ASHTON AND LEE Cross–Cultural Personality Structure THE LEXICAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE: TOWARD THE IDENTIFICATION OF CROSS–CULTURALLY REPLICABLE DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY VARIATION Michael C. Ashton, PhD, and Kibeom Lee, PhD The structure of personality variation is discussed from the perspective of the lexical approach, which is based on the examination of relations among personality–descriptive adjectives that are indigenous to various languages. The results of this approach—which reveal a cross–culturally replicated set of six dimensions—are described. Specifically, the obtained structure corresponds rather closely to the Five–Factor Model, but differs from that model in the nature of the Agreeableness and Emotional- ity/Neuroticism factors and also in the existence of a sixth factor known as Honesty–Humility. It is suggested that the emergence of this structure provides support for attempts to establish a cross–culturally generalizable structural model that could summarize normal and abnormal personality variation. To find a cross–culturally generalizable structural model for personality traits, we need to analyze variable sets that have two important properties. First, the variables should be indigenous to the culture in which they are to be analyzed; that is, we should study personality traits that are recognized within the culture in question. Second, the variables should provide a broad and even representation of the full domain of personality variation, rather than a special emphasis on traits that strongly define the factors of any hy- pothesized model of personality structure. The method by which personality researchers have obtained variable sets that meet the above requirements (i.e., of being indigenous to each culture and of being neutral with regard to proposed structural models) has been to use the lexical approach to personality structure (e.g., Ashton & Lee, 2005; Goldberg, 1981; Saucier & Goldberg, 1996). In this strategy, researchers use the person- ality lexicon of a given language to derive a large set of personality variables. 303 Journal of Personality Disorders, 19(3), 303-308, 2005 © 2005 The Guilford Press From Brock University (M.C.A.) and the University of Calgary (K.L.) This research was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grants 410–2003–0946 and 410–2003–1835. We thank Thomas Widiger and John Livesley for comments on earlier versions of this article. Address correspondence to Michael C. Ashton, Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1 Canada (E–mail: mashton@brocku.ca) or to Kibeom Lee, Depart- ment of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4 Canada (E–mail: kibeom@ucalgary.ca).