The Emergence of Sex Differences in Personality Traits in Early
Adolescence: A Cross-Sectional, Cross-Cultural Study
Marleen De Bolle and Filip De Fruyt
Ghent University
Robert R. McCrae
Baltimore, Maryland
Corinna E. Löckenhoff
Cornell University
Paul T. Costa Jr.
Duke University School of Medicine
Maria E. Aguilar-Vafaie
Tarbiat Modares University
Chang-kyu Ahn
Pusan National University
Hyun-nie Ahn
Ewha Womans University
Lidia Alcalay
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Jüri Allik
University of Tartu and Estonian Academy of Sciences
Tatyana V. Avdeyeva
University of St. Thomas
Denis Bratko
University of Zagreb
Marina Brunner-Sciarra
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
Thomas R. Cain
Hampshire College
Wayne Chan
Rutgers University
Niyada Chittcharat
Srinakharinwirot University
Jarret T. Crawford
The College of New Jersey
Ryan Fehr
University of Washington, Seattle
Emília Ficková
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Michele J. Gelfand
University of Maryland
Sylvie Graf
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Sami Gülgöz
Koç University
Martina Hrˇebícˇková
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
Lee Jussim
Rutgers University and Stanford University
Waldemar Klinkosz
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
Goran Kneževi
´
c
Belgrade University
Nora Leibovich de Figueroa
University of Buenos Aires
Margarida P. Lima
University of Coimbra
Thomas A. Martin
Susquehanna University
Iris Maruši
´
c
Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Khairul Anwar Mastor
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Katsuharu Nakazato
Tokyo University of Social Welfare
Florence Nansubuga
Makerere University
Jose Porrata
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Danka Puri
´
c
Belgrade University
Anu Realo
University of Tartu
Norma Reátegui
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia
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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 2015 American Psychological Association
2015, Vol. 108, No. 1, 171-185 0022-3514/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038497
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Jean-Pierre Rolland
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
Vanina Schmidt
University of Buenos Aires
Andrzej Sekowski
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
Jane Shakespeare-Finch
Queensland University of Technology
Yoshiko Shimonaka
Bunkyo Gakuin University
Franco Simonetti
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Jerzy Siuta and Barbara Szmigielska
Jagiellonian University
Vitanya Vanno
Srinakharinwirot University
Lei Wang
Peking University
Michelle Yik
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Antonio Terracciano
Florida State University College of Medicine
Although large international studies have found consistent patterns of sex differences in personality traits
among adults (i.e., women scoring higher on most facets), less is known about cross-cultural sex
differences in adolescent personality and the role of culture and age in shaping them. The present study
examines the NEO Personality Inventory-3 (McCrae, Costa, & Martin, 2005) informant ratings of
adolescents from 23 cultures (N ⫽ 4,850), and investigates culture and age as sources of variability in
sex differences of adolescents’ personality. The effect for Neuroticism (with females scoring higher than
males) begins to take on its adult form around age 14. Girls score higher on Openness to Experience and
Conscientiousness at all ages between 12 and 17 years. A more complex pattern emerges for Extraversion
Marleen De Bolle and Filip De Fruyt, Department of Develomental, Per-
sonality, and Social Psychology, Ghent University; Robert R. McCrae, Inde-
pendent Practice, Baltimore, Maryland; Corinna E. Löckenhoff, Department of
Human Development, Cornell University; Paul T. Costa Jr., Department of
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine;
Maria E. Aguilar-Vafaie, Department of Psychology, Tarbiat Modares Uni-
versity; Chang-kyu Ahn, Department of Education, Pusan National University;
Hyun-nie Ahn, Department of Psychology, Ewha Womans University; Lidia
Alcalay, Escuela de Psicologia, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Jüri
Allik, Department of Psychology, University of Tartu and Estonian Academy
of Sciences; Tatyana V. Avdeyeva, Graduate School of Professional Psychol-
ogy, University of St. Thomas; Denis Bratko, Department of Psychology,
University of Zagreb; Marina Brunner-Sciarra, Instituto de Medicina Genetica,
Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia; Thomas R. Cain, School of Cognitive
Science, Hampshire College; Wayne Chan, Department of Psychology, Rut-
gers University; Niyada Chittcharat, Department of Psychology, Srinakharin-
wirot University; Jarret T. Crawford, Department of Psychology, The College
