Trait and cultural psychology perspectives on cross-role consistency and its relation to adjustment were examined in 2 individualistic cultures, the United States (N=231) and Australia (N=195), and 4 collectivistic cultures, Mexico (N=199), the Philippines (N=195), Malaysia (N=217), and Japan (N=180). Cross-role consistency in trait ratings was evident in all cultures, supporting trait perspectives. Cultural comparisons of mean consistency provided support for cultural psychology perspectives as applied to East Asian cultures (i.e., Japan) but not collectivistic cultures more generally. Some but not all of the hypothesized predictors of consistency were supported across cultures. Cross-role consistency predicted aspects of adjustment in all cultures, but prediction was most reliable in the U.S. sample and weakest in the Japanese sample. Alternative constructs proposed by cultural psychologists--personality coherence, social appraisal, and relationship harmony--predicted adjustment in all cultures but were not, as hypothesized, better predictors of adjustment in collectivistic cultures than in individualistic cultures.
We assessed self-consistency (expressing similar traits in different situations) by having undergraduates in the United States ( n = 230), Australia ( n = 220), Canada ( n = 240), Ecuador ( n = 101), Mexico ( n = 209), Venezuela ( n = 209), Japan ( n = 178), Malaysia ( n = 254), and the Philippines ( n = 241) report the traits they expressed in four different social situations. Self-consistency was positively associated with age, well-being, living in Latin America, and not living in Japan; however, each of these variables showed a unique pattern of associations with various psychologically distinct sources of raw self-consistency, including cross-situationally consistent social norms and injunctions. For example, low consistency between injunctive norms and trait expressions fully explained the low self-consistency in Japan. In accord with trait theory, after removing normative and injunctive sources of consistency, there remained robust distinctive noninjunctive self-consistency (reflecting individuating personality dispositions) in every country, including Japan. The results highlight how clarifying the determinants and implications of self-consistency requires differentiating its distinctive, injunctive, and noninjunctive components.