A lot of contemporary psychology research is based on the assumption that there are five basic dimensions of personality that define people around the world.
It’s called the “Big Five” personality model, and it assumes that each of our personalities are a unique blend of a handful of traits: extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. The thinking is that we’re all pretty much made up of the same five core ingredients, even if the measurements differ from person to person. Insights gleaned from personality tests based on the Big Five framework are frequently used to understand trends related to issues like crime, education, employment, wages and more.
Whether these personality traits are truly universal is still a matter of debate. But a new analysis by an international research team highlights an important caveat when it comes to administering cookie-cutter personality tests across cultures: these tests aren’t one-size-fits-all. And this is problematic, the researchers say, because most personality tests used in developing countries are modeled on the ones used in white, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic societies (or, more concisely, WEIRD, an acronym used in the research community).
