Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T13:11:22.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cross-cultural studies of personality traits and their relevance to psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2011

Antonio Terracciano  and
Robert R. McCrae
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Aims – This article provides a brief review of recent cross-cultural research on personality traits at both individual and culture levels, highlighting the relevance of recent findings for psychiatry. Method – In most cultures around the world, personality traits can be clearly summarized by the five broad dimensions of the Five-Factor Model (FFM), which makes it feasible to compare cultures on personality and psychopathology. Results – Maturational patterns and sex differences in personality traits generally show cultural invariance, which generates the hypothesis that age of onset, clinical evolution, and sex differences in the prevalence of psychiatric disorders might follow similar universal patterns. The average personality profiles from 51 cultures show meaningful geographical distributions and associations with culture-level variables, but are clearly unrelated to national character stereotypes. Conclusions – Aggregate personality scores can potentially be related to epidemiological data on psychiatric disorders, and dimensional personality models have implications for psychiatric diagnosis and treatment around the world.

Declaration of Interest: This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, National Institute on Aging. Robert R. McCrae receives royalties from the Revised NEO Personality Inventory.

Keywords

personalitypsychopathologyculturepersonality disorders.
Type
Special Articles
Information
Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 176 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aliik, J. & McCrae, R.R. (2004). Toward a geography of personality traits: Patterns of profiles across 36 cultures. Journal of Cross-Cullural Psychology 35, 13–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagby, R.M., Joffe, R.T., Parker, J.D.A., Kalemba, V. & Harkness, K.L. (1995). Major depression and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Personality Disorders 9, 224–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagby, R.M., Costa, P.T. Jr, Widiger, T.A., Ryder, A.G. & Marshall, M. (2005). DSM-IV personality disorders and the five-factor model of personality: A multi-method examination of domain- and facet-level predictions. European Journal of Personality 19, 307–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrick, M.R. & Mount, M.K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology 44, 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blascovich, J., Spencer, S.J., Quinn, D. & Steele, C. (2001). African Americans and high blood pressure: The Role of stereotype threat. Psychological Science 12, 225–229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bouchard, T.J. & Loehlin, J.C. (2001). Genes, evolution, and personality. Behavior Genetics 31, 243–273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Camisa, K.M., Brockbrader, M.A., Lysaker, P., Rae, L.L., Brenner, C.A. & O'Donnell, B.F. (2005). Personality traits in schizophrenia and related personality disorders. Psychiatry Research 133, 23–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caprara, G.V. & Zimbardo, P.G. (2004). Personalizing politics: A con-gruency model of political preference. American Psychologist 59. 581–594.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chamorro-Premuzic, T. & Furnham, A. (2003). Personality Traits and Academic Examination Performance. European Journal of Personality 17. 237–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, P.T. Jr, & McCrae, R.R. (1980). Influence of Extraversion and Neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38, 668–678.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, P.T. Jr, & McCrae, R.R. (1987). Neuroticism, somatic complaints, and disease: Is the bark worse than the bite? Journal of Personality 55, 299–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, P.T. Jr, & McCrae, R.R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-P1-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFl) Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources: Odessa. FL.Google Scholar
Costa, P.T. Jr, & McCrae, R.R. (2005). A Five-Factor Model perspective on personality disorders. In Handbook of Personology and Psychopathology (ed. Strack, S.), pp. 257–270. John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ.Google Scholar
