The Five-Factor Model (FFM) is one of the most dominant and widely acceptedframeworks of personality, however it has been criticised for its primarily Eurocentric individualistic focus on aspects of personality as a result of its development within the English lexicon (McCrae &Terracciano, 2005).The use of imported etic inventories presents an array of difficulties for personality assessment within South Africa, as indigenous and collective personality traits are absent from these measures of personality (Nel, 2008). This study, therefore, aimed to explore the collective dimension of personality using the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) and the Cross-cultural Personality Assessment Inventory-2 (CPAI-2) in a non-probability convenience sample of 489 South African first-year Psychology students from the University of the Witwatersrand. A quantitative section was conducted to investigate the internal consistency reliability, construct validity and construct biasof the collective dimension of the two instruments. From the results it was evident that both instruments had adequate internal consistency reliability for the scales and subscales of the collective dimensions of personality, but some reliability coefficients were low; particularly for Social Desirability and its sub-clusters, as well as Ren Qing, Discipline and Thrift vs Extravagance. Construct validity for the SAPI was found to be problematic in that the five factor structure proposed by Nel (2008) did not replicate; however a three factor structure was found to be the best fit. Construct validity for the CPAI-2 was found to be good in that the six factor structure of the Interpersonal Relatedness factor proposed by Cheung et al. (2008) was replicated. Evidence for construct bias across gender, race and home language was found in both instruments. Finally a qualitative thematic content analysis of data obtained from two focus groups of 19 first year Psychology students from the original sample was conducted and issues related to a general understanding of personality, the innate existence of personality vs the overt expression of personality, collectivism in personality, a national identity, culture, psychometric testing and social desirability were explored. This study thus contributed to both the local and international context in terms of personality theory and assessment in organisations, as well as theoretically to the etic-emic debate.

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