Fernando A. Ortiz

Need Satisfaction and Well-Being Testing Self-Determination Theory in Eight Cultures

According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT), satisfaction of needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is a universal requirement for psychological well-being. We tested this hypothesis with college students in the United States, Australia, Mexico, Venezuela, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Japan. Participants rated the extent to which these needs, plus needs for self-actualization and pleasure-stimulation, were satisfied in various roles and reported their general hedonic (i.e., positive and negative affect) and eudaimonic (e.g., meaning in life, personal growth) well-being. Asian participants averaged lower than non-Asian participants in perceived satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and self-actualization needs and in most aspects of eudaimonic well-being, and these differences were partially accounted for by differences in dialecticism and independent self-construals. Nonetheless, perceived need satisfaction predicted overall well-being to a similar degree in all cultures and in most cultures provided incremental prediction beyond the Big Five traits. Perceived imbalance in the satisfaction of different needs also modestly predicted well-being, particularly negative affect. The study extended support for the universal importance of SDT need satisfaction to several new cultures.

Are cross-cultural comparisons of personality profiles meaningful? Differential item and facet functioning in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory.

Measurement invariance is a prerequisite for confident cross-cultural comparisons of personality profiles. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was used to detect differential item functioning (DIF) in factor loadings and intercepts for the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (P. T. Costa, Jr., & R. R. McCrae, 1992) in comparisons of college students in the United States (N = 261), Philippines (N = 268), and Mexico (N = 775). About 40%-50% of the items exhibited some form of DIF and item-level noninvariance often carried forward to the facet level at which scores are compared. After excluding DIF items, some facet scales were too short or unreliable for cross-cultural comparisons, and for some other facets, cultural mean differences were reduced or eliminated. The results indicate that considerable caution is warranted in cross-cultural comparisons of personality profiles.

Measuring Individual and Cultural Differences in Implicit Trait Theories

A new measure of implicit theories or beliefs regarding the traitedness versus contextuality of behavior was developed and tested across cultures. In Studies 1 (N = 266) and 2 (N = 266), these implicit beliefs dimensions were reliably measured and replicated across U.S. college student samples and validity evidence was provided. In Study 3, their structure replicated well across an individualistic culture (the United States; N = 249) and a collectivistic culture (Mexico; N = 268). Implicit trait and contextual beliefs overlapped only modestly with implicit entity theory beliefs and were predicted by self-construals in ways that generally supported cultural psychology hypotheses. Implicit trait beliefs were fairly strongly endorsed in both cultures, suggesting that such beliefs may be universally held.

Investigating Implicit Trait Theories Across Cultures

Implicit trait and contextual theories encompass lay people’s beliefs about the longitudinal stability (vs. instability) of traits; the cross-situational consistency (vs. variability) of behavior; the ability to predict (vs. not predict) individuals’ behavior from their traits; the ability to infer traits from few behavioral instances (vs. the difficulty of doing so); and the importance of traits in understanding people (vs. the greater importance of contextual factors such as roles and relationships). Implicit trait and contextual beliefs were investigated in two individualistic cultures, the United States and Australia, and two collectivistic cultures, Mexico and the Philippines. Hypotheses based on an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives were supported. The structure of implicit beliefs replicated well, and trait beliefs predicted judgments about cross-situational consistency of behavior in all four cultures. Implicit trait beliefs were stronger, and implicit contextual beliefs weaker, in the United States as compared to Mexico and the Philippines.

Relating Self-Concept Consistency to Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being in Eight Cultures

Western theories suggest that self-concept consistency is important for well-being, but cultural psychologists have proposed that this relationship may be weaker in collectivistic or dialectical cultures. Hypotheses regarding the ability of self-concept (cross-role) consistency and short-term stability to predict hedonic and eudaimonic well-being across cultures were tested. College students in the United States, Australia, Mexico, Venezuela, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Japan rated their traits in various roles at test and retest and completed measures of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. In all cultures, cross-role consistency and short-term stability were inversely associated with negative affect, an aspect of hedonic well-being, and positively associated with Big Five Emotional Stability. In contrast, cross-role consistency and short-term stability were related to eudaimonic well-being more reliably in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic cultures, although the results in China only partially conformed to this pattern. We concluded that cross-role variability and short-term instability of self-concepts have a significant temperamental or affective basis, and this temperamental basis is a cultural universal. In addition, cultural psychology predictions of a weaker relationship between self-concept consistency and well-being in collectivistic cultures, as compared with individualistic cultures, were largely supported for eudaimonic well-being.

A four-culture study of self-enhancement and adjustment using the social relations model: do alternative conceptualizations and indices make a difference?

