Cross-cultural assessment in South Africa has become more prominent since the first
democratic elections held in April 1994, and stronger demands for the cultural
appropriateness of psychological tests have arisen. The use of psychometric testing, including
personality assessment in the workplace, is now strictly controlled by legislation, among
others the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996), the Labour
Relations Act (66 of 1995), and the Employment Equity Act (55 of 1998), and the Health
Professions Act (56 of 1974).
Much controversy has arisen regarding the relevance and applicability of assessment
instruments in South Africa. The majority of assessment procedures still make use of
imported instruments that are either used in their original or adapted form. Psychological
assessment instruments imported from abroad have an insufficient suitability in the
multicultural South African context. There are various perspectives regarding the appropriate
measurement of personality across cultures. In this research study implicit perspectives of
personality, the lexical approach, indigenous psychology and the emic approach were used to
determine the personality perspectives of the Tsonga culture in South Africa.
The objectives of this study were to investigate how personality is conceptualised in
literature, to identify the problems surrounding personality measurement for the South
African context, to explore how personality perspectives could be determined and to
investigate the personality descriptive terms in the Tsonga language group.
A qualitative research design was used to collect the data of this research. A total of 5 502
personality descriptors were obtained through the 1 0-item interview questionnaires. Content
analysis was used to analyse, reduce and interpret the data obtained from the participants. The
personality descriptors obtained were reduced by removing superfluous words. These
personality descriptors were then interpreted and categorised into a total of 109 personality
dimensions. These characteristics were categorised into nine clusters, namely Optimism,
Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Narrow-mindedness, Intelligence, Conscientiousness,
Aggressiveness, Dominance and Sociability. The following personality dimensions had the
highest frequency: Emotional Stability, Caring, Helpful, Hard working, Advising, Generous,
Traditional, Aggression, Recreational, Substance use, Religious, Sociable and Loving.
Recommendations for future research were made. / Thesis (M.A. (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/1194 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Swanepoel, Crizelle |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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