Trait structure and levels in Hmong Americans: A test of the Five Factor Model of personality
Author(s):
Moua, Ger Kaocherpao
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : Washington State University, 2006.
Pages:
94
Language:
English
Abstract:
The present study had three goals. First, the generalizability of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality for a Hmong American sample was investigated using a Hmong translation of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992), Second, Hmong personality was examined by comparing their NEO-PI-R facet and domain scores with American norms, Third, the Asian American Multidimensional Acculturation Scale (AAMAS; Chung, Kim, & Abreu, 2004), was used to examine the relationship between Hmong NEO-PI-R personality scores and acculturation level. The generalizability of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) was investigated in a Hmong American sample of 140 men and 116 women. Of 256 total participants, 69 completed both versions of the NEO-PI-R on two occasions with a mean retest interval of two weeks. The results of the bilingual test-retest study indicated that approximately 10% of the Hmong NEO-PI-R items exhibited some language inequivalencies, particularly in the Openness to Experience dimension. Replication of the five-factor model in factor analyses was more problematic than in most previous studies with the NEO-PI-R, although replication was fairly good after applying Procrustes factor rotations, which targeted the Hmong factors to the American normative structure. Although advocates of the five-factor model increasingly use the NEO-PI-R for intercultural comparisons, findings in the present study add to remaining uncertainties about the meaningfulness of such comparisons. For example, although 20 Hmong American judges exhibited fairly good agreement on which NEO-PI-R traits should exhibit cultural mean differences between Hmong and European Americans, the actual mean profiles only agreed with these predictions for 14 out of 30 traits. Multiple regression analyses suggested that Hmong American personality traits differ as a function of acculturation. This finding would provide more evidence to dispute the Five-Factor Theory of personality which states that environmental factors like acculturation have little effect on personality traits. In general, Hmong orientation was associated primarily with greater conscientiousness, particularly the more constrained aspects reflecting order, discipline, and deliberation. In contrast, American orientation was associated with more expansive or agentic aspects of personality, including extraversion, openness to feelings and novel activities, and the more willful, rather than constrained, aspects of conscientiousness.