a complete representation of Filipino personality: Conscientiousness, Concern for Others versus Egotism, Religiosity, Temperamentalness, Self-assurance, Intellect, and Gregariousness. Two additional dimensions, Negative Valence and Positive Valence, assess negative and positive evaluation dimensions and were added later (Katigbak, Church, Guanzon-Lapeña, Carlota, & del Pilar, 2002). The validity of the PKP was established through empirical studies relating its dimensions to various social and problem behaviors. The seven-factor model is comparable to similar structures found in Western personality measures derived from natural language adjectives, including evaluative terms and temporary emotional states, which were not included in the FFM (Tellegen, 1993).
Yang and his associates (Yang, 2006) developed a trait lexicon of Chinese personality by collecting 4,000 adjectives from Chinese dictionaries, newspapers, novels, and personality descriptors generated by college students. Based on the ratings by college students on meaningfulness, familiarity, social desirability, and modernity of these adjectives, 410 personality descriptors were eventually chosen. Factor analysis on the ratings of these adjectives by college students and adult samples extracted five major and two minor bipolar factors based on the percentage of total variance accounted for by these factors: Competence versus Impotence, Industriousness versus Unindustriousness, Other-orientedness versus Self-centeredness, Agreeableness versus Disagreeableness, Extraversion versus Introversion, Large-mindedness versus Small-mindedness, and Contentedness versus Vain Gloriousness. The adjectives with the highest loadings on the seven factors and their sub-factors were selected to form the Multidimensional Chinese Personality Inventory (MCPI). In a further development, Wang and Cui (2003) wrote complete-sentence items to depict the concrete experiences reflected in the adjectives covering the seven factors and their sub-dimensions to develop the Chinese Personality Scale (QZPS) with 215 items. Seven factors with slightly different labels and contents were extracted, namely Extroversion, Good-heartedness, Emotionality, Talent, Interpersonal Relations, Diligence, and Honesty.
Wang and his associates (Wang & Cui, 2003; Wang, Cui, & Zhou, 2005) claimed that a seven-factor model of personality structure was unique to the Chinese people and that the indigenous Chinese Big Seven was distinct from the Western Big Five. Thus, a seven-factor solution was adopted in their factor analysis, which explained only 30.9% of the total variance. The overemphasis on a seven- versus five-factor structure between Chinese and Western personality structure ignored the deviation from the FFM in other Western and non-Western samples, all using lexical personality terms from natural languages, such as the Big Seven Model obtained by Tellegen and Waller (1987; Tellegen, 1993) in the United States and the seven-factor structure of the PKP in the Philippines (Church et al., 1996). In seven languages, including Korean, Ashton, Lee, Perugini, et al. (2004) found a six-factor structure, comprised of dimensions resembling the Big Five in varying degrees, plus a distinct Honesty-Humility dimension. Ashton, Lee, and Goldberg (2004) also conducted hierarchical analysis on English personality-descriptive adjectives and retrieved a five-factor structure albeit using an alternative rotation of the original factors. However, their six-factor solution was able to resolve some of the inconsistencies between the results in different European studies. As John et al. (1988) concluded, the ultimate value of a taxonomy of personality traits lies in “its success in predicting important outcomes in people’s lives” (p.171).
Other than the lexical approach, some indigenous psychologists have used a questionnaire method to develop their local personality measures. For example, Katigbak, Church, and Akamine (1996) adopted in-depth interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and the critical-incident technique to elicit close to 3,000 descriptive predicates and phrases to reflect indigenous conceptions of healthy and unhealthy personality from a large sample of Filipino college students. They classified the descriptors into 54 homogeneous categories and then wrote items to tap these categories. They extracted six indigenous Filipino dimensions from the self-ratings on these items, including Responsibility, Social Potency, Emotional Control, Concern for Others, Broad Mindedness, and Affective Well-being. In joint factor analysis with Western measures, they found the six Filipino indigenous dimensions to be largely congruent with the FFM.
The early indigenous attempts to develop personality measures using the adapted indigenization or the indigenous approach originated from the intent to satisfy local needs for personality assessment. Some of the indigenous measures focus on confirming their correspondence with Western models of personality, while others emphasize their culture-specific dimensions of personality. Without expanding into a more comprehensive research framework to compare etic and emic dimensions of personality and to validate their utility in assessment, these single efforts may not lead to complete understanding of personality in the respective Asian cultures. For example, the initial effort by Katigbak et al. (1996) to compare the emic and etic dimensions stopped at confirming the generalizability of the indigenous Filipino dimensions with the etic dimensions of Western models but did not pursue further research to evaluate the incremental validity of the indigenous dimensions. Katigbak et al. (2002) did find that indigenous Philippine inventories provided modest incremental validity beyond the FFM in predicting selected culture-relevant criteria. Nonetheless, these indigenous approaches fall short of promoting the advancement of our understanding of personality from a pan-cultural perspective.
The etic and emic dichotomy directs the attention of cross-cultural and cultural research to affirming what is universal and what is uniquely indigenous. This dichotomous paradigm limits the integration of the knowledge base in mainstream psychology, which was derived originally in Western cultures with the recent development in non-Western contexts. F. M. Cheung et al. (2011) recommended a combined emic-etic approach to “bridge the divide between mainstream and indigenous psychology, and provide a comprehensive framework to understand universal and culturally variable personality dimensions” (p. 5).
The combined emic-etic approach adopts a group of mixed methods to incorporate a combination of both indigenous and universal measurement. The incorporation of emic measures potentially contributes incremental validity beyond the etic measures to personality assessment in the local context. The combined measurement recognizes universal dimensions of personality, which may, however, be reconstituted as different configurations of the dimensions. Indigenous constructs may further reveal personality dimensions that are culturally relevant to the local context but are not included in the etic measures. Through empirical studies in multicultural contexts, culturally convergent (etic) and divergent (emic) dimensions can be identified from the combined measure.
