Multicultural Personality

Joseph G. Ponterotto

The term multicultural personality was first coined by Professor Manuel Ramirez (University of Texas at Austin) to describe individuals who successfully negotiate and thrive in multiple cultures simultaneously. Ramirez conceptualized the multicultural personality in terms bicultural life-skills development. Specifically, he believed that immigrants to the United States who successfully synthesized components of their original-country worldview with the hostcountry worldview could develop broad multicultural coping and thinking styles that would facilitate their adjustment to and quality of life in the United States. Since Ramirez's pioneering work on the multicultural personality, other researchers anchored in diverse psychology disciplines have expanded the construct. For example, working in the Netherlands in the field of organizational psychology, Professors Karen van der Zee and Jan Pieter van Oudenhoven examined the multicultural personality within the context of expatriates adapting to work and life in international contexts. Professor Joseph G. Ponterotto and colleagues in the United States addressed ...

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