Costa, P.T. Jr, & Widiger, T.A. (Eds.) (2002). Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality: American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, P.T. Jr, McCrae, R.R. & Siegler, I.C. (1999). Continuity and change over the adult life cycle: Personality and personality disorders. In Personality and Psychopathology (ed. Cloninger, C.R.). pp. 129–154. American Psychiatric Press: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Costa, P.T. Jr, Terracciano, A. & McCrae, R.R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81, 322–331.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Demyttenaere, K., Bruffaerts, R., Posada-Villa, J., Gasquet, I., Kovess, V., Lepine, J.P., Angermeyer, M.C., Bernert, S., de Girolamo, G., Morosini, P., Polidori, G., Kikkawa, T., Kawakami, N., Ono, Y., Takeshima, T., Uda, H., Karam, E.G., Fayyad, J.A., Karam, A.N., Mneimneh, Z.N., Medina-Mora, M.E., Borges, G., Lara, C., de Graaf, R., Ormel, J., Gureje, O., Shen, Y., Huang, Y., Zhang, M., Alonso, J., Haro, J.M., Vilagut, G., Bromet, E.J., Gluzman, S., Webb, C., Kessler, R.C., Merikangas, K.R., Anthony, J.C., Von Korff, M.R., Wang, P.S., Brugha, T.S., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Lee, S., Heeringa, S., Pennell, B.E., Zaslavsky, A.M., Üstün, T.B. & Chatterji, S. (2004). Prevalence, severity, and unmet need for treatment of mental disorders in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys. Journal of the American Medical Association 291, 2581–2590.Google ScholarPubMed
Digman, J.M. (1990). Personality structure: emergence of the Five-Factor Model. Annual Review of Psychology 41, 417–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dyce, J.A. & O'Connor, B.P. (1998). Personality disorders and the Five-Factor Model: A test of facet-level predictions. Journal of Personality Disorders 12, 31–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flory, K., Lynam, D., Milich, R., Leukefeld, C. & Clayton, R. (2002). The relations among personality, symptoms of alcohol and marijuana abuse, and symptoms of comorbid psychopathology: Results from a community sample. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 10, 425–434.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Funder, D.C., Kolar, D.C. & Blackman, M.C. (1995). Agreement among judges of personality: Interpersonal relations, similarity, and acquaintanceship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, 656–672.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gottfredson, G.D., Jones, E.M. & Holland, J.L. (1993). Personality and vocational interests: The relation of Holland's six interest dimensions to the five robust dimensions of personality. Journal of Counseling Psychology 40, 518–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harkness, A.R. & McNulty, J.L. (2002). Implications of personality individual differences science for clinical work on personality disorders. In Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality (ed. Costa, P.T. Jr and Widiger, T.A.), pp. 391–403. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jang, K.L. & Livesley, W.J. (1999). Why do measures of normal and disordered personality correlate? A study of genetic comorbidity. Journal of Personality Disorders 13, 10–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jang, K.L., McCrae, R.R., Angleitner, A., Riemann, R. & Livesley, W.J. (1998). Heritability of facet-level traits in a cross-cultural twin sample: Support for a hierarchical model of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, 1556–1565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, E.L. & Conley, J.J. (1987). Personality and compatibility: A prospective analysis of marital stability and marital satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 27–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krueger, R.F. (2005). Continuity of Axes I and II: Toward a unified model of personality, personality disorders, and clinical disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders 19, 233–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, R.F., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T.E., Silva, P.A. & McGee, R. (1996). Personality traits are differentially linked to mental disorders: A multitrait-multidiagnosis study of an adolescent birth cohort. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 105, 299–312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levenstein, S., Li, Z.M., Aimer, S., Barbosa, A., Marquis, P., Moser, G., Sperber, A., Toner, B. & Drossman, D.A. (2001). Cross-cultural variation in disease-related concerns among patients with inflammatory bowel disease. American Journal of Gastroenterology 96, 1822–1830.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, B.R., Slade, M.D. & Gill, T.M. (2006). Hearing decline predicted by elders' stereotypes. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 61, P82–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Loranger, A.W., Sartorius, N., Andreoli, A., Berger, P., Buchheim, P., Channabasavanna, S.M., Cold, B., Dahl, A., Diekstra, R.F.W., Ferguson, B., Jacobsberg, L.B., Mombour, W., Puli, C., Ono, Y. & Regier, D. (1994). The International Personality Disorder Examination (IPDE): the World Health Organization/Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration International Pilot Study of Personality Disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 51(3), 215–224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markon, K.E., Krueger, R.F. & Watson, D. (2005). Delineating the structure of normal and abnormal personality: An integrative hierarchical approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, 139–157.