A prominent example of the combined emic-etic approach to personality assessment is the research program on the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI; F. M. Cheung, Cheung, Zhang, et al., 2008; F. M. Cheung et al., 1996), which was later renamed Cross-Cultural (Chinese) Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI-2) due to its relevance beyond the Chinese culture. The CPAI research team adopted an empirical approach to identify culturally relevant Chinese personality constructs from person descriptions in everyday life, generated items on their behavioral manifestations, selected items and verified scales on the basis of their psychometric properties, and then standardized the scales based on representative normative samples in China and Hong Kong. An extensive research program was conducted to validate the CPAI used in social, vocational, and clinical assessment. Cross-cultural research with Chinese and non-Chinese samples was conducted to illustrate the convergent and divergent dimensions of personality. The development of the CPAI, its revised version CPAI-2, and the adolescent version CPAI-A as well as studies on their validity and utility have been described in other works.
The CPAI-2 consists of 28 general personality subscales that loaded on four factors (namely, Social Potency/Expansiveness, Dependability, Accommodation, and Interpersonal Relatedness). The Social Potency factor encompasses traits related to pursuit of variety, leadership, innovation, and sociability. This factor includes Extraversion together with several Openness-related scales that were constructed in a Chinese context. Dependability measures personality traits connected with responsibility and emotional stability. Accommodation assesses how people accept others and adapt themselves to the environment and the collective. The Interpersonal Relatedness (IR) factor distinguishes the CPAI-2 from the Big Five model with a unique culturally relevant dimension (F. M. Cheung, Cheung, Zhang, et al., 2008). The IR factor covers the aspect of formalistic relationship orientation and Confucian ethics in collective societies. The coverage of IR is broader than the meaning expressed by Agreeableness in the Big Five and includes the qualities of humanity and social propriety in Confucian philosophy. An individual may achieve this equilibrium through personal cultivation and self-discipline (“inner sageliness”) and maintaining harmony and propriety in relation to others (“outer kingliness”). The factor structure of the CPAI-A is very similar with that of the CPAI-2. For more detailed accounts of the CPAI development, readers are referred to these references (F. M. Cheung et al., 1996; F. M. Cheung, Cheung, & Fan, 2013; F. M. Cheung, Zhang, & Cheung, 2010).
In the following sections, we focus on some of the indigenously derived personality scales and the emic personality factor extracted in factor analysis of the CPAI to illustrate the nature and utility of emic personality constructs.
As discussed in the first section, Chinese personality is often described in the context of multiple layers of relationship (Yang, 2006). The constructs of Harmony, Renqing, Face, and Traditionalism versus Modernization have been studied extensively by psychologists in Taiwan in the indigenous psychology movement (Gabrenya & Hwang, 1996). These constructs were incorporated in the development of the CPAI scales (F. M. Cheung et al., 1996):
Harmony—assesses one’s inner peace of mind, interpersonal harmony, and avoidance of conflict, which are considered to be virtues in the Confucian philosophy.
Renqing—involves reciprocal social exchange in both material and nonmaterial forms according to the social ties between individuals. This scale assesses adherence to the cultural norms of social interaction based on reciprocal exchange of favors or affection according to implicit social rules.
Face—taps the tendency to protect and enhance one’s face, to promote others’ respect toward oneself, and to avoid losing one’s face when interacting with others in a hierarchical connection.
Traditionalism (vs. Modernity)—covers the individual’s adherence to traditional Chinese beliefs and values in the areas of family relationships, filial piety, rituals, and chastity in response to societal modernization.
During the exploratory stage of identifying personality constructs, other indigenous personality dimensions were selected:
Family Orientation—Family is the primary layer of relationship in collectivistic societies. It includes not only filial piety toward parents but also maintaining close ties with siblings and other close family members.
Graciousness (vs. Meanness)—measures how broad-minded or narrow-minded the individual is when dealing with others, as reflected in the Confucian virtue of patience, forgiveness, and kindness as opposed to vindictiveness and negativism.
Ah Q Mentality—assesses the defense mechanisms depicted in a protagonist from a popular Chinese novel in the early 20th century who adopted self-protective rationalization, externalization of blame, belittling others, and self-enhancement to protect one’s ego.
In the factor analysis of the CPAI-2 personality scales, the Harmony, Renqing, and Traditionalism scales loaded on an IR factor together with other Confucian virtues, including thrift, discipline, and traditionalism. The Face and Family Orientation scales loaded on the Dependability factor, while Graciousness and Ah Q Mentality loaded on the Accommodation factor, with secondary loadings on the IR factor. In a joint factor analysis with the Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1992), this IR factor was found to be independent from the other Big Five factors (F. M. Cheung, Cheung, Zhang, et al., 2008) and may be considered as an emic factor, whereas the other three CPAI factors can be mapped on to the Big Five factors and may be considered as etic factors. For the adolescent version, CPAI-A, the indigenous constructs mentioned above loaded primarily on the IR factor (F. M. Cheung, Fan, Cheung, & Leung, 2008). The IR factor consists of indigenously derived personality constructs not covered in other Western personality measures. Research using the CPAI provides the opportunity to examine the utility of the emic IR factor and related personality scales and their incremental validity beyond the universal personality factors.
The incremental validity of the CPAI emic personality traits was initially investigated by examining their associations with some culturally related social behaviors such as filial piety, social axioms, and persuasion tactics in Chinese social life (e.g., F. M. Cheung et al., 2001; Sun, 1998; Zhang & Bond, 1998).
Zhang and Bond (1998) examined the relationships between filial piety and both universal and indigenous personality trait factors among Chinese college students from Hong Kong and Beijing, with a questionnaire composed of the Filial Piety Scale, the NEO-FFI, and five facets (Harmony, Renqing, Face, Flexibility, and Optimism) selected from the Chinese Tradition factor of the original CPAI. Filial piety (xiao), a central concept in Confucianism that prescribes how children should treat their parents, has played a crucial role in defining the virtues and social expectations in Chinese society. Zhang and Bond found that the indigenous CPAI scales, especially Harmony and Renqing, can significantly contribute to predicting filial piety scores over and above the etic NEO-FFI factors. In contrast, the FFM factors of Agreeableness and Extraversion, which are purported to be related to interpersonal behaviors, did not show significant contributions to filial piety.
