 32. Culture and Personality  697
cognitive flexibility, and not by other psy -
chological attributes such as self-  affirmation 
needs, novelty seeking, and generalized per -
sistence. Apparently, the high experiential 
diversity afforded by speaking multiple lan -
guages and/or belonging to multiple social/
cultural/racial groups brings gains in cogni -
tive flexibility, a skill that in turn leads to 
gains in creativity and tolerance to ambigu -
ity. These attributes are an indispensable 
skill in our global world.
New Developments and  Future  Directions
Our personalities shape the cultural con -
texts in which we live (personality → cul -
ture effects) by influencing both microcul -
tural spaces (e.g., personal spaces, music 
preferences, content, style of personal Web 
pages, geographical preferences; Gosling, 
Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002; Oishi, 
Lee, & Talhelm, 2015; Rentfrow & Gosling, 
2003; Vazire & Gosling, 2004) and macro -
cultural elements (e.g., political orientation 
and participation; e.g., Gallego & Oberski, 
2012). McCrae (2004) theorizes that aggre -
gate levels of certain traits may contribute to 
and reinforce features of cultures such as in -
dividualism versus collectivism. In fact, per -
sonality effects (at individual, interpersonal, 
or social/institutional levels) are ubiquitous, 
influencing each of us all the time, and when 
aggregated to the population level, such ef -
fects are routinely consequential (Ozer & 
Benet-Martínez, 2006). In short, we believe 
that future cultural work in personality 
will benefit from using designs in which re -
searchers also explore personality effects on 
culture.
Future cultural research in personality 
can also benefit from exciting methodologi -
cal advances in the analysis of individual 
and cultural data (Van de Vijver, Van Hem -
ert, & Poortinga, 2008). Because cultural, 
social, and personality processes operating 
at the individual level may not replicate at 
the cultural level, and vice versa (K. Leung 
& Bond, 1989; see Benet-Martínez, 2007, 
Tables 3 and 4), researchers can use multi -
level modeling and latent-  class techniques 
to deal with these complexities (e.g., Eid & 
Diener, 2001; Reeskens & Wright, 2011). 
These (still relatively underused) techniques have the potential to foster a fruitful synergy 
between the fields of personality and social 
psychology—  which have provided a wealth 
of information regarding individual- and 
group-level characteristics (e.g., traits and 
values, majority/minority status)—and the 
fields of economics, anthropology, and so -
ciology, which are very informative regard -
ing culture-  level phenomena (e.g., economy, 
religion, and many other key demographic 
factors).
Conclusion
As shown in this chapter, the contribution of 
culture and personality research is substan -
tial, ranging from elucidating links between 
individual and ecological influences on per -
sonality to dispelling cultural stereotypes 
and national characters, to testing theory 
generalizability and revealing how person -
ality influences and is influenced by multi -
cultural and globalization experiences. Fur -
thermore, cultural personality studies bring 
about tangible societal benefits by offering 
scientists, managers, policymakers, and the 
public ways to understand, manage, and 
benefit from the omnipresent cultural diver -
sity that characterizes our society (Fowers & 
Richardson, 1996).
Once again, the excitement for research 
on culture and personality is palpable. The 
grand ambition of early culture and per -
sonality researchers (e.g., C. Kluckhohn & 
Murray, 1948) can be realized with more 
measurement precision and more sophis -
ticated data-  analytic techniques than ever 
before. Culture and personality research is 
finally fulfilling its promise to cultivate new 
and exciting horizons beyond the traditional 
research agendas.
NOTES
1. It is worth noting that there are other ap -
proaches as well, such as examining personality 
in specific ethnic/minority groups (e.g., López & 
Contreras, 2005); these are beyond the scope of this 
review.
2. Interestingly, cross-  cultural group differences 
can also be understood from this framework. Ac -
cording to the “culture-  as- situated-  cognition” 
perspective (Oyserman, Sorensen, Reber, Chen, & 