Abstract
Self and relatedness are the two most essential dimensions of personality, as indicated in many personality theories, and have been supported by numerous empirical studies conducted in the western (individualistic) and eastern (collectivist) contexts. However, because of a confusion or failure to distinguish the structure and function of personality, popular theories (e.g., the Big Five model) do not make logic distinctions between these two basic personality dimensions. In terms of the cultural-relevant feature, both self and relatedness and their specific aspects may be variously highlighted in different cultural settings. On the basis of a re-examination of several crucial two-dimension (namely, self and relatedness) personality theories derived from the east and west, we reconstruct a new two polarities personality model to include not only self and relatedness but also the independent and interdependent functions in terms of some popular personality theories from western and eastern cultures. Theoretically and empirically, self and relatedness should be the basic structures of personality, whereas independence and interdependence should be the basic functions of personality. Self and relatedness have independent and interdependent functions; however, due to the cultural relevance of personality, the functions should be variously emphasized in different contexts. Several possible future research directions are discussed.
Highlights
As mainstream of personality psychology (e.g., Eysenck, 1970; McCrae and Costa, 1989; Ashton et al, 2009), most western-derived models have been strongly concerned with intrapsychic dimensions and the lives of people as individuals—such as their occupation, marriage status, family, and age
Due to the differences between eastern and western cultures these binary personality theories derived from the east or the west showed some unique characteristics of self and relatedness, which have led to certain differences in understanding personality by scholars from east and west
We first propose a new twopolarities model, and deconstruct those existing dualistic personality models derived from west or east and reconstruct the structure and function of self and relatedness from a crosscultural perspective
Summary
As mainstream of personality psychology (e.g., Eysenck, 1970; McCrae and Costa, 1989; Ashton et al, 2009), most western-derived models have been strongly concerned with intrapsychic dimensions and the lives of people as individuals—such as their occupation, marriage status, family, and age. An individual’s interactions with real or imagined non-specific unidentified others as the generalized audience in the social environment may form other-oriented attributes such as face (i.e., mianzi in Chinese, Zhai, 2013) and defensiveness (Cheung et al, 1996, 2013) These four levels of personality traits are composed of a person’s personality structure for people of all cultures, but different dimensions are given differing importance depending on the cultural background of individualism or collectivism. We first propose a new twopolarities model, and deconstruct those existing dualistic personality models derived from west or east and reconstruct the structure and function of self and relatedness from a crosscultural perspective
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