68 Chapter 2 Theories of Personality
Moreover, almost every society contains
cultural variations. The United States has an
individualist culture overall, but the South,
with its history of strong regional identity, is
more collectivist than the rugged, independent
West (Vandello & Cohen, 1999). The collectiv-
ist Chinese and the Japanese both value group
harmony, but the Chinese are more likely to
also promote individual achievement, whereas
the Japanese are more likely to strive for group
consensus (Dien, 1999; Lu, 2008). Within the
United States, African Americans are more likely
than white Americans to blend elements of the
larger culture’s individualism with African col-
lectivism. That fact may help explain why an
individualist philosophy predicts grade-point
average for white students, but collectivist val-
ues are a better predictor for black students
(Komarraju & Cokley, 2008). Average cross-
cultural differences, even in a dimension as influ-
ential as individualist-collectivist, are not rigidly
fixed or applicable to everyone within a society
(Oyserman & Lee, 2008).
Finally, despite their differences, cultures
share many human concerns and the needs for
love, attachment, family, work, and religious or
communal tradition. Nonetheless, cultural rules
are what, on average, make Swedes different from
Bedouins and Cambodians different from Italians.
The traits that we value, our sense of self versus
community, and our notions of the right way
to behave—all key aspects of personality—begin
with the culture in which we are raised.and squabbles. After a few years, they visited his
family home in Lebanon, where she had never been
before. “I was stunned,” she told us. “All the things I
thought he did because of his personality turned out
to be because he’s Lebanese! Everyone there was just
like him!”
Our friend’s reaction illustrates both the
contributions and the limitations of cultural
studies of personality. She was right in recogniz-
ing that some of her
husband’s behav-
ior was attributable
to his culture; his
Lebanese notions
of time were indeed
different from her
English notions. But
she was wrong to infer that the Lebanese are all
“just like him.” The challenge in cultural psy-
chology is how to describe cultural influences on
personality without oversimplifying or stereotyp-
ing (Church & Lonner, 1998). As one student of
ours put it, “How come when we students speak
of ‘the’ Japanese or ‘the’ blacks or ‘the’ whites or
‘the’ Latinos, it’s called stereotyping, and when
you do it, it’s called ‘cross-cultural psychology’?”
This question shows excellent critical think-
ing! The study of culture does not rest on the
assumption that all members of a culture behave
the same way or have the same personality traits.
As we have seen, people vary according to their
temperaments, beliefs, and learning histories, and
this variation occurs within every culture.Control InsultPercent Change in Cortisol Level 3035404550556065707580850Southern
SubjectsNorthern
SubjectsControl InsultPercent Change in Testosterone Level510150Southern
SubjectsNorthern
SubjectsFiguRE 2.2 Aggression and Cultures of Honor
As these two graphs show, when young men from Northern states were insulted in an
experiment, they shrugged it off, thinking it was funny or unimportant. But for young
Southern men, levels of the stress hormone cortisol and of testosterone shot up, and
they were more likely to retaliate aggressively (Cohen et al., 1996).About Culture and
PersonalityThinking
CriTiCally