Decolonizing Personality Psychology: A Framework of Oppression and Liberation-Based Personality Traits

Personality psychology has long failed to integrate liberation and decolonial frameworks by ignoring how systemic oppression, cultural identities, and historical contexts shape personality development and change. Although humanistic psychologists have described how self-actualization and free will influence personality characteristics, liberation psychologists explore how critical consciousness and cultural affirmation can enhance wellness, purpose, and healing. Thus, this article introduces a theoretical taxonomy of oppression-based personality traits (OBPTs) and liberation-based personality traits (LBPTs), or enduring psychopolitical personality characteristics that develop in response to systemic discrimination, as well as the process of combating that discrimination. OBPTs emerge through chronic exposure to oppressive experiences, while LBPTs form as people actively challenge and unlearn societal injustices. Five pairings of OBPTs and LBPTs are presented: (a) subjugation versus reclamation; (b) individualism versus collectivism; (c) impostorship versus intrinsic legitimacy; (d) respectability versus radical authenticity; and (e) complicity versus social justice orientation. Further, this article conceptualizes externalized oppression and decolonization as types of volitional personality change by demonstrating how individuals can make intentional efforts to modify personality traits that are socialized through internalized oppression and colonization. Recommendations for theory, research, and liberatory praxis are discussed.