Personality, Culture and Career Assessment

This article reviews the literature on indigenisation of personality measures, including adaptations of existing, well-established Western ones, and justifies in detail the need in India. It is evident that despite over 200 ‘indigenous’ instruments mentioned in the National Library of Educational and Psychological Tests, apparently none has gained widespread awareness even among practitioners, not to mention anything about their use. These instruments seem to lack adequate, scientific evidence of their reliability, validity and/or documentation. Also, they do not appear to be featured in the literature. The indigenisation efforts and developments in other Asian countries are discussed. The cross-cultural applications of Western tools are deliberated upon. To capture the real essence of local culture and cultural understanding, we propose the need for a combined etic–emic approach to indigenisation, and briefly discuss other approaches as a way to appreciate both, the universality and the cultural sensitivity reflecting personality in the sample. The article ends with a suggestion to develop, validate, test and use indigenised personality measures by spreading awareness of their value in various socio-culturally distinct contexts like India.