Veronica Benet-Martinez

Associate Professor

Department of Psychology

Ph.D., University of California at Davis, 1996

I am interested I the following questions: How do culture and ethnicity shape our identities and personalities? As people of varying cultures and ethnicities, how are we different and how are we alike? How do individuals who have internalized more than one culture develop a cohesive multicultural identity? How is culture (re)created and enacted in people's everyday activities?

I approach each of these questions with the hope of enhancing society's understanding of and appreciation for human variation across cultures, bringing awareness to the different ways in which culture and human psyche mutually constitute each other, and promoting the value of these ideas for a healthy and diverse society. Although my discipline is personality psychology, my perspective has been shaped by multiple and distinct intellectual traditions, including cultural and social psychology, ethnic studies, and anthropology.

My research program has three main lines of inquiry: (1) Biculturalism: Contextual and individual processes involved in the integration of two or more cultural identities; (2) Culture and personality structure: Identification and measurement of indigenous and universal personality constructs; and (3) Culture and social symbols: How cultural meaning is carried and institutionalized by everyday social tools (e.g., flags, advertisements).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Benet-Martínez, V. & Karakitapoglu-Aygun, Z. (2003). The interplay of cultural values and personality in predicting life-satisfaction: Comparing Asian- and European-Americans. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 34 , 38-61.

Haritatos, J. & Benet-Martínez, V. (2002). Bicultural identities: The interface of cultural, personality, and socio-cognitive processes. Journal of Research in Personality, 6 , 598-606.

Benet-Martínez, V., Leu, J., Lee, F., & Morris, M. (2002). Negotiating biculturalism: Cultural frame-switching in biculturals with 'oppositional' vs. 'compatible' cultural identities. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33 , 492-516.

Aaker, J., Benet-Martínez, V., & Garolera, J. (2001). Consumption symbols as carriers of culture: A study of Japanese and Spanish brand personality constructs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 249-264.

Hong, Y., Morris, M., Chiu, C., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55, 709-720.

John, O.P. & Benet-Martínez, V. (2000). Measurement, scale construction, and reliability. In H.T. Reis and C.M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 339-369). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Benet-Martínez, V. (1999). Exploring indigenous Spanish personality constructs with a combined emic-etic approach. In J.C. Lasry, J.G. Adair, & K.L. Dion (Eds.). Latest contributions to cross-cultural psychology (pp. 151-175). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinge.

Benet-Martínez, V. & John, O.P. (1998). Los Cinco Grandes across cultures and ethnic groups: Multitrait method analyses of the Big Five in Spanish and English. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 729-750.

Benet-Martínez, V. & Waller, N. G. (1997). Further evidence for the cross-cultural generality of the ‘Big Seven’ model: Imported and indigenous Spanish personality constructs. Journal of Personality, 65, 567-598.

Benet, V. & Waller, N. G. (1995). The ‘Big Seven’ model of personality description: Evidence for its cross-cultural generality in a Spanish sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 701-718.