Leung et al. (2002) proposed the construct of “social axioms” as the fundamental psychological construct tapping a person’s beliefs about the social world. The Social Axioms Survey (SAS) was developed to assess social axioms with five dimensions, namely, social cynicism, reward for application, social complexity, fate control, and religiosity (Leung et al., 2002). Chen, Bond, and Cheung (2006) investigated the relationship between social axioms and personality, including etic and emic dimensions among Chinese college students. They found that the CPAI emic scale of Face positively correlated with social cynicism, social complexity, fate control, and religiosity; the Renqing scale positively correlated with reward for application and social complexity; and the Harmony scale negatively correlated with social cynicism and fate control but positively with reward for application. However, when the etic and emic scales were jointly entered into regression analysis to predict the five social axioms, only Renqing (Relationship Orientation) and Interpersonal Tolerance scales, among the emic scales, significantly predicted the social axiom of reward for application.
Fu, Watkins, and Hui (2004) used the CPAI emic scales to predict interpersonal forgiveness. In a preliminary study using in-depth interviews with a small group of Chinese scholars, they found that preservation of group harmony instead of religious influences was the main reason to forgive among these Chinese participants. In a subsequent study with 336 college students and 432 teachers in China, they confirmed their prediction that Renqing and Harmony had the strongest correlations with the tendency to forgive in both samples. The authors concluded that forgiveness in China may be influenced more by social solidarity needs rather than by individualistic personality variables or religiosity reported in Western studies.
Yeung, Fung, and Lang (2007) studied the effects of future time perception and adherence to Renqing (Relationship Orientation) on gender differences in their social network characteristics. In their study involving 321 Chinese men and women aged 28–91, they found that adherence to Renqing partially accounted for the higher number of relatives in women’s social networks as compared to those of men, even after controlling for the effects of extraversion and structural factors. Moreover, adherence to Renqing moderated the relationship between number of friends and happiness among women but not among men. Among women with more close friends in their social networks, those with higher Renqing scores reported higher levels of happiness than did those with lower Renqing scores.
Personality variables are often used to predict persuasion tactics used in negotiation, as the agents’ personal traits might influence their choice of tactics. The contributions of the etic Big Five personality traits to persuasion tactics have been demonstrated in previous studies. American managers scoring high on Big Five extraversion were more likely to use inspirational appeal and ingratiation (Cable & Judge, 2003). Adopting a combined etic and emic perspective of personality, Sun (1998) examined the influences of personality on persuasion tactics among 371 Chinese managers. He first established a measure of influence tactics—the Influence Tactics Profile (ITP) consisting of two dimensions labeled Contingent Control (CC) and Gentle Persuasion (GP). Chinese managers who scored high on the Big Five extraversion factor were inclined to use GP tactics. On the CPAI emic scales, high scores on Face, Harmony, and Traditionalism and low scores on Flexibility were correlated with the use of GP. Renqing was negatively correlated with CC tactics. These CPAI scales contributed 7% additional variance beyond the Big Five factors in predicting GP. Sun (1998) concluded that relationship-oriented Chinese traditional traits may facilitate use of GP tactics.
The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) has been extensively studied in understanding different organizational behaviors or performance (Judge, Rodell, Klinger, Simon, & Crawford, 2013). Generally, the personality factors of Conscientiousness and Neuroticism have been found to be most predictive of work performance. The CPAI emic personality scales provide the opportunity to explore the contributions of relational personality traits beyond those intrapersonal traits based on the FFM. This section reviews the influence of indigenous personality dimensions on organizational performance and work behavior in Asian contexts.
In addition to universal personality traits, F. M. Cheung, Fan, and To (2008) reviewed studies conducted by the CPAI team on the usefulness of the relational aspects of personality in the CPAI inventories in Chinese organizational settings. A number of studies conducted in Hong Kong found that the indigenous IR factor scales contributed additional value beyond scales from the Social Potency and Dependability factors in profiling MBA students at senior-level positions, in assessing hotel workers’ customer orientation, and in predicting senior executives’ leadership behaviors. In the study of 474 Hong Kong MBA students, those students who had previously held more senior positions scored higher on the Renqing scale, reflecting their greater attention to social propriety and reciprocal favors that are often expected of senior business relationships. In a study of 580 hotel workers from 4 hotels in Hong Kong, the customer orientation of supervisory hotel employees was positively predicted by Harmony, whereas both Harmony and Renqing significantly contributed to the prediction of customer orientation of the frontline staff.
In another study with a sample of 152 senior executives at the directorate level or above, including 22 CEOs and managing directors from business organizations in Hong Kong and mainland China, the IR factor correlated positively with several dimensions of self-reported leadership behaviors and effectiveness—managing processes, relating to people, and exhibiting moral behaviors (F. M. Cheung, Fan, & To, 2008). In addition to predicting self-ratings of leadership behaviors, the IR factor significantly predicted the subordinates’ ratings of the executives’ leadership behaviors in the people domain.
In mainland China, Gan and Cheung (2010) examined the role of interpersonal harmony in moderating the relationship between proactive personality (i.e., the disposition toward taking action to influence one’s environment; Bateman & Crant, 1993) and organizational citizenship behavior among 158 employees in Chinese state-owned companies. Proactive personality had a low correlation with the interpersonal facilitation dimension of organizational citizenship, but its correlation with job dedication was insignificant. Results from hierarchical regression analyses showed that the CPAI Harmony scale significantly moderated the relationship between proactive personality and both job dedication and interpersonal facilitation aspects of organizational citizenship. The correlation between proactive personality and organizational citizenship behavior was only significant in the high Harmony group but not in the low Harmony group.
