Localizing the imperial outreach - The Big Five and more in Chinese culture

Comprehensive measures of the personality sphere have been developed in the West and widely used in other cultural settings. Such importation has adva ntages for economizing resources but short circuits the development of loca l personality theory This article describes work on indigenous personality measurement in Chinese cultural settings using the lexical and questionnair e approaches of trait theory. In both cases, locally developed measures def ine the personality sphere differently and reveal a dimension of personalit y variation not detected by imported and purportedly comprehensive instrume nts. The additional dimension revealed from the questionnaire approach has been labeled Chinese Tradition. Facets from this dimension have been shown to add power to the imported measures in predicting social outcomes. It may thus be prudent to encourage the development of measures derived from loca l cultural traditions to ensure a truly comprehensive and effective coverag e of the personality sphere.