The concept of dispositional resistance to change has been introduced in a series of exploratory and confirmatory analyses through which the validity of the Resistance to Change (RTC) Scale has been established (S. Oreg, 2003). However, the vast majority of participants with whom the scale was validated were from the United States. The purpose of the present work was to examine the meaningfulness of the construct and the validity of the scale across nations. Measurement equivalence analyses of data from 17 countries, representing 13 languages and 4 continents, confirmed the cross-national validity of the scale. Equivalent patterns of relationships between personal values and RTC across samples extend the nomological net of the construct and provide further evidence that dispositional resistance to change holds equivalent meanings across nations.

We tested the hypothesis that only 3 factors of personality description are replicable across many different languages if they are independently derived by a psycholexical approach. Our test was based on 14 trait taxonomies from 12 different languages. Factors were compared at each level of factor extraction with solutions with 1 to 6 factors. The 294 factors in the comparisons were identified using sets of markers of the 6-factor model by correlating the marker scales with the factors. The factor structures were pairwise compared in each case on the basis of the common variables that define the 2 sets of factors. Congruence coefficients were calculated between the varimax rotated structures after Procrustes rotation, where each structure in turn served as a target to which all other structures were rotated. On the basis of average congruence coefficients of all 91 comparisons, we conclude that factor solutions with 3 factors on average are replicable across languages; solutions with more factors are not.

The purpose of the present study is to find the common kernel of different trait taxonomic studies and find out how the individual structures relate to this common kernel. Trait terms from 11 psycholexically based taxonomies were all translated into English. On the basis of the commonalities in English, the 11 matrices were merged into a joint matrix with 7104 subjects and 1993 trait terms. Untranslatable terms produced large areas with missing data. To arrive at the kernel structure of the joint matrix, a simultaneous component analysis was applied. In addition, the kernel structures were compared with the individual taxonomy trait structures, obtained via principal component analysis. The findings provide evidence of a structure consisting of three components to stand out as the core of the taxonomies included in this study; those components were named dynamism, affiliation, and order. Moreover, the relations between these three kernel components and those of a six-component solution (completing the sixfactor model) are provided. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology Key words: lexical studies; cross-cultural research; statistical methods In order to arrive at an estimation of cross-cultural tenability of a trait structural model, generally two different routes can be followed. The first is that items based on a trait structure from one language or culture are translated and tested in another language for its applicability. This approach is often referred to by cross-cultural psychologists as the etic or even imposed-etic (Berry, 1969) approach. The second route, typically followed in the psycholexical approach to personality (De Raad, 2000), is that trait structures that are different in terms of number and nature of variables from different languages or cultures are compared as follows: (i) content-wise and/or (ii) by using psychometric means. Content-wise comparisons generally yield higher estimates of the number of cross-culturally valid factors than assessments through psychometric means (e.g. Brokken, 1978; cf. De Raad, Barelds, Levert, et al., 2010). This paper is positioned between the two forces of this second route, aiming to keep a balance between what is clear and valid in terms of content and what is psychometrically wise. In what follows, we come across more forces that are pushing and pulling with reference to what a proper cross-culturally valid model of personality traits should or could be. Some relate to an interest in what lies beyond the Big Five, some to a strict cross-cultural tenability, some to a belief in an early phrased Big Five model, and some to cultural-contextual informative accounts of personality dimensions. The interest of most cross-cultural studies is in both what is common to the trait structures under investigation and in how they differ, often with an emphasis on one or the other. The present study has its primary interest indeed in what may be seen as the common kernel to all.De Raad, Barelds, Levert, et al. (2010) pairwise compared t...

In this article, we describe the factor structure in both self-reports and peer ratings of the items in a cross-cultural Big-Five inventory in Croatia. Using 2 versions of an inventory developed from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999), this is one of the first cross-national analyses of these IPIP measures. A large sample of university students (N = 519) used the translated Croatian version of the 100-item IPIP Big Five inventory to describe themselves, and they were also described by 515 of their acquaintances on the same instrument. In separate analyses of both self-reports and peer ratings, the 100-item and 50-item versions of these IPIP measures showed clear Five-factor orthogonal structures that were nearly identical to the American structure. These factors were strongly related on a one-to-one basis with those derived from a Croatian translation of Goldberg's (1992) bipolar rating scales.

No abstract

A dictionary is the tangible repository of the common stock of words, although dictionaries comprise at best 10% of the full lexicon. Part of the lexicon is made up of the words used to describe what people do and what people are like. The psycholexical approach to personality focuses on this subset of words and on its exploitation, or what can be said to be the glossary of personality. This chapter is concerned with the history of the psycholexical approach to personality description, from ancient history to the more recent efforts, albeit focusing in particular on its modern history. Psycholexical taxonomies from around the world will be considered, as well as taxonomies based on nouns, verbs, adverbs, and their combinations. Ongoing controversies, difficulties, and disputes regarding alternative psycholexical personality structures will be considered, as well as recommendations for future research.

The field of dispositional traits of personality is best summarized in terms of five fundamental dimensions: the Big Five personality trait factors, namely Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect. The Big Five find their origin in psycho-lexical work in which the lexicon of a language is scanned for all words that can inform about personality traits. The Big Five factors have emerged most articulately in Indo-European languages in Europe and the United States, and weaker versions have appeared in non-Indo-European languages. The model is most functional and detailed in a format that integrates simple structure and circular representations. Such a format gives the Big Five system great accommodative potential, meaning that many or most of the concepts developed in approaches other than the Big Five can be located in that system, thus enhancing the communication about personality traits in the field. The Big Five model has been applied in virtually all disciplines of psychology, including clinical, social, organizational, and developmental psychology. In particular, the Big Five have been found useful in the field of learning and education where the factor Conscientiousness has been identified as a strong predictor of academic performance, but where other factors of the Big Five also have been demonstrated to play important roles, often in moderating or mediating sense. The Big Five model has faced a number of critical issues, one of which concerns the criteria of inclusion of trait-descriptive words from the lexicon. With relaxed criteria, allowing more than just dispositional trait words (e.g., trait words that are predominantly evaluative in nature), additional dimensions may emerge beyond the Big Five, mostly conveying features of morality. An important issue regards the cross-cultural applicability of trait-descriptive dimensions. With a cross-cultural emphasis, possibly no more than three factors, expressive of traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, make the best chance for claims of universality. For a good understanding of traits representing the remaining Big Five dimensions, and also dimensions that have sometimes been identified beyond the Big Five, it is not only important to specify their regional applicability, but also to articulate differences in research methodology.

No abstract