The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) is an

inventory Inventory (British English) or stock (American English) is a quantity of the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation. Inventory management is a discipline primarily about specifying ...

for personality traits devised by Cloninger et al. It is closely related to and an outgrowth of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ), and it has also been related to the dimensions of personality in Zuckerman's alternative five and Eysenck's models and those of the five factor model. TCI operates with seven dimensions of personality traits: four so-called ''temperaments'' * Novelty seeking (NS) * Harm avoidance (HA) * Reward dependence (RD) * Persistence (PS) and three so-called ''characters'' * Self-directedness (SD) * Cooperativeness (CO) * Self-transcendence (ST) Each of these traits has a varying number of subscales. The dimensions are determined from a 240-item questionnaire. The TCI is based on a psychobiological model that attempts to explain the underlying causes of individual differences in personality traits.

Versions

Originally developed in English, TCI has been translated to other languages, e.g., Swedish, Japanese, Dutch, German, Polish, Korean, Finnish, Chinese and French. There is also a revised version ''TCI-R''. Whereas the original TCI had statements for which the subject should indicate true or false, the TCI-R has a five-point rating for each statement. The two versions hold 189 of the 240 statements in common. The revised version has been translated into Spanish, French, Czech, and Italian. The number of subscales on the different top level traits differ between TCI and TCI-R. The subscales of the TCI-R are: *Novelty seeking (NS) *#Exploratory excitability (NS1) *# Impulsiveness (NS2) *#Extravagance (NS3) *#Disorderliness (NS4) *Harm avoidance (HA) *#Anticipatory worry (HA1) *#Fear of uncertainty (HA2) *#Shyness (HA3) *#Fatigability (HA4) *Reward dependence (RD) *# Sentimentality (RD1) *#Openness to warm communication (RD2) *#Attachment (RD3) *#Dependence (RD4) *Persistence (PS) *#Eagerness of effort (PS1) *#Work hardened (PS2) *#Ambitious (PS3) *#Perfectionist (PS4) *Self-directedness (SD) *#Responsibility (SD1) *#Purposeful (SD2) *#Resourcefulness (SD3) *#Self-acceptance (SD4) *#Enlightened second nature (SD5) *Cooperativeness (C) *#Social acceptance (C1) *#

Empathy Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are ...

(C2) *#Helpfulness (C3) *#

Compassion Compassion is a social feeling that motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental, or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is sensitivity to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based ...

(C4) *#Pure-hearted conscience (C5) *Self-transcendence (ST) *#Self-forgetful (ST1) *#Transpersonal identification (ST2) *#Spiritual acceptance (ST3)

Neurobiological foundation

TCI has been used for investigating the neurobiological foundation for personality, together with other research modalities, e.g., with molecular neuroimaging, structural neuroimaging and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

. Cloninger suggested that the three original temperaments from TPQ, novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and reward dependence, was correlated with low basal

dopamine Dopamine (DA, a contraction of 3,4-dihydroxyphenethylamine) is a neuromodulatory molecule that plays several important roles in cells. It is an organic chemical of the catecholamine and phenethylamine families. It is an amine synthesized ...

rgic activity, high serotonergic activity, and low basal noradrenergic activity, respectively. Many studies have used TCI for examining whether genetic variants in individual genes have an association with personality traits. Studies suggest that novelty seeking is associated with dopaminergic pathways. Dopamine transporter DAT1 and dopamine receptor DRD4 are associated with novelty seeking. Parkinson's patients, who are intrinsically low in dopamine, are found to have low novelty seeking scores. Gene variants that have been investigated are, e.g., 5-HTTLPR in the serotonin transporter gene and gene variants in '' XBP1''.

Relationship to other personality models

Cloninger argued that the Five Factor model does not assess domains of personality relevant to personality disorders such as autonomy, moral values, and aspects of maturity and self-actualization considered in humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Cloninger argued that these domains are captured by self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence respectively. He also argued that personality factors defined as independent by

factor analysis Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors. For example, it is possible that variations in six observe ...

, such as

neuroticism Neuroticism is a personality trait associated with negative emotions. It is one of the Big Five traits. Individuals with high scores on neuroticism are more likely than average to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, shame ...

and introversion, may actually share underlying etiological factors. Research has found that all of the TCI dimensions are each related substantially to at least one of the dimensions in the Five Factor Model, Eysenck's model, Zuckerman's alternative five: * Harm avoidance is strongly positively associated with

and inversely associated with

extraversion Extraversion and introversion are a central trait dimension in human personality theory. The terms were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, though both the popular understanding and current psychological usage are not the same as Jung's ...

. * Novelty seeking is most strongly associated with extraversion, although it also has a moderate positive association with

openness to experience Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe personality psychology, human personality in the Big Five personality traits, Five Factor Model. Openness involves six Facet (psychology), facets, or dimensions: active imagina ...

and a moderate negative association with

conscientiousness Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being responsible, :wikt:careful, careful, or :wikt:diligent, diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to ...

. * Persistence has a positive association with conscientiousness. * Reward dependence is most strongly associated with extraversion, although it also has a moderate positive association with openness to experience. * Cooperativeness is most strongly associated with

agreeableness Agreeableness is the trait theory, personality trait of being kind, Sympathy, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, honest, straightforward, and considerate. In personality psychology, agreeableness is one of the Big Five personality traits, five major ...

. * Self-directedness has a strong negative association with

and a positive association with conscientiousness. * Self-transcendence had a positive association with openness to experience and to a lesser extent extraversion. * Relationships have also been found between the TCI dimensions and traits specific to the models of Zuckerman and Eysenck respectively. * Novelty seeking is related to Impulsive

sensation seeking Sensation seeking is a trait theory, personality trait defined by the search for experiences and feelings, that are "varied, novel, rich and intense", and by the readiness to "take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such ...

in Zuckerman's alternative five model and to psychoticism in Eysenck's model. * Zuckerman and Cloninger have contended that Harm Avoidance is a composite dimension comprising neurotic introversion at one end and stable extraversion at the other end. * Persistence is related to Zuckerman's Activity scale and inversely to psychoticism. * Cooperativeness is inversely related to Zuckerman's Aggression-hostility scale and to psychoticism. * Self-transcendence has no equivalent in either Zuckerman or Eysenck's model as neither model recognises openness to experience.

Health and well-being

Cloninger has argued that "psychological well-being" depends on the development of facets of the three character dimensions, such as autonomy and life purpose from self-directedness, positive relations with others from cooperativeness, and personal growth and self-actualization from self-transcendence. He has also argued that the temperament dimensions are associated with subjective well-being and to some extent with physical health. A study examining relationships between character dimensions and aspects of health and happiness found that self-directedness was strongly associated with

happiness Happiness is a complex and multifaceted emotion that encompasses a range of positive feelings, from contentment to intense joy. It is often associated with positive life experiences, such as achieving goals, spending time with loved ones, ...

, satisfaction with life, general health, and perceived social support. Cooperativeness was associated most strongly with perceived social support and only weakly with the other well-being measures. Self-transcendence was associated with positive emotions when taking the other character traits into account, but was largely unrelated to negative emotions or the other well-being measures.

References

External links