PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Cloninger’s biopsychosocial theory of personality (21) is based on the assumption that personality involves four temperament dimensions and three character dimensions. The four dimensions of temperament measure individual differences in basic emotional drives: harm avoidance (i.e., pessimistic and anxious versus optimistic and risk-taking); novelty seeking (i.e., impulsive and irritable versus rigid and stoical); reward dependence (i.e., sociable and warm versus aloof and cold); and persistence (i.e., persevering and ambitious versus easily discouraged and lazy). The three character dimensions measure individual differences in higher cognitive processes that define a person’s style of mental self-government: self-directedness (i.e., responsible and resourceful versus blaming and inept), cooperativeness (i.e., helpful and principled versus hostile and opportunistic), and self-transcendence (i.e., intuitive and insightful versus concrete and conventional). This model can serve as a tool for disentangling personality problems or disorders in subjects with neuropsychiatric disorders (12). A 238-item self-rating instrument, the Temperament and Character Inventory (21) has been developed to measure the model’s seven personality dimensions. Presence of a personality disorder is indicated by presence of character immaturity (especially by low self-directedness and/or cooperativeness) and type of disorder by the temperament configuration (22, 23). The least frequent answers from each Temperament and Character Inventory dimension form a rarity scale, generally used for validation purposes. In this study, rarity is also used as a reflection of mental health problems and distorted ideas, since rarity scores have been shown to differ considerably between subjects in the general population (who generally have very low rarity scores) and subjects with mental disorders (who have much higher scores) (24).
Temperament Neurotransmitter system
Novelty seeking Low dopaminergic activity
Harm avoidance High serotonergic activity
Reward dependence Low noradrenergic activity
In the revised version of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-R) novelty seeking consists of the following four subscales:
Exploratory excitability (NS1)
Impulsiveness (NS2)
Extravagance (NS3)[3]
Disorderliness (NS4)
The HA of TPQ and TCI-R has four subscales:
Anticipatory worry (HA1)
Fear of uncertainty (HA2)
Shyness/Shyness with strangers (HA3)
Fatigability/Fatigability and asthenia (HA4)
The HA of TPQ and TCI-R has four subscales:
Anticipatory worry (HA1)
Fear of uncertainty (HA2)
Shyness/Shyness with strangers (HA3)
Fatigability/Fatigability and asthenia (HA4)
It has been suggested that HA is related to high serotonergic activity,[4] and much research has gone into investigating the link between HA and components of the serotonin system, e.g. genetic variation in 5-HTTLPR in the serotonin transporter gene.[5]
The so-called subscales of RD in TCI-R are
Sentimentality (RD1)
Openness to warm communication or social sensitivity (RD2)
Attachment (RD3)
Dependence on approval by others (RD4)
Consequently, Cloninger identified a second domain of personality variables, using character traits to measure a person's humanistic and transpersonal style: self-directedness (reliable, purposeful vs. blaming, aimless), cooperativeness (tolerant, helpful vs. prejudiced, revengeful) and self-transcendence (self-forgetful, spiritual vs. self-conscious, materialistic).
