A Comparison of Personality Type and Intercultural Competence of Foreign Language Learners

Since individual differences can be reflected in cultural understanding; this study attempts to find out what kinds of personality types enable learners to be more competent in intercultural context. The subjects of the study were 236 students from Ardestan and Khorasgan Universities. Two questionnaires were used to collect the data. The first one was a researcher s made questionnaire to assess learners intercultural competence; based on Bennett s Intercultural communicative Model of ICC, consisting four behavioral dimensions, tolerance for ambiguity, flexibility, respect for otherness and interaction. The second questionnaire was MBTI to identify learner s personality type. The analysis of the results revealed that greater general competence in cultural adjustment is associated with higher extraversion tendency. Students with thinking and judging personalities were more tolerant for ambiguities of foreign cultures than those with feeling and perceiving personality types. Here, flexibility did not play a determining role in intercultural competence with respect to different personality dimensions. The data of respect for otherness were very similar to tolerance for ambiguity, and students with sensing personality preference were more competent in interacting with foreign cultures than intuitive ones. The findings revealed the personality types play opportunity or threat roles for FL learners in intercultural understanding.

Keywords:

intercultural competence (ICC) , personality , culture , individual differences