Internal, external, and self-report structure of personality in a non-western culture: An investigation of cross-language and cross-cultural generalizability.

Abstract

The authors explored the internal (similarity of meaning), external (peer nominations), and selfreport structure of personality with Filipino college students. Informants' natural language of personality in English and Tagalog provided a taxonomy as broad and differentiated, though not as dense, as an existing dictionary-based taxonomy (Peabody, 1987). The internal structure of personality was quite similar in the two languages, supporting cross-language generalizability. In all three structures, dimensions resembling major Western personality dimensions (the Big Five) were found. Evidence of cross-cultural generalizability was particularly convincing, because an emic (culturespecific) research strategy was used. Internal, external, and self-report structures were similar, but not identical, implying that personality attributions do not simply reflect implicit personality conceptions. In this article, we address personality taxonomies; the internal, external, and self-report structure of personality; and the cross-language and cross-cultural generalizability of taxonomic and structural dimensions of personality. We address these issues using an emic (culture-specific) approach to cross-cultural comparisons (Berry, 1969; Church & Katigbak, 1988).