While the IR factor traits were found to be useful in people management in Chinese settings, they were hypothesized to be barriers to innovation. Using items selected from the CPAI Face and Renqing scales to form the construct of relational orientation, Leung, Chen, Zhou, and Lim (2014) evaluated the innovative behavior among 225 employees in a private enterprise in mainland China. They found that participants who scored high on the relational orientation measure, reflecting a high concern for maintaining good relationships, had heightened fear of failure and less innovative behaviors. This relationship was more obvious when the innovative climate was low, as failures would be less tolerated in these organizations.
The CPAI emic scales have been used by other researchers to study organizational behavior in Taiwan. Tsai, Chi, and Hu (2009) investigated how sales people’s Renqing orientation affected their selling behavior. They found that Renqing was positively correlated with hard work and selling behavior when self-esteem was low. The results further indicated that sales people’s propensity to adhere to the accepted norm of reciprocity, as measured by the Renqing scale, compensated the negative effect of low self-esteem on their selling behaviors. The authors suggested that when recruiting salespeople who have low self-esteem, a high tendency toward Renqing orientation should be considered.
Chang and Chang (2010) examined the relationships between traditional Chinese personality traits (Harmony and Ah Q Mentality scales in the CPAI-2) and work stress, with the mediation of emotional intelligence in workers in the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. They assessed participants’ work pressure with two dimensions from the Work Stress Perception Inventory—extrinsic effort-reward imbalance and intrinsic effort. They found that the Harmony scale negatively but the Ah Q Mentality scale positively correlated with an extrinsic effort-reward imbalance, whereas Ah Q Mentality positively correlated with intrinsic effort. These results indicated that Chinese workers who scored high on the Ah Q Mentality scale were inclined to experience greater work pressure associated with extrinsic effort-reward imbalance and intrinsic work effort. On the other hand, higher scores on Harmony were associated with lower extrinsic effort-reward imbalance pressure among Taiwan workers.
Traditionally, personality traits have often been investigated as pivotal antecedents of career development in the literature of career/vocational psychology (Wille & De Fruyt, 2014). A number of research projects have been conducted to examine personality antecedents of career development among college and high school students in Hong Kong and mainland China. In this section, we focus on the role of the CPAI emic personality scales.
The CPAI research team has recently conducted three cross-cultural projects that examined the influence of indigenous scales of the CPAI-2 and CPAI-A on various aspects of career development among Chinese students in Hong Kong and China and compared them with their American counterparts. They explored the relationship between emic personalities measured in the CPAI-2 or CPAI-A and career variables, such as career exploration, career choice, difficulties in decision making, self-efficacy in making career decisions, vocational identity, and vocational commitment. Results from these studies largely demonstrated significant contributions of the CPAI IR factor or its emic scales, such as Renqing, Face, and Family Orientation, to the prediction of vocational behaviors among Chinese as well as, sometimes, American students. Some of these findings are reviewed in this section (e.g., F. M. Cheung et al., 2013; F. M. Cheung, Fan, & Yao, 2012; Fan, Cheung, Leong, & Cheung, 2012, 2014; Ng, Fan, Cheung, Leong, & Cheung, 2012). Some other unpublished results are also reported in this section.
From the first set of studies comparing Hong Kong and American university students, the incremental validity of emic personality traits to the prediction of career development among Chinese college students was demonstrated. Fan et al. (2012) compared the pattern of relationships among personality, vocational interests, and career exploration between 369 American and 392 Hong Kong university students. They found that although universal personality factors measured in the CPAI-2 could predict career exploration across American students (Social Potency and Dependability) and Hong Kong students (Social Potency and Accommodation), contributions of the emic IR factor to career exploration were significant only among Hong Kong students. In another study, Ng et al. (2012) used discriminant analysis to identify the CPAI-2 personality traits that could significantly differentiate among six academic major groups, confirming the utility of personality variables as predictors of career-relevant choice in non-Western cultures. Among the 28 CPAI-2 personality scales, 7 scales (Divergent Thinking, Aesthetics, Extraversion, Leadership, Renqing, Social Sensitivity, and Face) significantly differentiated the 6 major groups (i.e., engineering and technology, science, creative industry, human services, business, and accounting) in the multivariate analysis of variance. In particular, they found that business students scored significantly higher on the Face and Renqing scales of the CPAI-2 than did science students. On the other hand, students in social sciences scored significantly lower on the Renqing scales than did business students. These results reflect the normative orientation of Renqing in conducting business in Asian contexts, matching the personality traits of students who chose business as their career.
In another study comparing Chinese and American high school students on their personality and career development, Fan et al. (2014) demonstrated that the CPAI-A Family Orientation scale could significantly mediate the relationship between perceived family intrusiveness and career decision-making difficulties in a Hong Kong sample but not in an American sample. The CPAI research team (Fan, Cheung, Leong, & Cheung, 2010) further found that the Hong Kong participants with higher scores on Family Orientation were inclined to have better readiness for career decision making and less career decision-making difficulties, such as inconsistent use of information and lack of information.
The CPAI research team also examined the influence of the indigenous scales of the CPAI-A on various aspects of career development for 545 high school students from Hong Kong and 414 students from Shanghai, including self-efficacy in making career decisions, vocational identity, vocational exploration, and vocational commitment. The results showed that indigenous dimensions of the CPAI-A significantly contributed to the understanding of career development beyond the universal personality traits among these Chinese students (F. M. Cheung et al., 2012). For instance, the CPAI-A IR factor contributed a small but significant additional percentage of variance (1%) in explaining the students’ Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale scores (CDSE-SF; Betz, Hammond, & Multon, 2005) beyond that of the etic Social Potency factor in the Hong Kong sample. At the scale level, the emic Family Orientation, Renqing, and Harmony scales were positively associated with the five subscales of the CDSE, that is, self-appraisal, gathering occupational information, goal selection, planning, and problem solving (rs = .19–.29). On the other hand, Face was modestly negatively related to the five dimensions of the CDSE in both the Hong Kong and Shanghai samples (rs = −.14–−.16).
