VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN PERSONALITY AND ACCULTURATION An Exploration of Relations Between Personality Traits and Cultural Goals

This chapter reports the personality profile of Vietnamese Americans and some central components of Vietnamese culture, and explores relationships between Vietnamese personality, culture, and acculturation in the United States. Vietnamese Americans in California and North Carolina took a Vietnamese translation of the International Personality Item Pool version of the NEO-PJ-R (NEO-IPIP; Goldberg, 1999). Procrustes rotation shows a close fit between Vietnamese and U.S. factors structures (factor congruences = .89-.95). Interview, participant observation, and personality measure results provide evidence that Vietnamese Ameri­ cans are low in C4. Unacculturated Vietnamese Americans are low in Openness relative to Americans and acculturated Vietnamese Americans. Hypocognition (Levy, 1984) and canalization (D'Andrade, 1992) pro­ vide models for possible cultural effects on trait expression.