The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, the BFI was translated from English into 28 languages and administered to 17,837 individuals from 56 nations. The resulting cross-cultural data set was used to address three main questions: Does the factor structure of the English BFI fully replicate across cultures? How valid are the BFI trait profiles of individual nations? And how are personality traits distributed throughout the world? The five-dimensional structure was robust across major regions of the world. Trait levels were related in predictable ways to self-esteem, sociosexuality, and national personality profiles. People from the geographic regions of South America and East Asia were significantly different in openness from those inhabiting other world regions. The discussion focuses on limitations of the current data set and important directions for future research.

As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, a total of 17,804 participants from 62 cultural regions completedthe RelationshipQuestionnaire(RQ), a self-reportmeasure of adult romanticattachment. Correlational analyses within each culture suggested that the Model of Self and the Model of Other scales of the RQ were psychometrically valid within most cultures. Contrary to expectations, the Model of Self and Model of Other dimensions of the RQ did not underlie the four-category model of attachment in the same way across all cultures. Analyses of specific attachment styles revealed that secure romantic attachment was normative in 79% of cultures and that preoccupied romantic attachment was particularly prevalent in East Asian cultures. Finally, the romantic attachment profiles of individual nations were correlated with sociocultural indicators in ways that supported evolutionary theories of romantic attachment and basic human mating strategies.

Abstract:In the first part we briefly discuss the concept of future time perspective (FTP) as a cognitive-motivational construct. By setting goals in the rather near or more distant future, human beings develop their individual FTP that can be characterized by its content (i.e., what people are striving for) and extension or depth (i.e. how far into the future individuals set their goals). Individual differences in the content and extension of the FTP have motivational consequences. In the second part we discuss our own empirical studies showing that not only does the number of future goals matter, but even more so their motivational content. Finally we will report empirical data on the correlates of present and future temporal orientations among adolescents and emerging adults in Europe, South Africa and Latin America. These empirical studies are based on Future Time Perspective Theory, Expectancy*Value Theory and Selfdetermination Theory.Key words: time perspective, motivation, education.The main purpose of this article is to review our theoretical and empirical research on future time perspective (FTP) as a cognitivemotivational construct. In the first section we describe how in our conceptualization and operationalization individual differences in the length and the content of FTP result from goal setting in the near and/or more distant future, and why these differences have motivational consequences. In the second section, we will examine empirical data on the correlates of present and future temporal orientations among adolescents and emerging adults in Europe, South Africa, and Latin America. We argue how goal content affects the quality of motivation. Present motivation that derives from future goals is by definition indeed extrinsic motivation, but not all types of extrinsic motivation are low-quality motivations. We will discuss our empirical work showing how important it is to take into account not only the extension of length of FTP, but certainly also the content of the goals that are pursued in the near and distant future. This goal content determines the quality of motivation. Then we discuss how important being future-oriented is for one's motivation. Finally, we propose further remarks on Future Time Perspective Theory.

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This study investigated how N ¼ 5,126 adolescents (mean age of 15 years) from 18 countries perceive and cope with future-and schoolrelated stress. The adolescents completed the Problem Questionnaire (PQ), which assesses stress, and the Coping Across Situations Questionnaire (CASQ), which assesses three coping styles (reflection/support-seeking, emotional outlet, and withdrawal/denial). Across countries, adolescents reported considerably higher levels of future-related stress than school-related stress. The adolescents actively coped with stressors in both domains and seldom relied on emotional outlet or withdrawal/denial. A clustering of the countries according to socioeconomic criteria and geographical proximity demonstrated that adolescents from the continental group of countries showed low stress and high coping. Adolescents in the east/Asia group showed medium stress and low coping and those in the south group showed high stress and low coping. Developmental context was more strongly associated with stress perception and coping, style than age or gender, a finding relevant for prevention approaches aiming to endorse positive orientation to the future and improve coping competence.