African Cultural Values And Personality Factors Among Rural And Urban Dwellers in Ghana

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated factors and values that influence the development of personality in the Akan concept, the extent to which the Akan theory of day name determines personality of an individual. In addition, it sought to determine the relationship between the Big Five personality factors, the Africentric worldview and the Akan personality factors. The study is a mixed methods design. The first part is a qualitative study that involves an in-depth interview with eight participants with age range between 40 and 100 years. The second part, is a quantitative study where questionnaires were administered to one hundred conveniently sampled participants from two Akan communities comprising 60 rural and 40 urban dwellers. Thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data which revealed that personality among the Akan is defined by the cognitive (‘nusu1’) and behavioural (‘banb4’) aspect of the individual. Factors believed to affect personality include social, biological and supernatural factors. Results from the qualitative data was used to develop a questionnaire used to test the personality of participants from rural and urban areas. The Ten Item Personality Inventory adapted from the Big-Five was administered was used to test the Big Five personality index among participants. Africentric Worldview Scale was used to test the Africentric worldview of participants. Overall, there was significant difference on the emotional stability subscale of the Ten Item Personality Inventory. A principal component analysis of the Africentric Worldview Scale confirmed the spiritual subscale. Further, other factors emerged in contrast to previous findings. Implications of the findings was discussed