The 2010 meeting of AFERTP (Association francophone d’études et de recherche de la personnalité) took place in Paris on May 21, 2010. The meeting was focused on the Big Five. The president (Dr. Ludovic Gicquel) and treasurer (Prof. Christian Réveillère) of AFERTP welcomed the participants. An introduction about the future DSM-V centered on the possible evolution of axis II by Prof. Guelfi (University Paris-Descartes) and stressed the importance of both the dimensional and categorical approaches of personality disorders. Three main talks were presented by Profs. (1) Oliver P. John (University of California, Berkeley), on the paradigm shift to the Big Five personality-trait taxonomy, (2) Christopher J. Soto (Colby College), on personality traits from ages 10 to 65, focusing on their structure and their development, and (3) Laura P. Naumann (University of California, Riverside), on Big Five traits in social interactions—from observer-rated behavior to social outcomes. These talks highlighted the importance of the Big Five—especially the possible applications of the Big Five Inventory (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008; John & Srivastava, 1999).

Four talks using the French version of the BFI (BFI-Fr) stressed the usefulness of assessing personality traits in medical samples, such as chronic-pain (Baptiste Lignier) and epileptic (Odile Plaisant) patients, as well as with samples of adolescents (Robert Courtois) and medical students (Odile Plaisant). The discussant, Prof. Gerald A. Mendelsohn (University of California, Berkeley) expressed his concerns about personality theories and the Big Five factors of personality.

The French version of the BFI is now available (Plaisant et al., 2010, Annales Médico-Psychologiques); contact Robert Courtois (robert.courtois@univ-tours.fr) for more information.

The meeting was sponsored by University of Tours, University of Paris Descartes, AFERTP, and Pierre Fabre Medicament, and was hosted by Institut Mutualiste Montsouris in Paris.

Presenters and attendees at the 2010 Meeting of the Association Francophone d’Etudes et de Recherche de la Personnalité in Paris, France.