Cross-Cultural Second Order Factor Structures of the 16PF

Cross-cultural personality research has generated a great amount of data on individual difference patterns in diverse cultures. One of the major instruments used in this research has been Cattell's 16PF. A major question in this research is whether the underlying personality structure is equivalent for different cultures. The present study evaluated the second order factor structure of the 16PF in 101 subjects of European ancestry and 117 subjects of Japanese ancestry. The factor structure for the Japanese was significantly different from that of the caucasian group. The caucasian results did not differ from those reported by Cattell and his associates. The implications of these results for personality theory and for cross-cultural evaluation were briefly discussed.