Personality in cultural context: Methodological issues

Methodological issues in cultural and cross-cultural personality research a re described. A taxonomy of these studies is presented, based on whether a study is exploratory or tests hypotheses, and whether or not contextual inf ormation is measured. Core methodological issues are bias and equivalence; a taxonomy and a brief overview of statistical procedures to examine equiva lence are presented, with a focus on procedures for assessing structural eq uivalence (i.e., similarity of meaning of an instrument across cultures). E xamples are given of studies in which cultural and cross-cultural approache s, often seen as antithetical, have been fruitfully integrated. Finally, mu ltilevel models are described in which personality characteristics are exam ined at individual and cultural level.