Personality theory: western, eastern and indigenous approaches

Personality theory has played an important role in the development of contemporary cross-cultural psychology. The personal dispositions represented by the term personality refer to enduring thinking patterns or other traits that are manifested consistently in behavior across changing situations, contexts or relationships. Some personality psychologists would argue that personality is what makes a person unique and distinct from others. However, the most important aspect of any definition is the conception of the enduring nature of personality traits that it typically remains stable across the lifespan and in different social contexts.

The personality construct has also been applied in an attempt to understand national character viewed as a syndrome of traits shared by all members of a society and providing the possibility for cross-national comparisons. Furthermore, as we observed in the last chapter advances in genetic and biological research have reliably demonstrated that some traits like temperament or intelligence are hardwired heritable traits. However, investigators in cultural psychology and anthropology believe that culture plays a major role in forming culturally unique personality traits developed from the sociocultural environment and consistent cultural practices.

The dominant model of personality structure is the trait approach that examines specific qualities distinguishing the individual from other persons. For example a person described as an affable is thought to be consistently outgoing and warm toward others regardless of changing situations. A consideration of comparative research on the Big Five personality traits discussed previously supports the conception of the universal structure of personality. Using the Big Five trait model cultures can be compared on the frequency and strength of personality structures considered universal in all cultures. The etiology of universal personality structures are linked to evolutionary forces that created genetic predispositions for behavior, but perhaps also cultures that reinforce similar learning from universal common human needs and experiences (Church & Lonner, 1998; MacDonald, 1998).

Cultural psychologists argue that indigenous cultures have the ability to produce unique personalities consistent within a society but varying across cultures. Furthermore, the cultural psychologists would argue that since each culture produces unique personality traits it is not possible to make cross-cultural comparisons. The cultural and anthropological approach to personality would largely reject any hardwired basis for personality insisting instead on the unique within cultural forces that mold the child and adult (Kim, 2001). On the surface the cross-cultural and cultural viewpoints seem to be fundamentally opposing perspectives, but they can be reconciled. This book has argued that we need all disciplinary focuses to serve as windows into the complex reality of personality.

A discussion of personality theory typically begins with a consideration of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic contributions (Freud, 1961). Personality theories have been created in a dialectical process of assertion of principles or theses, protests against these conclusions about human nature as either false or lacking in comprehensiveness, and then alternative theoretical propositions. This dialectical process is pivotal to the understanding of this chapter since it describes the history of Western personality theories.

However, there are also perspectives that emerged out of the great thinkers of the East like Confucius in China and the teachings of Buddha. Both philosophical perspectives have broadly influenced thinking about what it means to be human and can also be thought of as personality theories. All personality perspectives seem to have developed from the confluence of individual experiences of the theorists and the relevant cultural and environmental milieu. Whether Freud or Buddha it was significant personal events that influenced their lives that in turn formed their thinking about personality and human development. The sociocultural environment in each case provided the conceptual framework available in building their models and the cultural values developed from historical experiences and social organization contributed significantly to their theories.