The research team further examined the contributions of emic personality traits (e.g., Renqing, Face, Family Orientation, and Harmony) to vocational identity, measured by My Vocational Identity Scale (Gupta, Lounsbury, & Leong, 2008) in the Hong Kong and Shanghai samples (F. M. Cheung et al., 2012). The results indicated that Renqing significantly predicted vocational identity after controlling for Face, Family Orientation, and Harmony in the Hong Kong sample but not in the Shanghai sample. The team also found that after controlling for Renqing, Family Orientation, and Harmony, Face could significantly predict adolescent vocational exploration and commitment in both Hong Kong and Shanghai samples.
A longitudinal study conducted by the CPAI research team examined the development of career self-efficacy among Chinese high school students with a three-wave design from Senior One to Senior Three of high school in three Chinese locations, with different educational systems as well as stages of modernization and socioeconomic backgrounds: Hong Kong, urban Shanghai, and rural Zhejiang Province. Using multiple waves of longitudinal data, the project identified the temporal causality between personality, including emic traits, and career self-efficacy beliefs, vocational identity, and commitment. Career self-efficacy in five aspects of career preparation and choice was assessed using the CDSE-SF (Betz et al., 2005). My Vocational Situation Scale (MVS; Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980) was used to assess participants’ vocational identity, which refers to the possession of a clear and stable picture of one’s goals, interests, and talents. The Vocational Exploration and Commitment Subscale (VEC) of the Commitment to Career Choices Scale (Blustein, Ellis, & Devenis, 1989) was employed to investigate participants’ level of commitment to their vocational choices. The VEC measured an individual’s perceived level of self-knowledge, occupational knowledge, and confidence about and overall commitment to a specific occupational preference as well as the perceived need to engage in career exploration, uncertainty with regard to career choices, and awareness of and willingness to overcome potential obstacles (Blustein et al., 1989). The same instrument was adapted to parents’ perspective to assess parental perceptions of their children’s vocational commitment. We computed a composite score for the VEC by taking the mean of each item reported by students and their parents in our analysis. We report next some preliminary findings that show the influences of indigenous personality traits on career self-efficacy, vocational identity, and vocational commitment.
We compared the ability of the three universal (etic) personality factors (i.e., Social Potency, Dependability, and Emotional Stability) and the indigenous factor (IR), as measured in Year 1, to predict career self-efficacy, vocational identity, and vocational commitment in Years 1, 2, and 3, among the 2,227 students in the total sample across three Chinese locations. As shown in Table 4.1, after controlling for the CPAI-A etic personality factors, there were still small but significant additional contributions of the IR factor assessed in Time 1 to the prediction of the three career variables across the three time points.
| CDSE | VI | VEC (C) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Source | β | R2 | ΔR2 | β | R2 | ΔR2 | β | R2 | ΔR2 | |
Time 1 |
1 |
.38** |
.24** |
.25** |
|||||||
Soc_P |
.32** |
.14** |
.18** |
||||||||
Emo |
.23** |
.30** |
.29** |
||||||||
Dep |
.26** |
.20** |
.18** |
||||||||
2 |
.39** |
.01** |
.25** |
.01** |
.27** |
.02** |
|||||
Soc_P |
.32** |
.15** |
.19** |
||||||||
Emo |
.27** |
.36** |
.37** |
||||||||
Dep |
.26** |
.20** |
.18** |
||||||||
IR |
−.06* |
−.12** |
−.16** |
||||||||
Time 2 |
1 |
.25** |
.16** |
.15** |
|||||||
Soc_P |
.24** |
.14** |
.15** |
||||||||
Emo |
.19** |
.21** |
.19** |
||||||||
Dep |
.24** |
.17** |
.17** |
||||||||
2 |
.26** |
.01** |
.18** |
.02* |
16** |
.01** |
|||||
Soc_P |
.24** |
.15** |
.16** |
||||||||
Emo |
.26** |
.30** |
.25** |
||||||||
Dep |
.24** |
.18** |
.17** |
||||||||
IR |
−.13** |
−.16** |
−.12** |
||||||||
Time 3 |
1 |
.22** |
.15** |
.14** |
|||||||
Soc_P |
.28** |
.16** |
.19** |
||||||||
Emo |
.16** |
.23** |
.17** |
||||||||
Dep |
.17** |
.11** |
.13** |
||||||||
2 |
23** |
.01** |
.16** |
.01* |
15** |
.01** |
|||||
Soc_P |
.29** |
.16** |
.19** |
||||||||
Emo |
.21** |
.29** |
.21** |
||||||||
Dep |
.17** |
.12** |
.13** |
||||||||
IR |
−.11** |
−.12** |
−.08* |
||||||||
Note. Soc_P = Social Potency. Emo = Emotional Stability. Dep = Dependability. IR = Interpersonal Relatedness. CDSE = Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy. VI = Vocational Identity. VEC (C) = Congruence of Vocational Exploration and Commitment reported by the students and their parents. * p < .05.** p < .01. |
|||||||||||
These findings in the previously mentioned three career development projects demonstrated the utility of the CPAI-2 and CPAI-A for studying the relationship between personality and career development in Chinese adolescents and young adults. The incremental value of the contributions made by the emic CPAI personality constructs highlighted the importance of various components of interpersonal relationships, such as Family Orientation, Face, Harmony, and Renqing in the process of career development, especially in career decision-making self-efficacy, vocational identity, and vocational exploration and commitment among Chinese students. These studies expanded existing models of career guidance and counseling by examining the career development process and the direction of causal effects of the indigenous personality on the career variables. On an applied level, the results could assist educators on the design of career guidance services appropriate for the development of Chinese high school and college students by recognizing the relational dimensions of career development.
Cross-cultural studies of psychopathology have demonstrated the importance of sociocultural contexts in affecting individuals’ mental health and psychopathology. In addition to the etic personality factors of Neuroticism or Emotional Stability, emic personality scales derived in Asian contexts, such as Face, Harmony, Renqing, or the IR factor in the CPAI inventories, have been found to be useful in understanding clinical characteristics or symptoms. These findings further illuminated the mechanisms and dynamics of the emic personality variables in affecting clinical behaviors. We review studies of mental health and disorders using the CPAI inventories in this section.
