Abstract: The Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory (CPAI) is an indigenously developed personality measure, which covers both universal and culture-specific personality dimensions. We argue that a combined emic-etic approach reflects the broader psychological reality and is a useful approach to advance our understanding of psychology cross-culturally. We examine subgroup differences in the CPAI-2 normative sample to illustrate variations and continuity of personality characteristics within the same culture. Sex and age differences on mean scores of the CPAI-2 scales are consistent with expected variations associated socialization and developmental stages. There is no consistent pattern of variations across Hong Kong and different geographical regions within Mainland China. Within-culture and cross-cultural differences illustrate the continuity of individual differences in personality, and the dialectics of emic and etic constructs.

Key words: Chinese personality, CPAI, Group differences