of New Jersey; Ryan Fehr, Foster School of Business, University of Wash-
ington, Seattle; Emília Ficková, Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak
Academy of Sciences; Michele J. Gelfand, Department of Psychology, Uni-
versity of Maryland; Sylvie Graf, Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sci-
ences of the Czech Republic; Sami Gülgöz, College of Social Science and
Humanities, Koç University; Martina Hrˇebícˇková, Institute of Psychology,
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; Lee Jussim, Department of
Psychology, Rutgers University and Center for Advanced Study in the Be-
havioral Sciences, Stanford University; Waldemar Klinkosz, Department of
Psychology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin; Goran Kneževi
´
c,
Department of Psychology, Belgrade University; Nora Leibovich de Figueroa,
Research Institute, Department of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires;
Margarida P. Lima, Research Centre of the Study and Cognitive-Behavioral
Intervention, University of Coimbra; Thomas A. Martin, Department of Phi-
losophy, Religion, and Classical Studies, Susquehanna University; Iris
Maruši
´
c, Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia; Khairul
Anwar Mastor, Personality Traits Orientation, Universiti Kebangsaan Malay-
sia; Katsuharu Nakazato, Faculty of Social Welfare, Tokyo University of
Social Welfare; Florence Nansubuga, Institute of Psychology, Makerere Uni-
versity; Jose Porrata, Independent Practice, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Danka
Puri
´
c, Department of Psychology, Belgrade University; Anu Realo, Depart-
ment of Psychology, University of Tartu; Norma Reátegui, Department of
Psychology, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia; Jean-Pierre Rolland,
Département de Sciences Psychologiques, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La
Défense; Vanina Schmidt, Research Institute, Department of Psychology,
University of Buenos Aires; Andrzej Sekowski, Department of Psychology,
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin; Jane Shakespeare-Finch,
School of Psychology & Counselling, Queensland University of Technology;
Yoshiko Shimonaka, Department of Human Studies, Bunkyo Gakuin Univer-
sity; Franco Simonetti, Escuela de Psicologia, Pontificia Universidad Católica
de Chile; Jerzy Siuta and Barbara Szmigielska, Institute of Psychology, Jag-
iellonian University; Vitanya Vanno, Department of Psychology, Srinakharin-
wirot University; Lei Wang, Department of Psychology, Peking University;
Michelle Yik, Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology; Antonio Terracciano, Department of Geriatrics,
Florida State University College of Medicine.
This study was supported by a research grant from the National Research
Foundation – Flanders (Grant 1200613N) awarded to Marleen De Bolle.
This research was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the
National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging. Anu Realo and Jüri
Allik were supported by grants from the Estonian Ministry of Education and
Science (SF0180029s08 and IUT2-13). Martina Hrˇebícˇková and Sylvie Graf
were supported by a grant from the Czech Science Foundation (13-25656S)
and a grant from the Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic (RVO: 68081740). Robert R. McCrae and Paul T. Costa, Jr.,
receive royalties from the NEO Inventories. Jean-Pierre Rolland receives
royalties for NEO-PI-R and NEO-PI-3 from Hogrefe France.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marleen De
Bolle, Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, H.
Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. E-mail: Marleen.DeBolle@UGent.be
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and Agreeableness, although by age 17, sex differences for these traits are highly similar to those
observed in adulthood. Cross-sectional data suggest that (a) with advancing age, sex differences found
in adolescents increasingly converge toward adult patterns with respect to both direction and magnitude;
(b) girls display sex-typed personality traits at an earlier age than boys; and (c) the emergence of sex
differences was similar across cultures. Practical implications of the present findings are discussed.
Keywords: personality, sex differences, adolescence, cross-cultural
Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038497.supp
The literature shows that major changes in biological (Lenroot
& Giedd, 2010; Marshall & Tanner, 1986), cognitive (Blakemore,
Burnett, & Dahl, 2010; Colom & Lynn, 2004), and psychosocial
(Hunter & Youniss, 1982; Rice & Mulkeen, 1995) functioning
occur in adolescence that may, in turn, affect personality traits and
their development. Because the timing of these changes tends to
diverge for boys and girls (Blakemore et al., 2010; Lenroot &
Giedd, 2010; Marshall & Tanner, 1986), adolescence is a key
period for examining the emergence of sex differences in person-
ality.