First, the research team examined the correlations between the set of normal personality scales and the clinical scales on the CPAI. Significant correlations were found between many indigenous personality traits and clinical symptoms in various Chinese samples. As reported by F. M. Cheung, Cheung, Wada, et al. (2003), high IR and Individualism and low Dependability and Social Potency factors of the CPAI contributed significant variance to the prediction of scores on the Somatization, Depression, and Antisocial Behavior scales in the 1993 CPAI standardization sample consisting of 2,444 respondents. In particular, the IR factor was a strong second predictor of Somatization, contributing an additional 16% to the variance explained beyond the 21% explained by the Dependability factor. Among the IR factor scales, high scores on Face and Harmony predicted Somatization (F. M. Cheung, Gan, & Lo, 2005). The disposition to avoid shame and social disruptions in interpersonal relationships may explain the tendency among Chinese to present the more stigmatized mental problems in the form of somatic complaints.
The research team also examined the relationships among the CPAI-A indigenous personality and clinical scales in Hong Kong and mainland China standardization studies. For the Hong Kong standardization sample of 2,689 adolescents aged 12–18 (F. M. Cheung, Fan, Cheung, et al., 2008), three of the indigenous personality traits—Family Orientation, Renqing, and Harmony—correlated negatively and Face correlated positively with all 14 clinical subscales in the CPAI-A, with the absolute value of r ranging from .16 to .66. Similar findings were obtained in the mainland China standardization sample consisting of 2,695 adolescents, confirming the results in the Hong Kong sample. These findings suggest that dispositions toward strong family and interpersonal relationships are protective factors against psychological distress in Chinese societies. On the other hand, overconcern about others’ perceptions and impression management in a collectivistic society may be conducive to stress.
Another empirical study by the CPAI research team (Fan, Zhou, Cheung, & Zhang, 2013), with a sample of 991 adolescents aged 11–19 from the Wenchuan disaster region after the 2008 earthquake, largely supported the relationship between emic personality scales, such as Family Orientation and Renqing, and the CPAI-A clinical scales. The emic personality traits significantly moderated the relationship between resilience and mental health in general. For example, Family Orientation significantly moderated the influence of group resilience on adolescents’ anxiety, such that the negative relationship between group resilience and anxiety was stronger for adolescents with a weaker orientation toward family. Similarly, Renqing significantly moderated the influence of individual resilience on adolescents’ depression, such that the negative relationship between individual resilience and depression was stronger with a stronger tendency toward maintaining Renqing.
To establish the convergent validity of the CPAI with an established clinical measure, a sample of 147 Chinese students took both the CPAI and the MMPI-2 (F. M. Cheung, Cheung, & Zhang, 2004). Apart from the correspondence between the parallel clinical scales on the CPAI and MMPI-2, Cheung and her associates found that the emic Family Orientation scale of the CPAI correlated negatively with most of the MMPI-2 clinical and content scales, especially with the MMPI-2 content scale measuring family relations (Family Problems). Similar convergence was found with the CPAI Graciousness, Ah Q Mentality, and Face scales, which significantly correlated with many of the clinical and content scales of the MMPI-2. In particular, the high negative correlations between the MMPI-2 content scales of Type A, Cynicism, and Negative Emotionality with the CPAI Graciousness scale and their positive correlations with the CPAI Ah Q Mentality and Face scales illustrate the patterns of interpersonal personality features associated with psychopathology in a Chinese student sample. Chinese people who are gracious toward others are more forgiving and are at peace with themselves and others. On the other hand, those who are concerned about maintaining face may become overconscious of social comparison and are likely to belittle others and externalize blame to dismiss their own failures as a form of defense mechanism.
A number of studies examined the relationship between the CPAI scales and indicators of life satisfaction or well-being. For example, Ho, Cheung, and Cheung (2008) used the CPAI-A standardization sample of 1961 adolescents in Hong Kong to examine the contributions of the emic personality scales in predicting life satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis showed that the emic Family Orientation, Harmony, and Renqing scales contributed 7% additional variance in predicting the adolescents’ global life satisfaction beyond those from the typical universal personality traits associated with neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion. Zhang, Tian, and Grigoriou (2011) specifically investigated the effects of face consciousness on life satisfaction. They found a negative correlation between scores on the CPAI Face scale and a measure of life satisfaction, even when the influence of materialism and perceived financial situation was controlled.
Another set of studies tested the clinical utility of the CPAI personality and clinical scales in differentiating among different clinical samples. F. M. Cheung, Kwong, and Zhang (2003) compared a group of 167 male prisoners in Hong Kong and a group of 339 psychiatric patients in China, with respective matched normative samples from the CPAI national standardization study. Logistic regression results showed that emic personality scales from the IR factor of the CPAI, including Renqing, Traditionalism (vs. Modernity), and Extravagance (vs. Thrift), predicted membership in the prisoner group. In addition to these three scales, the emic scales of Family Orientation and Face also predicted membership in the psychiatric patient group. The authors commented that “these emic scales enrich the description of the general personality profiles of the Chinese prisoners and patients. In particular, the Interpersonal Relatedness factor scales, including Renqing, Face, and Harmony, help to illustrate the social adaptiveness of the clinical groups that forms an important aspect of normality and deviance in the Chinese culture” (p. 97).
F. M. Cheung, Cheung, and Leung (2008) further examined the clinical utility of the CPAI-2 in differentiating the personality characteristics of Chinese men with substance use disorders from other psychiatric patients and normal control participants. The CPAI-2 profile of 121 Chinese men with substance use disorders was contrasted with that of a matched psychiatric comparison group (n = 172) and a normal comparison group (n = 187) using multivariate analyses of variance and logistic regression. Apart from the universal personality traits related to higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness found in Western studies, the men with substance use disorders scored lower than their normal counterparts on the indigenously derived CPAI-2 personality scales, including Family Orientation and Harmony. Compared to other psychiatric patients, these men were more defensive, less gracious, and less family-oriented. These personality characteristics highlighted deficits in social adjustment and interpersonal relationships as important cultural features in psychopathology.