In the self-enhancement literature, 2 major controversies remain--whether self-enhancement is a cultural universal and whether it is healthy or maladaptive. Use of the social relations model (SRM; Kenny, 1994) might facilitate resolution of these controversies. We applied the SRM with a round-robin design in both friend and family contexts in 4 diverse cultures: the United States (n = 399), Mexico (n = 413), Venezuela (n = 290), and China (n = 222). Results obtained with social comparison, self-insight, and SRM conceptualizations and indices of self-enhancement were compared for both agentic traits (i.e., egoistic bias) and communal traits (i.e., moralistic bias). Conclusions regarding cultural differences in the prevalence of self-enhancement vs. self-effacement tendencies, and the relationship between self-enhancement and adjustment, varied depending on the index of self-enhancement used. For example, consistent with cultural psychology perspectives, Chinese showed a greater tendency to self-efface than self-enhance using social comparison and self-insight indices, particularly on communal traits in the friend context. However, no cultural differences were observed when perceiver and target effects were controlled using the SRM indices. In all cultures, self-enhancement indices were moderately consistent across friend and family contexts, suggesting traitlike tendencies. To a similar extent in all 4 cultures, self-enhancement tendencies, as measured by the SRM indices, were moderately related to self-rated adjustment, but unrelated, or less so, to observer-rated adjustment.

Cultural Differences in Implicit Theories and Self-Perceptions of Traitedness Replication and Extension With Alternative Measurement Formats and Cultural Dimensions

Cultural differences in implicit theories and self-perceptions of traitedness were examined in the United States (N = 198), Mexico (N = 257), the Philippines (N = 212), and Japan (N = 225). Participants in all four cultures endorsed beliefs about the longitudinal stability, cross-situational consistency, and predictive validity of traits. At the same time, Americans and Mexicans, more than Filipinos and Japanese, endorsed implicit trait or dispositionist perspectives and described their own behavior as traited or consistent (i.e., lower in self-monitoring). Alternative measurement formats were compared and led to the conclusion that forced-choice measures may be advantageous in some cases, particularly when acquiescence bias may impact cross-cultural comparisons. Cultural differences were observed in participants’ perceptions of the individualism-collectivism, dialecticism, and tightness-looseness of their respective cultures and these measures partially mediated some of the cultural differences in traitedness. Overall, the results supported an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between culture and personality.

Peak-experiences among norwegian youth

This study marks the first empirical investigation of youthful peak-experiences among Nordic persons. The sample comprised 309 native Norwegian college students who generated 318 retrospective reports (occurring below the age of 14). Early peaks involving interpersonal joy--especially the 3 sub-categories of family togetherness, the birth of a baby sibling or cousin, and romantic bliss--were most frequently reported. In frequency, these were followed by peaks involving nature and developmental landmarks. The relevance of these findings for fostering Nordic youth development from a positive, strength-based perspective is discussed. Avenues for future research are highlighted.

Mean Profiles of the NEO Personality Inventory

The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and its latest version, the NEO-PI-3, were designed to measure 30 distinctive personality traits, which are grouped into Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness domains. The mean self-rated NEO-PI-R scores for 30 subscales have been reported for 36 countries or cultures in 2002. As a follow-up, this study reports the mean scores of the NEO-PI-R/3 for 71,870 participants from 76 samples and 62 different countries or cultures and 37 different languages. Mean differences in personality traits across countries and cultures were about 8.5 times smaller than differences between any two individuals randomly selected from these samples. Nevertheless, a multidimensional scaling of similarities and differences in the mean profile shape showed a clear clustering into distinctive groups of countries or cultures. This study provides further evidence that country/culture mean scores in personality are replicable and can provide reliable information about personality dispositions.

Cross-Situational Self-Consistency in Nine Cultures: The Importance of Separating Influences of Social Norms and Distinctive Dispositions

We assessed self-consistency (expressing similar traits in different situations) by having undergraduates in the United States (n = 230), Australia (n = 220), Canada (n = 240), Ecuador (n = 101), Mexico (n = 209), Venezuela (n = 209), Japan (n = 178), Malaysia (n = 254), and the Philippines (n = 241) report the traits they expressed in four different social situations. Self-consistency was positively associated with age, well-being, living in Latin America, and not living in Japan; however, each of these variables showed a unique pattern of associations with various psychologically distinct sources of raw self-consistency, including cross-situationally consistent social norms and injunctions. For example, low consistency between injunctive norms and trait expressions fully explained the low self-consistency in Japan. In accord with trait theory, after removing normative and injunctive sources of consistency, there remained robust distinctive noninjunctive self-consistency (reflecting individuating personality dispositions) in every country, including Japan. The results highlight how clarifying the determinants and implications of self-consistency requires differentiating its distinctive, injunctive, and noninjunctive components.