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.

The authors thank Susan Sprecher (USA), Del\ud Paulhus (Canada), Glenn D. Wilson (England), Qazi\ud Rahman (England), Alois Angleitner (Germany),\ud Angelika Hofhansl (Austria), Tamio Imagawa\ud (Japan), Minoru Wada (Japan), Junichi Taniguchi\ud (Japan), and Yuji Kanemasa (Japan) for helping with\ud data collection and contributing significantly to the\ud samples used in this study.Gender differences in the dismissing form of adult romantic attachment were investigated as part of the International Sexuality Description Project—a survey study of 17,804 people from 62 cultural regions. Contrary to research findings previously reported in Western cultures, we found that men were not significantly more dismissing than women across all cultural regions. Gender differences in dismissing romantic attachment were evident in most cultures, but were typically only small to moderate in magnitude. Looking across cultures, the degree of gender differentiation in dismissing romantic attachment was predictably associated with sociocultural indicators. Generally, these associations supported evolutionary theories of romantic attachment, with smaller gender differences evident in cultures with high–stress and high–fertility reproductive environments. Social role theories of human sexuality received less support in that more progressive sex–role ideologies and national gender equity indexes were not cross–culturally linked as expected to smaller gender differences in dismissing romantic attachment.peer-reviewe

We examined psychological disorders across cultures and their associations with parental factors (control, inconsistency, and rejection). A questionnaire assessing psychological disorders was administered to male and female adolescents in nine countries. The results showed that psychological disorders differ across cultures. Parental factors are associated with each other and have a great deal of shared variance. The associations between psychological disorders and all parental factors were examined together in one regression and significant associations were found with maternal control, paternal temporal inconsistency, maternal situational inconsistency, paternal rejection and maternal rejection. Parental rejection appears to be a robust and influential factor influencing adolescents' psychological disorders. The total variance of psychological disorders explained by all the parenting factors was low. The results revealed the flaws of reductionism in research and highlight the importance of studying associations of psychological disorders with various parental factors simultaneously and in conjunction with other familial, social and genetic factors.

El presente trabajo analiza dimensiones del bienestar psicológico y patrones de personalidad en estudiantes adolescentes con y sin presencia de síntomas y síndromes clí-nicos. Las pruebas SCL-90-R y MACI, y una escala de bienestar psicológico, fueron administradas a una muestra de 305 estudiantes adolescentes de escuelas públicas eirgentinas. Se veriñcó que el 27% presentaba síntomas y síndromes de relevancia clí-nica, especialmente referidos a depresión, tendencias suicidas y trastornos alimentarios. Los adolescentes de riesgo alto (RA) percibían menor bienesteu' psicológico, especialmente en las dimensiones proyectos de vida y control de situaciones. Por su parte, aquéllos de riesgo bajo (RB] tendían a dramatizar sus conflictos, eran más individualistas y conformistas, revelaban mayor tendencia a la insensibilidad social y parecían estar más disconformes con su sexualidad.Palabras clave: Bienestar psicológico, adolescentes, patrones de personalidad, síndro-mes clínicos. PersonaUty patterns, clinical syndromes and psychological well-being in adolescentsDimensions of psychological well-being in adolescents with and without presence of clinical symptoms and personality patterns were analysed. For assessment purposes, SCL-90-R, MACI and a measure of psychological well-being (BIEPS) were administered to a sample of 305 adolescent students attending public schools in Buenos Aires city. We found presence of different kinds of psychopathology in 27% of the total sample. Psychological well-being was lower in subjects with clinical patterns and symptoms, mainly in the domains related with life projects and control of events. Subjects considered not being at risk showed tendencies to dramatize, were unruly and conforming and expressed concems related to sexual discomfort and social insensitivity.