These findings on the contributions of the IR factor and related emic personality traits in predicting clinical behaviors point to important directions in analyzing Asian or Chinese personality and mental health. Besides etic dimensions of personality such as neuroticism and extraversion that focus more on the intrapersonal aspects of personality, emic traits that emphasize interpersonal aspects of personality are culturally relevant and important to Asian and Chinese culture. The connections between these culturally relevant personality traits and mental health behaviors reflect the manifestation and dynamics of psychopathology in collectivistic social contexts in which interpersonal relationships play a major role in a person’s adjustment. For example, family orientation, harmony, and reciprocal social propriety would be protective factors in mental health, whereas emphasis on face, cynicism and defensiveness are risk factors. Therefore, these findings provide useful insights to clinicians in considering culturally relevant treatment approaches.
The factor structures of the CPAI and CPAI-2 scales have been investigated in other samples for cross-cultural relevance. Conventionally, Procrustes rotations and congruence coefficients have been used to assess the degree of congruence between two structures by researchers in cross-cultural personality comparisons (McCrae, Zonderman, Costa, Bond, & Paunonen, 1996). Using Procrustes rotation (Mulaik, 2010), the factor structure of a replication sample can be rotated with the factor structure in the Chinese normative sample as the target. Then congruence coefficients are computed to see whether two sets of loadings are similar proportionally (Lorenzo-Seva & ten Berge, 2006), with a range of −1.0–+1.0. Factor congruence coefficients measure the similarity of the loadings on a factor in two samples. Total congruence coefficients measure the similarity of all the loadings of an inventory in two samples.
The normal personality scales of the original version of the CPAI were translated into English and administered to a sample of Singaporean ethnic Chinese (F. M. Cheung, Cheung, Leung, Ward, & Leong, 2003, Study 1). The factor congruence coefficients of the four CPAI factors, compared to the normative sample from mainland China and Hong Kong, were .94 or above, supporting replication of the factor structure in an ethnic Chinese sample in Singapore, even when the language of the items was translated from Chinese to English. Similar to a previous study (F. M. Cheung et al., 2001), when the CPAI scales were jointly factor analyzed with items from the NEO-FFI, the IR factor was not covered by the Big Five measured by the NEO-FFI in the Singaporean sample.
The English version of the CPAI normal personality scales has also been administered to a Caucasian American sample in another study (F. M. Cheung, Cheung, Leung, et al., 2003, Study 2). The congruence coefficients of the four factors ranged from .90 to .98, slightly lower than those found in Singaporean ethnic Chinese sample, with IR and Social Potency having congruence coefficients of .93 and .90 respectively. These results support two claims. Firstly, the initial indigenous structure can be replicated in other samples from different cultural backgrounds, suggesting that the CPAI emic factor is also relevant in non-Chinese cultures. Secondly, the reproducibility is not perfect and decreases as the difference in cultural background increases (from Chinese people to Singaporean ethnic Chinese to Caucasian Americans).
The revised version of the CPAI, the CPAI-2, was also administered in Singapore. S. F. Cheung, Cheung, Howard, and Lim (2006) administered the English version of the CPAI-2 to a Singaporean sample with ethnic Chinese, Malay, and Indian backgrounds. When compared to the mainland and Hong Kong Chinese normative structure of the CPAI-2, the Singaporean Chinese sample’s structure had the highest congruence (coefficients ranged from .94 to .98). The congruence between the Malay sample and the normative sample was lower but still appreciable (coefficients ranged from .93 to .97). The Indian sample, on the other hand, had the least congruence with the Chinese normative sample, with coefficients ranging from .85 to .95, with the IR factor having the lowest congruence coefficient. Interestingly, a very similar structure could be found in the Malay sample but not in the Indian sample. Nevertheless, using exploratory factor analysis without Procrustes rotation, the CPAI-2 scales also had a four-factor structure in the Indian sample, although the IR factor, instead of being absent, appeared to be a larger factor with more scales loading on it. Different from the Chinese normative structure, in addition to the six core scales of the IR factor, Family Orientation, Responsibility, Meticulousness, and Practical Mindedness also loaded on this factor, which explained more variance than the Accommodation and Dependability factors. These additional scales defined the factor in a more complex structure. This finding suggests that even when the original CPAI-2 structure cannot be fully replicated in another culture, its indigenous scales may still contribute to the understanding of the underlying personality structure in another culture.
The structure of the CPAI-2 normal personality scales has been examined in diverse college student samples in other cultures. As reported in one of the cross-cultural studies in F. M. Cheung et al.’s (2013) review, the CPAI-2 normal personality scales were administered to a Chinese sample (with respondents from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan), a Chinese American sample and a Euro-American sample in the United States, a South Korean sample, and a Japanese sample, all using the language versions relevant to the respondents. The study included Asian samples (Chinese, South Koreans, and Japanese), ethnic Chinese living in a Western society (Chinese Americans), and ethnic Europeans living in a Western society (Euro-Americans), providing an examination of the indigenous structure in several points on the spectrum of cultural difference. In terms of total congruence coefficients, the five samples had structures similar to that in the Chinese normative sample of the CPAI-2 (coefficient of .97 for the Chinese sample and .94 to .95 for the other five samples, including the Chinese American sample). The factor congruence coefficients of the individual factors ranged from .91 to .98, except for the Accommodation factor in the Chinese American sample with a factor coefficient of .89. The results suggest that, generally, the structure of the CPAI-2 normal personality scales can be replicated even in non-Chinese samples, with various degrees of difference from the Chinese culture.
