Sexting is a phenomenon related to the exchange of sexts, that is texts/photos/videos with sexually provocative contents, through internet, smartphone or social networks. Sexting is becoming more and more popular worldwide. The present project aims to investigate the personality predictors of sexting behaviors in a cross cultural perspective. Differences or similarities in personality traits due to different cultural backgrounds will be explored, accounting also for socio-demographical variables and sexual orientation. Beyond Italy, countries that were already pre-contacted and that agreed to participate includes: Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, and USA. More countries will be contacted and included in case this project will receive financial support. Participants will include 250 adolescents (between 14 and 19 years old) and 250 young adults (between 20 and 30 years old) for each country. A survey on line will be administered and the questionnaire will be composed by measures of HEXACO traits, Callous Unemotional Traits, Dark triad traits, the Sexting Behavior Questionnaire, and other information such as age, gender, internet use, sexual orientation and many other records useful to describe participants. A multilevel data analytic strategy will be employed. This study will aim to investigate which individual personality characteristics predict sexting and whether individual predictors vary across countries. The role of age, gender, internet use, sexual orientation and other characteristics will also be considered and taken into account both at the individual and at the country level. Cross cultural investigations in sexting research are very rare, the only published study included European countries. A big effort will be done in order to include countries from Asia, middle-east, south America and Africa which are traditionally less investigated compared to European and north American countries.