Available studies on sex differences in adolescents’ personality
traits often show conflicting results. Costa, McCrae, and Martin
(2008), for instance, found that young adolescent girls were higher
than boys in Extraversion and Openness (see also McCrae, Costa,
& Martin, 2005; McCrae et al., 2002), whereas Branje, Van
Lieshout, and Gerris (2007) reported that boys tended to be more
extraverted and open to experience than girls. McCrae and col-
leagues (2002) found higher levels of Agreeableness and Neurot-
icism in girls (see also Klimstra, Hale, Raaijmakers, Branje, &
Meeus, 2009), whereas Branje et al. (2007) found no sex differ-
ences on these two dimensions. Klimstra and colleagues (2009)
have suggested that these inconsistencies might be explained by
differences in populations or cultures sampled or by variations in
the particular adolescent age groups selected. The current study
therefore aims (a) to examine how and to what extent culture and
age affect sex differences in adolescence, and (b) to report cross-
sectional age trends in sex differences in the personality traits of
adolescents based on observer ratings obtained in 23 cultures
around the world (Adolescent Personality Profiles of Cultures
project [APPOC]; De Fruyt et al., 2009). We then compare these
sex differences in adolescence with findings on college students
and adults to describe sex differences from early adolescence
through adulthood across cultures. To provide a comprehensive
account, personality is considered according to the five-factor
model (FFM; McCrae & Costa, 2008)—that is, Neuroticism (N),
Extraversion (E), Openness to Experience (O), Agreeableness (A),
and Conscientiousness (C) —and sex differences are examined at
both the domain and facet levels of personality.
The Role of Culture
Studies of sex differences conducted in different cultures might
well show divergent results. Every culture has distinct gender roles
for males and females, but the specific behaviors and attitudes
considered appropriate for the two sexes may widely differ. In
traditional cultures, women may be confined to domestic roles of
child rearing and housekeeping; in contemporary Western societ-
ies, women are actively encouraged to take on the historically
masculine occupations of scientist and engineer. Eagly’s (1987)
social role model argues that these gender roles are internalized
early in life and are the source of gender differences in personality.
If so, there might be wide cultural variation in the traits that
distinguish boys and girls.
One of the major tasks of child development is the acquisition of
knowledge about how to behave in a sex-appropriate manner. In
general, parents, peers, and social institutions encourage (and
excuse) “manly” behavior in boys and “ladylike” behavior in girls,
but they also implicitly acknowledge that sex roles are age-graded:
A 3-year-old boy who cries will probably be comforted by parents,
whereas a 13-year-old boy who cries may be the object of ridicule.
Enculturation into gender roles is thus a developmental process,
and there are cultural differences in the nature and timing of this
process. In some preliterate societies, very young children are
raised together, but at a certain age (7 to 10 in Sambia; Herdt,
1982), boys are taken from their mothers and raised in the com-
pany of other males. In contrast, in most Western societies, coed-
ucational schools are the norm. As Maccoby and Jacklin (1987)
noted, “cross-cultural and within-culture situational variations
make a great deal of difference in the amount of interaction contact
male and female children have with one another” (p. 282). If
personality traits are influenced by such experiences, we might
expect that sex differences would vary across cultures in their
developmental course.
Clearly, one cannot examine hypotheses about cultural varia-
tions in sex differences in personality traits or their developmental
course unless one samples a range of cultures. At the same time, it
is important to note that cross-cultural studies are valuable even if
no cultural variation is found. If studies are confined to a single
culture, there is no way to determine whether sex differences are
attributable to cultural norms, recent historical events, or human
evolution (Buss, 1995, 1997). To the extent that similar patterns
are seen despite differences in culture, biological and evolutionary
theories of sex differences become more plausible.