However, there are also findings suggesting that the four-factor structure of the CPAI-2 normal personality scales may not be relevant in other cultures. In a study with Dutch college students, using the Dutch version of the CPAI-2, the four-factor structure could not be replicated (Born & Jooren, 2009). Iliescu and Ion (2009) also found a six-factor structure in a Romanian adult sample, using the Romanian version of the CPAI-2. In a study of South African college students using the English version of the CPAI-2, Laher (2015) found that the factor congruence coefficients between the South African structure and the Chinese normative structure ranged from .93 to .97. Laher argued that the support is not conclusive, based on parallel analysis, minimum average partial (MAP), and the five-factor solution. Nevertheless, in this and the previous two studies, the IR factor, which was presumably an indigenous factor, was still identified in the other factor solutions adopted by the authors although showing various degrees of similarity with the pattern of loadings in the normative sample.
Despite the contributions of the indigenous personality measures demonstrated by the CPAI, there are several challenges that need to be mentioned. Firstly, the advantage of high cultural relevance comes at a cost, especially when the relevance of the indigenous constructs may be low in cultures other than the one based on which an indigenous measure was developed. By maximizing the relevance of a measure to a particular culture, universal perspectives and aspects across different cultures may be deemphasized. For example, there is no a priori basis to believe that Renqing, an important personality trait in Chinese culture, is also a valid and important personality trait in the Western cultures. It could be, and indeed we have found evidence of its relevance in a Euro-American sample (Fung, Ho, Tam, Tsai, & Zhang, 2011), whereas in other European samples, such as in the Netherlands, the internal consistency of this scale is weak and the IR factor could not be replicated. The cross-cultural relevance of these indigenous constructs needs to be empirically investigated further.
Secondly, in developing indigenous measures, local manifestations of a construct are usually used in item writing. Although this enhances the cultural relevance of a measure, it also makes translation particularly difficult. For example, in the translation to Japanese of a Chinese CPAI-2 item that involved the use of conventional Chinese medicine, we found it necessary to find the use of modern vitamin products to replace it, judging it to be the Japanese manifestation of a similar construct based on the advice of Japanese collaborators. This problem highlights the need for paying attention to cultural adaptation and construct equivalence in test translation, as similar adaptations also have to be made in translating English-language psychological measures into the local language. However, the problem is enhanced with indigenous constructs that are less commonly understood across cultures, as items featuring local manifestations encounter more difficulties in translation.
Thirdly, in cross-cultural studies, researchers may face a dilemma: using an indigenous measure for each culture can enhance ecological validity but may make comparison impossible, while using a measure relevant to all cultures involved may overlook important indigenous factors. There is no simple solution to this issue. The matter becomes more complex when several indigenously derived measures from different cultures are compared. Some constructs for the different measures may appear similar, but the nuances of the indigenous constructs that are grounded in the local contexts render the measures inequivalent.
Fourthly, test development needs time and resources. While the development of indigenous measures may provide practical tools that are locally useful, it competes with the progress toward research on universal constructs across cultures to enrich our existing knowledge base on personality. Etic constructs help us to understand fundamental human nature. Without taking into account how an indigenous construct may be related to phenomena in other cultures or how an indigenous construct may actually be universal across cultures, the proliferation of indigenous measures may result in many incommensurable constructs.
The development of the CPAI using the combined emic-etic approach is an attempt to address these limitations. By incorporating both etic and emic constructs, we could identify how some of the emic constructs may group together with universal facets to enrich our understanding of existing mainstream personality factors as expressed in local contexts. For example, Face and Family Orientation load on the Dependability factor of the CPAI-2, while the scales associated with Extraversion and Openness form an integrated Social Potency factor instead of two separate factors. As a reversal of the cross-cultural studies using Western personality measures to validate universal personality models, the cross-cultural studies using different translations of the CPAI-2 provide the opportunity to examine indigenously derived personality constructs in other cultures. As pointed out by F. M. Cheung et al. (2011), these cross-cultural studies are intended not only to demonstrate universality but also to understand cultural variations in the presence or salience of the indigenously derived personality factors. These studies enrich our understanding of the uniqueness of personality constructs originating from the Chinese culture as well as expand our understanding of personality in a broader cultural perspective.
The value of incorporating both etic and emic approaches in the study of personality echoes Kluckhohn and Murray’s (1953) earlier view that personality in a certain culture is like personality in all other cultures, in some other cultures, and in no other culture. As such, focusing on the dichotomy between the etic and the emic is unnecessary and unproductive. Instead, the etic and the emic dimensions of personality can be considered as complementary. The union between Western psychology and culture can lead to a rethinking of the scope of personality in a broader social and relational context (Markus, 2004). Church (2009) further argued that both universal and indigenous approaches should be encompassed in a comprehensive theory of personality. He derived an “integrated trait and cultural psychology” based on both trait models and cultural psychology. His recent studies showed that while cross-situational consistency of traits would be exhibited in all cultures (as predicted by trait theory), variations may be found in the pattern of relationships with stronger manifestations in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic cultures (as predicted by cultural psychology).
Our understanding of culture has also expanded beyond specific national or ethnic groups. Cultural diversity has become more common in many countries and regions. More people travel to and live in different cultures during the course of their lives. With globalization and intercultural interactions, people have been exposed to multiple cultures even within the same locale. At the same time, the globalization process may be internalized and localized where cultural universals as well as culture-specific aspects of human behavior are intertwined at the individual level (F. M. Cheung, 2012). The previous emic versus etic schism does not reflect social reality and is not conducive to broadening our cultural understanding of personality and assessment. Emic measures of personality can best be used as the starting point to help us understand cultural variations beyond the etic dimensions. This first step will help us create a more culturally appropriate and integrative science of psychology.
The CPAI studies included in this chapter were funded partly by the Hong Kong Government Research Grants Council Earmarked Grant Projects (#CUHK4333/00H, #CUHK4326/01H, #CUHK4333/00H, #CUHK 4259/03H, #CUHK 4715/06H and #CUHK441609) and Direct Grants of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (#2020662, #2020745, #2020871, #2020933).
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