Cultural Influences on Personality

2002/02/01 by Harry C. Triandis, Eunkook M. Suh · 3 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cultural Differences and Values #Personality Traits and Psychology #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Collectivism #Personality #Emic and etic #Psychology #Personality psychology #Big Five personality traits and culture #Social psychology #Individualism #Big Five personality traits #Personality development #Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory #Individualistic culture #Universality (dynamical systems) #Sociology #Anthropology

paper · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135200

openalex publication_date 2002/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Ecologies shape cultures; cultures influence the development of personalities. There are both universal and culture-specific aspects of variation in personality. Some culture-specific aspects correspond to cultural syndromes such as complexity, tightness, individualism, and collectivism. A large body of literature suggests that the Big Five personality factors emerge in various cultures. However, caution is required in arguing for such universality, because most studies have not included emic (culture-specific) traits and have not studied samples that are extremely different in culture from Western samples.

Citations

• Compliance with a Request in Two Cultures: The Differential Influence of Social Proof and Commitment/Consistency on Collectivists and Individualists
• THE CHINESE PERSPECTIVES ON MORAL JUDGMENT DEVELOPMENT
• Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: Self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan.
• Genetic and Environmental Influences on Personality: A Study of Twins Reared Together Using the Self‐ and Peer Report NEO‐FFI Scales
• THE CHINESE CONCEPTS OF “FACE”
• Individualism and Collectivism in a Model and Scale of Balanced Differentiation and Integration
• Cultural differences in reward allocation: Is collectivism the explanation?
• Is there a universal need for positive self-regard?
• Divergent consequences of success and failure in Japan and North America: An investigation of self-improving motivations and malleable selves.
• The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts.
• Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.
• Authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union.
• Culture and conformity: A meta-analysis of studies using Asch's (1952b, 1956) line judgment task.
• Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis.
• Allocentric versus idiocentric tendencies: Convergent and discriminant validation

Cited by

• On Pancultural Self-Enhancement
• Voices Unheard: The Psychology of Consumption in Poverty and Development
• Self-enhancement [wikipedia]