Toward a New Approach to the Study of Personality in Culture.pdfVIP

Toward a New Approach to the Study of Personality in Culture Fanny M. Cheung Chinese University of Hong Kong Fons J. R. van de Vijver Tilburg University and North-West University Frederick T. L. Leong Michigan State University We review recent developments in the study of culture and combined emic–etic approach is then illustrated using two personality measurement. Three approaches are de- examples, one from China and one from South Africa. We scribed: an etic approach that focuses on establishing conclude with recommendations for future research and measurement equivalence in imported measures of person- practice. ality, an emic (indigenous) approach that studies person- ality in specific cultures, and a combined emic–etic ap- Three Approaches to Culture and proach to personality. We propose the latter approach as a Personality way of combining the methodological rigor of the etic approach and the cultural sensitivity of the emic approach. Three approaches to the study of personality in its cultural The combined approach is illustrated by two examples: the context can be distinguished: the cultural-comparative, or first with origins in Chinese culture and the second in South etic, approach; the indigenous, or emic, approach; and the Africa. The article ends with a discussion of the theoretical approach that combines elements of both etic and emic and practical implications of the combined emic–etic ap- studies (see the special issue on indigenous, cultural, and proach for the