Altogether, 1448 individuals from six neighbouring countries of Russia in the Baltic Sea region (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Belarus) described a 'typical' member of their own nation and a 'typical' Russian, as well as rated their own personality, using the National Character Survey (NCS). Results suggest that national character stereotypes are widely shared, temporally stable and moderately related to assessed personality traits, if all assessments are made using the same measurement instrument. In all studied countries, agreement between national auto-stereotypes and assessed personality was positive and in half of the samples statistically significant. Although members of the six nations studied had a relatively similar view of the Russian national character, this view was not related with self-rated personality traits of Russians but moderately with the Russian auto-stereotype.

This study tested the multi-society generalizability of an eight-syndrome assessment model derived from factor analyses of American adults’ self-ratings of 120 behavioral, emotional, and social problems. The Adult Self-Report (ASR; Achenbach and Rescorla 2003) was completed by 17,152 18–59-year-olds in 29 societies. Confirmatory factor analyses tested the fit of self-ratings in each sample to the eight-syndrome model. The primary model fit index (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation) showed good model fit for all samples, while secondary indices showed acceptable to good fit. Only 5 (0.06%) of the 8,598 estimated parameters were outside the admissible parameter space. Confidence intervals indicated that sampling fluctuations could account for the deviant parameters. Results thus supported the tested model in societies differing widely in social, political, and economic systems, languages, ethnicities, religions, and geographical regions. Although other items, societies, and analytic methods might yield different results, the findings indicate that adults in very diverse societies were willing and able to rate themselves on the same standardized set of 120 problem items. Moreover, their self-ratings fit an eight-syndrome model previously derived from self-ratings by American adults. The support for the statistically derived syndrome model is consistent with previous findings for parent, teacher, and self-ratings of 1½–18-year-olds in many societies. The ASR and its parallel collateral-report instrument, the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL), may offer mental health professionals practical tools for the multi-informant assessment of clinical constructs of adult psychopathology that appear to be meaningful across diverse societies.

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This study tested for similarities and differences across societies in self-ratings of problems, personal strengths, and aspects of adaptive functioning on the Adult Self-Report (ASR) for nonclinical samples of adults ages 18 to 59 in 17 societies ( N = 10,197). Results indicated considerable consistency across societies regarding mean ratings on the ASR problem items. Most effect sizes (ESs) for societal differences in problem scales were small (2–5%). Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses indicated that culture clusters and society accounted for small percentages of variance in Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problems scores, with most of the variation accounted for by individual differences within societies. In contrast to the small effects of society on problem scores, for the ASR Personal Strengths scale the societal ES was 34% and culture cluster accounted for 12% of the variance. Worse reported relations with spouse/partner were associated with higher problem scores. Overall, findings indicated considerable similarity but also some important differences in self-reported problems and adaptive functioning across 17 societies.

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