This book reports the first attempt in the child development literature to examine the structure of early personality based on parents' free-descriptions of their children. It is an important piece of research because of its cross-national focus on personality development.

The authors present a data set that reveals considerable consistency in the parental descriptions of child personality in both western and nonwestern countries. This consistency supports the cultural universality of the "Big Five" personality factors. The authors' findings lay the foundation for an examination of how these major dimensions of childhood personality structure evolve into adult personality structure.