Sex differences in college-age and adult personality have been
systematically examined across a wide range of cultures (Costa,
Terracciano, & McCrae 2001; McCrae & Terracciano, 2005b;
Schmitt, Realo, Voracek, & Allik, 2008). Results suggest that the
overall pattern of sex differences is similar in most cultures if one
considers only the direction of effects. For example, women are
rated as higher than men in Neuroticism in 49 of 50 cultures
(McCrae & Terracciano, 2005a). There are, however, cultural
differences in the magnitude of these differences, with smaller
effects seen in traditional cultures (e.g., India, Morocco) and larger
effects in modern, Western nations (e.g., England, Switzerland).
This might represent a cultural effect on the expression of person-
ality traits (Schmitt et al., 2008), or merely a cultural effect on the
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frame of reference chosen when describing men and women (Gui-
mond et al., 2007).
Bleidorn et al. (2013) reported similar findings in a sample of
individuals aged 16 to 40 years from 62 cultures. However, cross-
cultural studies of younger adolescents are limited. Soto, John,
Gosling, and Potter (2011) used Internet data collected from re-
spondents aged 10 to 65 years from English-speaking cultures, and
reported that adolescence is a key period in which sex differences
for several personality traits tend to emerge. Preliminary analyses
of the data reported in the present study (see McCrae et al., 2010)
suggested that sex differences among adolescents aged 12 to 17
were roughly similar to those seen in adults, and that—as with
adults—greater gender differentiation was typically seen in mod-
ern, Western cultures. However, those analyses considered only
broad indices of gender differences rather than individual domains
and facets, and they did not consider the role of age within this key
developmental period.
Therefore, the first research aim of the present study is to
investigate whether culture and age contribute to the variability in
sex differences in adolescent personality, using informant-rated
cross-cultural personality data of adolescents obtained in 23 cul-
tures around the world, including both English and non-English
speaking cultures.
The Timing of Sex Differences
To formulate hypotheses regarding exactly when sex differences
of personality might emerge during the course of adolescence, we
draw on findings regarding adolescents’ changes in biological
(Marshall & Tanner, 1986), cognitive (Colom & Lynn, 2004), and
psychosocial (Hunter & Youniss, 1982; Rice & Mulkeen, 1995)
functioning. Because the timing of these changes tends to diverge
for boys and girls, the resulting sex gap in these domains of
functioning may also help to explain the emergence of sex differ-
ences in personality traits during adolescence.
The biological changes during adolescence, such as the
hormone-driven development of secondary sex characteristics,
typically begin around age 11 for girls and age 13 for boys
(Marshall & Tanner, 1986). These biological changes have been
found to contribute to changes in how individuals behave and
interact with the social environment. More specifically, whereas
girls tend to display a stronger affiliative style than boys even
before adolescence (characterized by a preference for close emo-
tional communication, intimacy, and responsiveness within in-
terpersonal relationships), this affiliative orientation intensifies
during adolescence (Larson & Richards, 1989). Research in non-
human mammals has suggested the existence of biological pro-
cesses (i.e., changes in circulating gonadal hormones) underlying
this intensification of affiliative behavior (Cyranowski, Frank,
Young, & Shear, 2000). From a FFM perspective, affiliative
behavior is closely linked to A. Therefore, it is expected that the
sex differences for A (with females typically scoring higher than
males) should already be observable at age 12 and become larger
thereafter.
In addition, changes in circulating gonadal hormones during
puberty are also found to have an impact on the central nervous
system that relate to disturbances in mood (Susman, Nottelmann,
Inoff-Germainz, Dorn, & Chrousos, 1987). More specifically, re-
search has demonstrated that these hormonal changes place girls at
increased risk to develop depression in the face of negative inter-
personal experiences or life events, contributing to the emergence
of the sex gap for depression between the ages of 14 and 15
(Angold, Costello, Erkanli, & Worthman, 1999; Angold, Costello,
& Worthman, 1998; Angold & Worthman, 1993). Drawing from
this literature and studies that demonstrate that internalizing prob-
lems (such as depression) are highly related within and across time
with N (e.g., De Bolle, Beyers, De Clercq, & De Fruyt, 2012), sex
differences for N are expected to emerge around the age of 14
years.
