This study reports results from the first International Body Project (IBP-I), which surveyed 7,434 individuals in 10 major world regions about body weight ideals and body dissatisfaction. Participants completed the female Contour Drawing Figure Rating Scale (CDFRS) and self-reported their exposure to Western and local media. Results indicated there were significant cross-regional differences in the ideal female figure and body dissatisfaction, but effect sizes were small across high-socioeconomic-status (SES) sites. Within cultures, heavier bodies were preferred in low-SES sites compared to high-SES sites in Malaysia and South Africa (ds = 1.94-2.49) but not in Austria. Participant age, body mass index (BMI), and Western media exposure predicted body weight ideals. BMI and Western media exposure predicted body dissatisfaction among women. Our results show that body dissatisfaction and desire for thinness is commonplace in high-SES settings across world regions, highlighting the need for international attention to this problem.

The Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS; Peterson, Park, & Seligman, 2005a ) is an English-language self-report questionnaire that measures 24 widely-valued character strengths. The present paper describes the creation and adaptation of the German version of the VIA-IS and its peer-rating form using a sample of 1,674 adults. The 24 subscales had high reliability (median α = .77; median corrected item-total correlations = .45) and high stability across 9 months (median test-retest correlation = .73). The VIA-IS peer form also had high reliability (median α = .81). Self- and peer-ratings of strengths converged as expected (median correlation = .40), and on average ordered the strengths in the same way, correlating .88 across the 24 strengths. There were low to modest correlations of the VIA subscales with demographic variables. Neither the VIA-IS nor the VIA-IS Peer was strongly influenced by social desirability. Correlations with three different measures of subjective well-being replicated findings from earlier studies of the original English VIA-IS and supported the validity of the scale. Furthermore, relations to self-reported behavior and contentment with various aspects of life were modest but congruent with the meaning of the scales (e.g., higher endorsement of religion among spiritual participants, less cigarette smoking among participants with higher self-regulation). Overall, the German VIA-IS and VIA-IS Peer demonstrated good psychometric properties and promising validity evidence. These scales can be recommended for the assessment of strengths of character in the German-speaking world.

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in research in positive psychology interventions. There is broad evidence for their effectiveness in increasing well-being and ameliorating depression. Intentional activities that focus on those character strengths, which are most typical for a person (i.e., signature strengths, SS) and encourage their usage in a new way have been identified as highly effective. The current study aims at comparing an intervention aimed at using SS with one on using individual low scoring (or lesser) strengths in a randomized placebo-controlled trial. A total of 375 adults were randomly assigned to one of the two intervention conditions [i.e., using five signature vs. five lesser strengths (LS) in a new way] or a placebo control condition (i.e., early memories). We measured happiness and depressive symptoms at five time points (i.e., pre- and post-test, 1-, 3-, and 6-months follow-ups) and character strengths at pre-test. The main findings are that (1) there were increases in happiness for up to 3 months and decreases in depressive symptoms in the short term in both intervention conditions; (2) participants found working with strengths equally rewarding (enjoyment and benefit) in both conditions; (3) those participants that reported generally higher levels of strengths benefitted more from working on LS rather than SS and those with comparatively lower levels of strengths tended to benefit more from working on SS; and (4) deviations from an average profile derived from a large sample of German-speakers completing the Values-in-Action Inventory of Strengths were associated with greater benefit from the interventions in the SS-condition. We conclude that working on character strengths is effective for increasing happiness and discuss how these interventions could be tailored to the individual for promoting their effectiveness.