Exploring Cultural Influences on Human Figure Drawings of Young Adolescents

Human figure drawings of two matched groups of 147 Argentine and 147 USA young adolescents showed differences that seem to reflect different cultural values. The Argentine youngsters, as a group, were better controlled, less aggressive, more evasive, and more concerned with appearance and action. The drawings of the USA pupils, as a group, displayed more often tendencies to be outgoing, impulsive, insecure, and aggressive. Cultural influences were also shown in the presence of “masculine” and “feminine” items on the drawings of boys and girls, respectively.

Patterns and Universals of Adult Romantic Attachment Across 62 Cultural Regions

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.

Cross-Cultural Standardization of TEMAS in Three Hispanic Subcultures

Mental health clinical services research has stressed the urgency of developing culture-sensitive instruments for psychological assessment and psychodiagnosis of ethnic, racial, and linguistic minority children. The TEMAS (Tell-Me-A-Story) test is an apperception test depicting Hispanic and Black characters (minority version) or White characters (nonminority version) interacting in urban settings and expressing culturally oriented themes, and is scored for cognitive, affective, and personality functioning. This study compared the normative profiles, the reliability, and the criterion-related validity of TEMAS with school and clinical children from three different Hispanic cultures: Puerto Ricans in New York City, natives of SanJuan, PuertoRico, andSouthAmericans inBuenos Aires, Argentina. Children in New York and Puerto Rico were administered 23 minority TEMAS cards, the Spielberger Trait-Anxiety Scale for Children, and the Piers-Harris Self ConceptScale. Argentinean children were administered 10 TEMAS cards, the nonminority short form, and the Piers-Harris scale. Results of the study support the use of TEMAS with examinees in the three cultures, but also suggest that some TEMAS cards do not pull the designatedpersonality functions as consistently with native Puerto Rican andArgentinean children. The findings point to the need to revise selected TEMAS cards to be culture specific.

Patterns and universals of mate poaching across 53 nations: the effects of sex, culture, and personality on romantically attracting another person's partner

As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, 16,954 participants from 53 nations were administered an anonymous survey about experiences with romantic attraction. Mate poaching--romantically attracting someone who is already in a relationship--was most common in Southern Europe, South America, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe and was relatively infrequent in Africa, South/Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Evolutionary and social-role hypotheses received empirical support. Men were more likely than women to report having made and succumbed to short-term poaching across all regions, but differences between men and women were often smaller in more gender-egalitarian regions. People who try to steal another's mate possess similar personality traits across all regions, as do those who frequently receive and succumb to the poaching attempts by others. The authors conclude that human mate-poaching experiences are universally linked to sex, culture, and the robust influence of personal dispositions.

Universal sex differences in the desire for sexual variety: tests from 52 nations, 6 continents, and 13 islands

Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that men and women possess both long-term and short-term mating strategies, with men's short-term strategy differentially rooted in the desire for sexual variety. In this article, findings from a cross-cultural survey of 16,288 people across 10 major world regions (including North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Middle East, Africa, Oceania, South/Southeast Asia, and East Asia) demonstrate that sex differences in the desire for sexual variety are culturally universal throughout these world regions. Sex differences were evident regardless of whether mean, median, distributional, or categorical indexes of sexual differentiation were evaluated. Sex differences were evident regardless of the measures used to evaluate them. Among contemporary theories of human mating, pluralistic approaches that hypothesize sex differences in the evolved design of short-term mating provide the most compelling account of these robust empirical findings.

Universal sex differences in the desire for sexual variety: tests from 52 nations, 6 continents, and 13 islands

Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that men and women possess both long-term and short-term mating strategies, with men's short-term strategy differentially rooted in the desire for sexual variety. In this article, findings from a cross-cultural survey of 16,288 people across 10 major world regions (including North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Middle East, Africa, Oceania, South/Southeast Asia, and East Asia) demonstrate that sex differences in the desire for sexual variety are culturally universal throughout these world regions. Sex differences were evident regardless of whether mean, median, distributional, or categorical indexes of sexual differentiation were evaluated. Sex differences were evident regardless of the measures used to evaluate them. Among contemporary theories of human mating, pluralistic approaches that hypothesize sex differences in the evolved design of short-term mating provide the most compelling account of these robust empirical findings.

[Sociocultural factors and the presence of psychopathologies in populations of various localities in Argentina]

This report presents and compares data got from seventeen Argentine communities surveys. The Present State Examination was used for "case-finding"; the CATEGO-ID computations programmes made possible to cluster symptoms in different syndromes as well as to obtain the Index of Definition of the disorders which incorporates a set of rules defining the thresholdes points below which too few symptoms are present to allow a descriptive classification. We found in the communities studied an average of 25.4% of the population without symptoms; 51.4% with some type of psychopathology and 23.3% that can be considered "case". In all the populations women showed a higher percentage of psychopathologies than men (means women: 27.6%; means men: 12.6%). We did not find any statistical association between prevalence and age; only in two communities we did find one between prevalence and familiar structure, being higher in subjects married and rearing children.

[Prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in the Patagones district of Buenos Aires Province]

The survey was carried out in 1979 in Carmen de Patagones, is the first of a number of studies planned as a part of the National Program of Psychiatric Epidemiology. Patagones is the southern and largest county of the province of Buenos Aires (area: 13.431,93 sq.km;population: 21.121) Economically the population can be characterized as a well-off rural one, with farming and cows rearing as the main sources of income. For case-finding we used the full ninth version of the Present State Examination. It has been translated into a dozen languages and it was used by the WHO in the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia. One hundred and thirty house units were drawn at random from the registers of the city of Carmen de Patagones. Each house was visited by trained interviewers form the Research Team, and adults (aged 17 to 60) were asked if they would be willing to participate in the survey of health problems in the area. Frequency of positive responses obtained for each syndrome is presented in Table I. All the data were subjected to statistical analysis and levels of significance were got.

[Program of studies on psychiatric epidemiology in Argentina. General report]

This paper is an outline of a wide program that is currently under development in the large territory of Argentina. The Director of the Program is Dr. Fernando Pagés Larraya; it is supported by the National Council of Scientific Researches (CONICET) and the National Board of Mental Health. The general purpose of the program is to study the prevalence of mental disorders in different ethnographic areas within the country. Epidemiology allows the forecasting of disease occurence. A research work this area may be qualified "effective" if it provides useful data for prevention programs. Therefore, it is necessary that researches and professional responsibles of Mental Health Governmental decissions work together. This rapprochment is being attempted in developing the Argentine research program. It has a cross-cultural approach. It can be called "a way of thinking" as opposed to a precise methodology. A considerable variety of research tools are being used, depending on the specific purposes and the characteristics of the ethnographic areas. One of the main difficulties in choosing a technique for "case-finding" is uncertainty about where to place the "cut-off point" between presence and absence of illness. In this program the Present State Examination (PSE) is used in population surveys of large urban centers. It is a semi-structured interview that has been extensively tested. In small rural communities, the work is done using "key-informants" and applying the snow-ball sample technique. One specific purpose of the research is the study of the modal personality structure in each ethnographic area, formulated in terms of the Holtzman Inkblot Test. The paper shows the relationships between purposes, research tools and responsible professionals. There is hardly time or surplus intellectual energy for polemic and alienation between clinicians and social scientists. Theories, methodologies, research data and prevention programs have not developed harmoniously. We need to carry out research work not divorced from Public Health responsible authorities, in order to avoid that useful data from Epidemiological Studies will not be used in prevention programs.