Several researchers in the field have demonstrated that E in-
cludes different components that may display opposite sex differ-
ences (e.g., DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson, 2007; Roberts, Walton,
& Viechtbauer, 2006), so hypotheses concerning the emergence of
sex differences for this personality domain are less clear-cut than
for the other personality domains. From a conceptual point of
view, E includes an energy component (including activity, positive
emotions, and excitement seeking) and an interpersonal compo-
nent (including warmth, gregariousness, and assertiveness). The
energy component can be seen as conceptually opposite to anhe-
donia, a central feature of depression. Following this line of
reasoning, it is expected that sex differences in the energy-related
facets of E will appear around the age of 14 years. The interper-
sonal component, on the other hand, is more closely related to
affiliative orientation. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the emer-
gence of sex differences in the interpersonal facets of E mirrors the
emergence of the sex gap in affiliative behavior, and thus will
already be observable by age 12.
Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that girls undergo a faster
acceleration in cerebral cortical development than boys during
early adolescence and remain in advance of boys until 14 to 15
years (Colom & Lynn, 2004). As a result, girls are generally ahead
of boys in intellectual and cognitive functioning during early
adolescence (Silberman & Snarey, 1993). From a FFM perspec-
tive, O tends to correlate highest with intelligence (Ackerman &
Hilsenroth, 2003; Moutafi, Furnham, & Paltiel, 2005), and re-
cently, a genetic basis of this phenotypic association has been
suggested (Bratko, Butkovic, Vukasovic, Chamorro-Premuzic, &
von Stumm, 2012). In addition, substantial conceptual overlap
exists between C and executive functioning, which is generally
defined as the ability to engage in purposeful and planned behavior
(Fuster, 2001), and includes the ability to organize, execute, per-
sist, and regulate goal-directed behavior (Fuster, 2002). A recent
study (Anderson, Anderson, Northam, Jacobs, & Catroppa, 2001)
examined developmental progressions in executive functioning
through late childhood and early adolescence, and found some
evidence of sex differences that mirrored (both in terms of timing
and direction) those found for cerebral cortical developments.
More specifically, around ages 12 or 13, girls were found to move
from poorer to superior levels on a range of executive functioning
tasks, compared with boys, though this effect appeared to diminish
by age 15. We therefore hypothesize that sex differences in O and
C (with girls scoring higher than boys) will be particularly large in
early adolescent years and become smaller afterward because of a
catch-up development in boys. As part of the second research aim
of the current study, we will describe how sex differences in
personality unfold during adolescence, testing the hypotheses for-
mulated above.
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Assessment Concerns
As in adulthood, personality traits in adolescence are conceptu-
alized to be hierarchically organized, with each of the broad FFM
dimensions comprising several more fine-grained personality traits
or facets that capture unique information about behavior (Ashton,
Jackson, Paunonen, Helmes, & Rothstein, 1995; Costa & McCrae,
1995), and allow a more complex and differentiated description of
people’s personality. In fact, research has demonstrated that the
direction of sex differences might be distinct for facets within a
particular domain (Costa et al., 2001; McCrae & Terracciano,
2005a). It is therefore essential to supplement domain-level re-
search with a facet-level description to enable a thorough under-
standing of sex differences in personality (Soto et al., 2011;
Terracciano, McCrae, Brant, & Costa, 2005). To date, however,
only two studies (e.g., Costa et al., 2008; Soto et al., 2011) have
investigated sex differences in adolescence at the more fine-
grained facet level of personality. Costa and colleagues (2008)
found far fewer significant facet-level sex differences in early
adolescence than have been observed in adulthood (Costa et al.,
2001). When sex differences emerged in their data, these were
typically found for feminine-typed facets (i.e., facets on which
adult women typically score higher than men; N1: Anxiety; E1:
Warmth; E2: Gregariousness; E6: Positive Emotions; O2: Aesthet-
ics; O3: Feelings; A3: Altruism; and A6: Tender-Mindedness) but
not for masculine-typed facets (i.e., facets on which adult men
typically score higher than women; E3: Assertiveness; E5: Excite-
ment Seeking; O5: Openness to Ideas; and C1: Competence).
According to the authors, these results imply that girls aged 12 to
13 have begun to display higher levels of sex-typed personality
traits, but that boys of this age have not (Costa et al., 2008). Soto
and colleagues (2011) found girls to score higher on the facets of
N (i.e., Depression and Anxiety) and A (i.e., Altruism and Com-
pliance) from age 10 onward, whereas they began to score higher
on the facet of E (i.e., Assertiveness and Activity) only from age
15. For O and C, somewhat divergent sex patterns were observed:
From age 15, girls appear to score higher on Aesthetics but lower
on Ideas (facets of O). At all ages during adolescence, girls were
as high as boys on Self-Discipline but scored higher on Order
(facets of C).
