This article was downloaded by: [DUT Library]On: 09 October 2014, At: 10:56Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

The Journal of SocialPsychologyPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vsoc20

Personality Structure AmongBlack and White South AfricansPatrick C. L. Heaven a & Annelie Pretorius ba University of Wollongong , Australiab University of the Orange Free State , South AfricaPublished online: 03 Apr 2010.

To cite this article: Patrick C. L. Heaven & Annelie Pretorius (1998) PersonalityStructure Among Black and White South Africans, The Journal of Social Psychology,138:5, 664-666, DOI: 10.1080/00224549809600422

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224549809600422

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

DU

T L

ibra

ry]

at 1

0:56

09

Oct

ober

201

4

The Journal of Social Psychology, 1998, 138(5). 664-666

Personality Structure Among Black and White South Africans

PATRICK C. L. HEAVEN University of Wollongong, Australia

ANNELIE PRETORIUS University of the Orange Free State, South Africa

THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESENT STUDY was to test, with the aid of an imported measure, the robustness of the Big Five personality taxonomy among two culturally distinct groups of South Africans. Several non-American studies have used imported measures of personality and natural language terms, and some have identified factors easily recognizable as belonging to the Big Five. Heaven, Connors, and Stones (1994) uncovered five factors among Australian undergraduates, using adjective terms borrowed from John (1990): Neuroti- cisdemotional stability (N), Extraversiodintroversion (E), Openness to experi- ence (0), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C). Likewise, Borkenau and Ostendorf (1990) also found evidence of five factors in a German sample: Using a German translation of the NEO inventory as well as adjective markers developed by Norman (1963), they found that five factors were replicated across sexes as well as across instruments.

Not all cross-cultural research with imported measures, however, has yield- ed easily interpretable dimensions. Heaven and colleagues (Heaven et al., 1994) were unable to uncover five predicted dimensions in a sample of Black South African university students. Using a list of English trait adjectives proposed by John ( 1990), the authors found that items normally associated with agreeableness (A), conscientiousness (C), and openness to experience (0) loaded significantly on one dimension; contrary to expectations, introversion (E-) and extraversion (E+) items were observed to load on separate dimensions.

This nonreplication among the African respondents is difficult to explain. On the one hand, the results may reflect the fact that respondents completed questionnaires in English rather than in their mother language. African languages

Address all correspondence to Patrick C. L. Heaven, Department of Psychology, Univer- sity of Wollongong, Wollogong, NSW 2250, Australia; e-mail: <Patrick-Heaven@ uow.edu.au>.

664

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

DU

T L

ibra

ry]

at 1

0:56

09

Oct

ober

201

4

Heaven & Pretorius 665

are still widely used across the country on a day-to-day basis especially in all the townships and rural areas. However, English is spoken at the national level, is used by all the major political movements in South Africa, and remains the dominant medium of communication among educated Black South Africans. Instruction in traditionally Black universities is conducted in English, and the newspaper with the largest Black readership in South Africa is printed in English. Thus, one would expect that those with a moderate level of education (such as university students) would be familiar with English trait words in common usage.

The purpose of the present research, therefore, was to re-investigate the underlying structure of language descriptors (John, 1990) among non-English- speaking South Africans. Two groups of respondents were used, and they com- pleted questionnaires in their native (non-English) tongue. Respondents were introductory students enrolled in social science courses at two universities in a provincial city of South Africa: 247 Black Sotho-speaking students and 155 Afrikaans-speaking (mainly White) students. All respondents were provided with a test booklet containing the 112 natural language descriptors as suggested by John (1990). The original English adjectives were translated into Afrikaans and Sotho, using back translations.

Respondents volunteered to participate in the research and completed the questionnaires during class time under supervision of the second author. Ques- tionnaires were completed anonymously, and respondents were assured that data would be used for research purposes only. The questionnaire took about 20 min to complete.

Data for both language groups were subjected to a principal components analysis followed by rotation to oblimin solution. A five-component extraction was conducted for each data set. In all analyses, factor loadings greater than S O were regarded as significant. Five clearly interpretable components explaining 37.7% of the variance emerged for the Afrikaans-speaking group. The first com- ponent was labeled A and explained 14.1 % of the variance; the second compo- nent, explaining 8.1% of the variance, was labeled E; the third component was labeled N (6.5% of the variance), the fourth was labeled C (5.0% of the variance), and the fifth was clearly 0 (4.0% of the variance). These results support earlier work among English-speaking samples using these adjectives (Heaven et al., 1994; John, 1990).

A quite different pattern emerged for the Sotho group. The first component contained items originally classified as 0, E, A, C, and N, which explained 16.1% of the variance. The second component loaded significantly on N items (plus 1 C item) and seems to be clearly N; it explained 7.3% of the variance. The third component loaded on A and C items (3.4% of the variance), and the fourth component loaded on only two items, both of which are E-related, and explained 3.5% of the variance. Fina!ly, the fifth component was a mixture of E, A, and C items and explained 2.7% of the variance.

The Afrikaner data appear to fit best with a five-component taxonomy, yield-

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

DU

T L

ibra

ry]

at 1

0:56

09

Oct

ober

201

4

666 The Journal of Social Psychology

ing the dimensions A, E, N, C, and 0. This finding is in line with earlier work with this specific instrument (e.g., Heaven et al., 1994; John, 1990). The clearest factor to emerge among the Sotho group was an emotional stability factor. Thus, we conclude that the existing taxonomy of natural language terms is inadequate for describing personality dimensions among Sothos and requires the develop- ment of locally constructed measures.

Thus, within-nation differences in social experiences lead to “culture-level” (Smith & Bond, 1993) variations in personality. Church and Katigbak (1989, p. 869) have argued that “certain universal dimensions of personality arise in each society, in response to biological or evolutionary imperatives or to univer- sal sociocultural dilemmas, for which language terms are then developed.” A dif- ferent set of language terms must be used (and locally developed) to reflect the unique cultural and life experiences of Black South Africans. Future research among Black African respondents therefore would do well to make use of indige- nous instruments so as to adequately uncover the personality taxonomy of those groups.

REFERENCES

Borkenau, P., & Ostendorf, F. (1990). Comparing exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis: A study on the 5-factor model of personality. Personality & Individual Differ- ences, 1 1 , 5 15-524.

Church, A. T., & Katigbak, M. S. (1989). Internal, external, and self-report structure of personality in a non-western culture: An investigation of cross-language and cross-cul- tural generalizability. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 57, 857-872.

Heaven, P., Connors, J., & Stones, C. (1994). Three or five personality dimensions? An analysis of natural language terms in two cultures. Personality & Individual Differ- ences, 17, 181-189.

John, 0. P. (1990). The “Big Five” factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the nat- ural language and in questionnaires. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook ofpersonaliry: Theory and research (pp. 66-100). New York: Guilford Press.

Norman, W. T. (1963). Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes: Replicat- ed factor structure in peer nomination personality ratings. Journal of Abnormal & Social Psychology, 66, 574-583.

Smith, P. B., & Bond, M. H. (1993). Social psychology across cultures: Analysis andper- spectives. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Received February 28, 1997

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

DU

T L

ibra

ry]

at 1

0:56

09

Oct

ober

201

4