Your past is not their present: Time, the other, and ethnocentrism in cross-cultural personality psychology

Abstract

Recent cross-cultural studies of personality traits have been ambitious in their scope, bringing together dozens of researchers to measure personality across many cultures. The key claim made in this paper is that a persistent form of ethnocentrism mars the presentation and interpretation of findings in cross-cultural studies of personality traits using evolutionary approaches. It is a form long-established as problematic and referred to in anthropology and related social science disciplines as allochronic discourse. A significant research report will be analysed to explore how allochronic discourse, conceptualizations of time, and representations of “otherness” are utilized. The reproduction of allochronic discourse is argued to indicate a need for cross-cultural personality psychologists to engage in multi-disciplinary debate, embrace innovative methodologies, and acknowledge the cultural specificity of its own conceptual frameworks. © 2012, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.