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCrae, R.R. & Costa, P.T. Jr, (1997). Personality trait structure as a human universal. American Psychologist 52, 509–516.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCrae, R.R. & Costa, P.T. Jr, (2003). Personality in Aulthood: A Five-Factor Theory Perspective. Guilford Press: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrae, R.R. & John, O.P. (1992). An introduction to the Five-Factor Model and its applications. Journal of Personality 60, 175–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrae, R.R. & Terracciano, A. (in press). The Five-Factor Model and its correlates in individuals and cultures. In Individuals and Cultures in Multilevel Analysis (ed. an de Vijver, F.J.R., van Hemert., D. A. and Poortinga, Y.H.). Erlbaum: Mahwah, NJ.Google Scholar
McCrae, R.R., Costa, P.T. Jr, Ostendorf, F., Angleitner, A., Hrebrickova, M., Avia, M.D., Sanz, J., Sanchez-Bernardos, M.L., Kusdil, M.E., Woodfield, R., Saunders, P.R. & Smith, P.B. (2000). Nature over nurture: Temperament, personality, and lifespan development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78, 173–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrae, R.R., Yang, J., Costa, P.T. Jr, Dai, X.Y., Yao, S.Q., Cai, T.S. & Gao, B.L. (2001). Personality profiles and the prediction of categorical personality disorders. Journal of Personality 69, 155–174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCrae, R.R., Terracciano, A. & 78 Members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project (2005a). Universal features of personality traits from the observer's perspective: Data from 50 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, 547–561.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCrae, R.R., Terracciano, A. & 79 Member of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project (2005b). Personality profiles of cultures: Aggregate personality traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89, 407–425.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCrae, R.R., Löckenhoff, C.E. & Costa, P.T. Jr, (2005c). A step towards DSM-V: Cataloging personality-related problems in living. European Journal of Personality 19, 269–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrae, R.R., Costa, P.T. Jr, Martin, T.A., Oryol, V.E., Senin, L.G. & O'Cleirigh, C. (in press). Personality correlates of HIV stigmatization in Russia and the United States. Journal of Research in Personality.Google Scholar
Miller, T. (1991). The psychotherapeutic utility of the Five-Factor Model of personality: A clinician's experience. Journal of Personality Assessment 57, 415–433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miranda, J.J. & Patel, V. (2005). Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: does mental health play a role? PLoS Medicine 2, e291.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ozer, D.J. & Benet-Martinez, V. (2006). Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes. Annual Review of Psychology 57, 8.1–8.21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paunonen, S.V. (2003). Big five factors of personality and replicated predictions of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84, 411–424.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paunonen, S.V., Keinonen, M., Trzebinski, J., Forsterling, F., Grishenko-Roze, N., Kouznetsova, L. & Chan, D. W. (1996). The structure of personality in six cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 27, 339–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peabody, D. (1985). National Characteristics. Cambridge University Press: New York.Google Scholar
Poortinga, Y.H. & van Hemert, D.A. (2001). Personality and culture: Demarcating between the common and the unique. Journal of Personality 69, 1033–1060.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, B.W. & Del Vecchio, W.F. (2000). The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin 126, 3–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saha, S., Chant, D., Welham, J. & McGrath, J. (2005). A systematic review of the prevalence of schizophrenia. PLoS Medicine 2, e141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spencer, S.J., Steele, C.M. & Quinn, D.M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women's math performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 35, 4–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, C.M. & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, 797–811.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terracciano, A. & Costa, P.T. Jr, (2004). Smoking and the Five-Factor Model of personality. Addiction 99, 472–481.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terracciano, A., McCrae, R.R., Hagemann, D. & Costa, P.T. (2003a). Individual difference variables, affective differentiation, and the structures of affect. Journal of Personality 71, 669–703.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terracciano, A., Merritt, M., Zonderman, A.B. & Evans, M.K. (2003b). Personality traits and sex differences in emotion recognition among African Americans and Caucasians. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1000, 309–312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terracciano, A., Abdel-Khalek, A.M., Adám, N., Adamovová, L., Ahn, C.K., Ahn, H.N., Alansari, B.M., Alcalay, L., Aliik, J., Angleitner, A., Avia, M.D., Ayearst, L.E., Barbaranelli, C., Beer, A., Borg-Cunen, M.A., Bratko, D., Brunner-Sciarra, M., Budzinski, L., Camart, N., Dahourou, D., De Fruyt, F., de Lima, M.P., del Pilar, G.E., Diener, E., Falzon, R., Fernando, K., Fickóvá, E., Fischer, R., Flores-Mendoza, C., Ghayur, M.A., Gülzög, S., Hagberg, B., Halberstadt, J., Halim, M.S., Hrebícková, M., Humrichouse, J., Jensen, H.H., Jocie, D.D., Jonsson, F.H., Khoury, B., Klinkosz, W., Knezevic, G., Lauri, M.A., Leibovich, N., Martin, T.A., Marusic, L., Mastor, K.A., Matsumoto, D., McRorie, M., Meshcheriakov, B., Mortensen, E.L., Munyae, M., Nagy, J., Nakazato, K., Nansubuga, F., Oishi, S., Ojedokun, A.O., Ostendorf, F., Paulhus, D.L., Pelevin, S., Petot, J.M., Podobnik, N., Porrata, J.L., Pramila, V.S., Prentice, G., Realo, A., Reátegui, N., Rolland, J.P., Rossier, J., Ruch, W., Rus, V.S., Sánchez-Bernardos, M.L., Schmidt, V., Sciculna-Calleja, S., Sekowski, A., Shakespeare-Finch, J., Shimonaka, Y., Simonetti, F., Sineshaw, T., Siuta, J., Smith, P.B., Trapnell, P.D., Trobst, K.K., Wang, L., Yik, M., Zupancic, A. & McCrae, R.R. (2005a). National character does not reflect mean personality trait levels in 49 cultures. Science 310, 96–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terracciano, A., McCrae, R.R., Brant, L.J. & Costa, P.T. Jr, (2005b). Hierarchical linear modeling analyses of NEO-PI-R scales in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Psychology and Aging 20, 493–506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terracciano, A., Costa, P.T.J. Jr, & McCrae, R.R. (2006a). Personality plasticity after age 30. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 32, 999-1009.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terracciano, A., McCrae, R.R. & Costa, P.T.J. Jr, (2006b). Longitudinal trajectories in Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey data in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences 61B, P108-P116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trobst, K.K., Herbst, J.H., Masters, H.L. III, & Costa, P.T. Jr, (2002). Personality pathways to unsafe sex: Personality, condom use, and HIV risk behaviors. Journal of Research in Personality 36, 117–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trull, T.J., Widiger, T.A., Lynam, D.R. & Costa, P.T. (2003). Borderline personality disorder from the perspective of general personality functioning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 112, 193–202.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weissman, M.M., Bland, R.C., Canino, G.J., Faravelli, C., Greenwald, S., Hwu, H.G., Joyce, P.R., Karam, E.G., Lee, C.K., Lellouch, J., Lepine, J.P., Newman, S.C., Rubio-Stipec, M., Wells, J.E., Wickramaratne, P.J., Wittchen, H. & Yeh, E.K. (1996). Cross-national epidemiology of major depression and bipolar disorder. Journal of the American Medical Association Tib, 293–299.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weissman, M.M., Bland, R.C., Canino, G.J., Faravelli, C., Greenwald, S., Hwu, H.G., Joyce, P.R., Karam, E.G., Lee, C.K., Lellouch, J., Lepine, J.P., Newman, S.C., Oakley-Browne, M.A., Rubio-Stipec, M., Wells, J.E., Wickramaratne, P.J., Wittchen, H.-U. & Yeh, E.K. (1997). The cross-national epidemiology of panic disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 54, 305–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Widiger, T.A. (1993). The DSM-IU-R categorical personality disorder diagnoses: A critique and an alternative. Psychological Inquiry 4, 75–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widiger, T.A., Trull, T.J., Clarkin, J.F., Sanderson, C. & Costa, P.T. Jr, (2002a). A description of the DSM-IV personality disorders with the Five-Factor Model of personality. In Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality, (ed. Costa, P.T. Jr, and Widiger, T.A.), pp. 89–99. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widiger, T.A., Costa, P.T. Jr, & McCrae, R.R. (2002b). A proposal for Axis II: Diagnosing personality disorders using the Five-Factor Model. In Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality (ed. Costa, P.T. Jr, and Widiger, T.A.), pp. 431–456. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, J.E. & Best, D.L. (1990). Sex and Psyche: Gender and Self Viewed Cross-Culturally. Sage: Newbury Park.Google Scholar
Yang, J., McCrae, R.R., Costa, P.T. Jr, Yao, S., Dai, X., Cai, T. & Gao, B. (2000). The cross-cultural generalizability of Axis-II constructs: An evaluation of two personality disorder assessment instruments in the People's Republic of China. Journal of Personality Disorders 14, 249–263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, J., Dai, X., Yao, S., Cai, T., Gao, B., McCrae, R.R. & Costa, P.T. Jr, (2002). Personality disorders and the Five-Factor Model of personality in Chinese psychiatric patients. In Personality disorders and the Five-Factor Model of personality (ed. Costa, P.T. Jr, and Widiger, T.A..), pp. 215–221. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar