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

This study examined whether interpersonal synchrony could be extracted using spectrum analysis (i.e., wavelet transform) in an unstructured conversation. Sixty-two female undergraduates were randomly paired and they engaged in a 6-min unstructured conversation. Interpersonal synchrony was evaluated by calculating the cross-wavelet coherence of the time-series movement data, extracted using a video-image analysis software. The existence of synchrony was tested using a pseudo-synchrony paradigm. In addition, the frequency at which the synchrony occurred and the distribution of the relative phase was explored. The results showed that the value of cross-wavelet coherence was higher in the experimental participant pairs than in the pseudo pairs. Further, the coherence value was higher in the frequency band under 0.5 Hz. These results support the validity of evaluating interpersonal synchron Behavioral mimicry and interpersonal syyby using wavelet transform even in an unstructured conversation. However, the role of relative phase was not clear; there was no significant difference between each relative-phase region. The theoretical contribution of these findings to the area of interpersonal coordination is discussed.

Emotional contagion was examined from the perspective of interpersonal relationships. Using a vignette paradigm, 156 Japanese undergraduates (108 females and 48 males) assumed either a friend, acquaintance, senior, or junior as their partner. Their emotional expression and experience were measured when their assumed partner told them of intensely positive episodes (e.g., the long-sought passing of a certification examination) and intensely negative episodes (e.g., the death of their mother). Emotional responses were significantly stronger in the friend, senior, and junior conditions than in the acquaintance condition for both positive and negative episodes, suggesting the degree of intimacy in the interpersonal relationship influenced emotional contagion. Emotional responses were also stronger in the junior condition than in the senior condition, suggesting that social power in interpersonal relationships influenced emotional contagion. Moreover, sad expressions resulting from partners' disclosures did not differ across conditions, reflecting the display rule of negative emotions in Japan. These results indicate that interpersonal relationships need to be taken into account in the model of emotional contagion.

This study examined ways in which rhythmic features of movement contribute to bonding between individuals. Though previous studies have described synchrony as a form of social glue, this research extends those findings to consider the impact of fast versus slow tempo on movement synchrony. This two-part experiment examined dyadic interactions as they occurred between same-sex strangers (Study 1) and friends (Study 2). Participants were video-recorded as they engaged in 5-or 6-min chats, and synchrony was evaluated using wavelet transform via calculations of cross-wavelet coherence. Study 1 employed regression commonality analysis and hierarchical linear modeling and found that among various frequency bands, rapport between individuals was positively associated with synchrony under 0.025 Hz (i.e., slower than once every 40 s) and 0.5-1.5 Hz (i.e., once every 0.67-2 s). On the contrary, Study 2 determined that synchrony of 0.5-1.5 Hz was not impactful among friend dyads and only predictive of the motivation to cultivate a friendly relationship during interactions with strangers. These results indicate the existence of a distinctive rhythm for bonding individuals, and the role of pre-existing friendship as a moderator of the bonding effect of synchrony. However, the role of relative phase (i.e., timing of movement; same versus opposite timing) remains unclear, as the ratio of in-and anti-phase patterning had no significant influence on perceived rapport and motivation to develop relationships. On the basis of the research results, a theoretical contribution is proposed to the study of interpersonal coordination.

Although previous studies have reported that individual prosocial traits generally enhance synchrony, gender as a social factor was not the subject of focus. The present study examined gender differences in synchrony by conducting three experiments on dyadic unstructured conversations with same‐gender strangers. Synchrony was assessed by calculating the cross‐wavelet coherence and determining the relative phase. As expected, through the three experiments, the female dyads showed a higher degree of synchrony, compared to the male dyads. Moreover, the conversation type (i.e., structured monologue vs. unstructured dialogue) did not moderate the gender effect (Experiment 2), while synchrony in the female dyads was influenced by the preceding conversation (Experiment 3). In contrast, through the three experiments, the role of the relative phase was unclear. The findings indicate that the social factor, gender, has an impact on synchrony, and that interpersonal sensitivity contributes to synchrony.

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