Title: Cultural Understandings of Personality – Psychology
Headings: 
Cultural Understandings of Personality
Learning Objectives
PERSONALITY IN INDIVIDUALIST AND COLLECTIVIST CULTURES
APPROACHES TO STUDYING PERSONALITY IN A CULTURAL CONTEXT
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
Personal Application Questions
Glossary
License

Content: In fact, there is evidence that the strength of personality traits varies across cultures. Individualist cultures and collectivist cultures place emphasis on different basic values. People who live in individualist cultures tend to believe that independence, competition, and personal achievement are important. People who live in collectivist cultures value social harmony, respectfulness, and group needs over individual needs. There are three approaches that can be used to study personality in a cultural context: the cultural-comparative approach, the indigenous approach, and the combined approach, which incorporates both elements of both views. Critical Thinking Questions
Why might it be important to consider cultural influences on personality? Since culture influences one’s personality, then Western ideas about personality may not be applicable to people of other cultures. In addition, Western-based measures of personality assessment may not be valid when used to collect data on people from other cultures. Personal Application Questions
According to the work of Rentfrow and colleagues, personalities are not randomly distributed.