investigate the extent to which reports of situational threat are dependent upon cultural and physical characteristics of the environment and of sex and age as moderator variables / variances and invariances with respect to anxiety appraisal of situations over culture were studied the method used in this study is based on a categorization of free descriptions of anxiety-provoking situations presented by Magnusson & Stattin (1981 b) / the situational descriptions were obtained from samples of adolescents 12, 15 and 18 years of age, attending comprehensive schools or college preparatory schools in four countries: Hungary, India, Sweden and Yemen