Mapping the intellectual and thematic structure of multicultural personality research using Scopus indexed literature

The objective of this work is to thoroughly map the intellectual structure, evolution, and research landscape of multicultural personality research. Specifically, it assesses publication and citation trends, top authors and nations, collaboration patterns, key research topics, and the conceptual framework of the area. A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 101 journal articles indexed in Scopus in English, collected on 12 March 2026 using the search term “multicultural personality” in the title, abstract and keywords. Publications in the literature span the year 2000 to 2026; the year 2026 is a partial publishing year as of the date of retrieval. Bibliometric performance and thematic analyses were performed using Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny, and VOSviewer (version 1.6.20) was used to investigate and visualise the networks of co-authorship, country collaboration, and keyword co-occurrence. The findings demonstrate that multicultural personality research stays solidly grounded in the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) and the seminal work but then moves on to international students, expatriates, instructors, and organisational settings. Thematic patterns demonstrate strong connections between multicultural personality and intercultural competence, cultural intelligence, acculturation, expatriate adjustment, international education, and cross-cultural interaction. These patterns indicate a gradual broadening of the field from construct development and personality assessment toward more contextualized questions of intercultural adjustment and functioning. The study positions multicultural personality as a distinct personality-based perspective within the broader intercultural literature. The bibliometric structure demonstrates that, although multicultural personality intersects with cultural intelligence, intercultural competence, and acculturation, these constructs occupy conceptually different positions. The findings therefore provide a basis for understanding how dispositional characteristics are connected to broader processes and outcomes of intercultural functioning. The study identifies opportunities for greater geographical diversification, comparative research across cultural contexts, longitudinal examination of multicultural personality and intercultural exposure, and investigation of its incremental contribution beyond related constructs such as cultural intelligence and intercultural competence. The findings should be interpreted in light of the study's reliance on Scopus-indexed publications and the retrieval date in March 2026, which limits coverage of publications outside the database and prevents interpretation of 2026 as a complete publication year.