| Abstract: | Investigated the relationship between teenagers' personality traits and 2 aspects of their most positive remembered experiences (MPREs)—intensity and content—across cultures expected to differ on these variables. 192 male and 159 female Israeli Arabs, 166 male and 191 female Israeli Jews, and 195 male and 191 female US Christians (aged 14–15 yrs) completed a high school personality questionnaire (HSPQ) and a positive experience questionnaire (PEQ). MPREs elicited by the PEQ were rated on a 4-point intensity scale and then classified as with external world, with self, or interpersonal. Results indicate that, despite cultural differences in mean intensities and content-category distributions, 9 of the HSPQs' 14 personality factors correlated (beyond the effect of culture) with either intensity, content category, or both. Content categories exhibited sharply differentiated personality factor tendencies. Intensity-linked personality factor tendencies seemed consistent with self-actualizer characteristics described by A. H. Maslow (1971). (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
