despite its limitations ( Boyle, 2008 ), there is evidence that the Five-Factor Model (FFM, comprising constructs
labeled Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) can be discerned univer-
sally. On the other hand, although the Western FFM may be found in all cultures, the model may not adequately
capture culture-specific aspects of personality which may exist beyond the universal aspects of personality.
Studies in China, for example, provide evidence that the FFM gives an incomplete rendering of Chinese personal-
ity; the model does not adequately measure the relational aspects of personality (e.g., the extent to which a per-
son fits into his or her group, as a salient aspect of Chinese personality). Similarly, studies in various cultural
groups in South Africa suggest that Agreeableness is too narrow a trait to cover all major social aspects of person-
ality, such as softheartedness (involving aspects such as amiability, gratefulness, and empathy) and relationship
harmony (involving aspects such as accommodating, flexibility, and humbleness; Nel et al., 2012 ). These concepts
were frequently mentioned in semi-structured interviews when persons from all major ethnic groups in South
Africa were asked to describe persons they know well. These interviews also revealed clusters of personality
descriptions that could be captured in terms of the FFM; Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness could
be easily discerned in the data, while Openness was found both in terms of intellect and broadmindedness.
Translations and Adaptations
The traditional view in cross-cultural assessment held that rendering an instrument in a different language
required mainly linguistic expertise. More recently, the view is that such a process requires a combination of lin-
guistic, psychometric, and cultural expertise. A good example of such a modern, integrated approach to test trans-
lation can be found in the Guidelines for Adapting Educational and Psychological Tests (Hambleton, 1994, 2001 ; see also
the International Test Commission at www.intestcom.org ). Translating is more than producing a text in a target
language that is semantically equivalent to the meaning in the source language. Linguistic, psychometric, and cul-
tural criteria address somewhat different aspects of translations. Linguistic criteria involve equality of, among other
things, semantic meaning, comprehensibility, readability, and style. Psychometric criteria involve the need to fol-
low good practice of item writing and to assess the adequacy of test translations using statistical means. Cultural
criteria involve the appropriateness of item content in the target culture and compliance with its norms and habits.
Depending on the degree of convergence of the three criteria, two different options in test translation may be
appropriate ( Van de Vijver & Poortinga, 2005 ). The first is the conventional close translation of an instrument in a
target language. This option is most frequently chosen in empirical research because it is simple to implement,
cheap, has high face validity, and retains the opportunity to compare scores obtained with the instrument across
all translations. Often the aim is the comparison of constructs or mean scores across different cultures. Close trans-
lations have an important limitation: They can only be used when the items in the source and target language ver-
sions provide adequate coverage of the construct measured and no items show bias. Standard statistical techniques
for assessing equivalence (e.g., factor analysis) should be applied to assess the similarity of constructs measured by
the various language versions. However, even when the structures are identical, there is no guarantee that the
translations are culturally viable and that a locally developed instrument would cover the same aspects.
The second option is labeled adaptation, wherein some items are modified so as to increase their psychometric
or cultural appropriateness. Adapting an instrument usually starts from the recognition that close translations
will not be adequate for all items and would lead to a linguistically, culturally, or psychometrically inappropriate
measure in the target language. Comparison of scores obtained with adapted instruments is problematic as not
all stimuli are identical across the languages. However, recent psychometric advances such as item response the-
ory (e.g., Hambleton, Swaminathan, & Rogers, 1991 ) and structural equation modeling (e.g., Kline, 2010 ) allow
for numerical score comparisons across language versions even in the case of test adaptations. In multilingual
studies adaptations are more popular in psychology nowadays than translations.
Bias and Equivalence
Bias is the generic name of an important family of rival explanations ( Poortinga, 1989 ). It refers to the common
problem in the assessment of nonequivalent groups, that scores obtained in different cultural groups are not an ade-
quate reflection of the groups’ standing on the construct underlying the particular measurement instrument. If scores
are biased, their psychological meaning is group-dependent and group differences in assessment outcome are to be
accounted for, at least to some extent, by auxiliary psychological constructs or measurement artifacts. A closely
related concept is equivalence which refers to the absence of bias and hence, to similarity of meaning of an instrument753 26. MEASURES OF PERSONALITY ACROSS CULTURES
VI. SOCIOCULTURAL INTERACTION AND CONFLICT