There are also lingering concerns about measurement. Most
extant studies (Klimstra et al., 2009; McCrae et al., 2002; Pull-
mann, Raudsepp, & Allik, 2006; Soto et al., 2011) have asked
adolescents to provide self-reports of personality and relied on
measures developed for use in adults, which may be problematic.
First, it appears that early adolescents may have difficulties with
the vocabulary in some of the items, or that some items might refer
to behavior infrequently observed in adolescents, resulting in re-
liability problems or a less clearly replicated factor structure (Al-
lik, Laidra, Realo, & Pullmann, 2004; De Fruyt et al., 2009). In
line with this notion, Soto, John, Gosling, and Potter (2008) found
that personality self-reports from children and adolescents are less
reliable than adults’ reports. Second, self-perceptions—at all
ages—may be more influenced by motivational factors than other-
perceptions (Funder & Colvin, 1997), especially for highly eval-
uative traits. Although informant reports are not immune to certain
biases or distortions (e.g., implicit personality theories), their
strengths and limitations complement those of self-reports. As
such, it is important (a) to use adolescent-friendly personality
measures, and (b) to replicate self-reported sex differences in
adolescence using non-self-reported data (Branje et al., 2007). The
present study meets these needs by examining sex differences
using informant-rated personality data on adolescents, obtained by
means of the NEO Personality Inventory-3 (NEO-PI-3; McCrae,
Costa, et al., 2005), a more readable version of the revised NEO-PI
(NEO-PI-R) validated for the assessment of individuals as young
as 12. Most of the raters were college undergraduates, who should
readily understand the language of the NEO-PI-3 and provide
more reliable assessments than younger adolescents would.
Research Objectives
The current study aims to investigate two possible sources (i.e.,
culture and age) of inconsistencies that characterize the literature
on adolescent sex differences in personality. In addition, the pres-
ent study meets the need for systematic large-scale cross-cultural
research, examining sex differences in adolescents aged 12 to 17
years from around the world, covering 23 cultures from Europe,
Africa, South America, Middle East, and Asia, thereby including
both English-speaking and non-English-speaking cultures. To of-
fer a comprehensive and detailed account of sex differences in
personality, the current study will provide an examination of sex
differences in the five higher order domains and the 30 lower order
facets assessed by the NEO-PI-3.
Cross-cultural research in college students and adults has shown
some cultural variation in the magnitude of sex differences—with
larger effects in modern, Western cultures—but the direction of
effects is generally consistent across cultures. The current study
will examine whether sex differences in adolescence are also
consistent in direction across cultures.
It is further hypothesized that—across cultures—female adoles-
cents will score higher than males on all five personality domains.
Consistent with the literature on biological, cognitive, and psycho-
social changes that occur in adolescent boys and girls, we hypoth-
esize that girls will score higher on N and the energy facets of E
from 14 years onward. Furthermore, it is expected that the sex
differences for A (with females typically scoring higher than
males) and the interpersonal facets of E will be apparent by age 12,
and that sex differences in O and C (with girls scoring higher than
boys) are particularly large in early adolescent years but become
smaller afterward because of a catch-up trend in boys. At the facet
level, some deviations from the general domain-level sex differ-
ences are expected. Consistent with the adult literature, girls are
hypothesized to score higher on most facets, but boys are expected
to score higher on E3: Assertiveness, E5: Excitement Seeking, C1:
Competence, and O5: Ideas (McCrae & Terracciano, 2005a). In
line with the findings of Costa et al. (2008), and parallel to the sex
gaps found for biological, cognitive, and psychosocial changes in
adolescence (with girls generally outperforming same-aged boys),
we expect that sex differences for feminine-typed personality traits
will emerge at an earlier age than sex differences for masculine-
typed personality traits.
Method
Procedure and Participants
The APPOC project is a continuation of the Personality Profiles
of Cultures Project (PPOC; McCrae & Terracciano, 2005a, 2005b)
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