Thomas R. Przybeck

THE TRIDIMENSIONAL PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE: U.S. NORMATIVE DATA

The Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire is a self-report personality inventory measuring three major personality dimensions: Novelty Seeking, Harm Avoidance, and Reward Dependence. Normative data, based on a U.S. national probability sample of 1,019 adults, are presented and the psychometric properties of the questionnaire are discussed.

Temperament, character, and personality disorders: etiologic, diagnostic, treatment issues

Svrakic DM, Draganic S, Hill K, Bayon C, Przybeck TR, Cloninger CR. Temperament, character, and personality disorders: etiologic, diagnostic, treatment issues. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2002: 106: 189–195.

The relationship of personality to mood and anxiety states: A dimensional approach

This study evaluates the relationship of personality to mood and anxiety states in a sample of 50 psychiatric out patients. In order to overcome arbitrariness inherent in categorical diagnoses of affective, personality and anxiety disorders, we use a dimensional approach to personality, mood and anxiety. According to our results, mood and anxiety states affect personality domains differentially. Namely, relatively large portions of personality and behavior, such as higher-order traits of novelty seeking and reward dependence, seem independent from mood and anxiety states. In contrast, the higher-order dimension of harm avoidance and its corresponding lower-order traits reflect changes in mood and anxiety to a much greater extent. Both the likelihood that large portions of personality may be independent from current mood and the likelihood that some precisely delineated personality domains tend to change simultaneously with current mood may improve our understanding of the relationship of personality to emotionality and affective disorders.

Swedish normative data on personality using the temperament and character inventory

The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) is a self-report personality questionnaire based on Cloningers psychobiological model of personality, which accounts for both normal and abnormal variation in the two major components of personality, temperament and character. Normative data for the Swedish TCI based on a representative Swedish sample of 1,300 adults are presented, and the psychometric properties of the questionnaire are discussed. The structure of the Swedish version replicates the American version well for the means, distribution of scores, and relationships within the between scales and subscales. Further, the Swedish inventory had a reliable factor structure and test-retest performance. The results of this study confirm the theory of temperament and character as a seven-factor model of personality.

THE JUNIOR TEMPERAMENT AND CHARACTER INVENTORY: PRELIMINARY VALIDATION OF A CHILD SELF-REPORT MEASURE '

A preliminary effort to validate the Junior Temperament and Character Inventory with a convenience sample of 322 children ages 9 to 12 years is described.

Temperament Dimensions Explain the Comorbidity of Psychiatric Disorders

The comorbidity of DSM-III-R axis I and axis II disorders presents conceptual and nosological challenges to psychiatry. In a consecutive series of 164 psychiatric outpatients and 36 healthy controls in Milan, Italy, psychopathology was measured by structured interviews for DSM-III-R disorders and temperament was measured by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ). Low reward dependence (RD) distinguished cluster A personality disorders and no axis I disorders. High novelty seeking (NS) characterized cluster B personality disorders and patients with eating disorders, alcohol abuse, or substance abuse. High harm avoidance (HA) characterized all cluster C personality disorders and patients with mood or anxiety disorders. The temperament dimensions were nearly independent of one another, but patients often had multiple DSM-III-R diagnoses. The joint relations of these disorders to multiple temperament dimensions accounted for their characteristic patterns of comorbidity. These findings support the hypothesis that interactions among temperament dimensions during development influence comorbidity between axis I and axis II disorders.

Anxiety proneness linked to epistatic loci in genome scan of human personality traits

A genome-wide scan between normal human personality traits and a set of genetic markers at an average interval of 13 centimorgans was carried out in 758 pairs of siblings in 177 nuclear families of alcoholics. Personality traits were measured by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire. We detected significant linkage between the trait Harm Avoidance, a measure of anxiety proneness, and a locus on chromosome 8p21-23 that explained 38% of the trait variance. There was significant evidence of epistasis between the locus on 8p and others on chromosomes 18p, 20p, and 21q. These oligogenic interactions explained most of the variance in Harm Avoidance. There was suggestive evidence of epistasis in other personality traits. These results confirm the important influence of epistasis on human personality suggested by twin and adoption studies.

Mood states and personality traits

In this article we analyze the relationship between personality traits assessed by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire, and six mood states assessed by the Profile of Mood States-bipolar form. Our data suggest that large portions of personality and/or behavior, e.g., higher order dimensions of Novelty Seeking and Reward Dependence, can be relatively independent from current mood. In contrast, the Harm Avoidance dimension covaries with mood and anxiety. Also, we analyze the psychometric properties of the Profile of Mood States-bipolar form, and discuss some practical aspects of our findings.

Personality and depressive symptoms: a multi-dimensional analysis

BACKGROUND The relationship of temperamental aspects of personality to symptoms of depression in a community-based sample of 804 individuals was examined using a multi-dimensional approach to account for heterogeneity in symptom patterns. METHOD The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was used to assess personality and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D) was used to measure depressive symptoms. Canonical correlation analysis was used to relate CES-D item combinations to temperament traits in multiple dimensions. The relationships between temperament and various conditions correlated with depression were examined using logistic regression. RESULTS Temperamental aspects of personality are related not only to total CES-D score, but also to the patterns of CES-D items endorsed by subjects. High Harm Avoidance is related to total CES-D score; high Reward Dependence combined with high Persistence is associated with restless sleep and subjective symptoms; high Reward Dependence combined with low Persistence is negatively associated with appetite loss and low energy; high Novelty Seeking is related to maintenance of positive affect and inability to concentrate. High Novelty Seeking is also associated with past suicide attempts, after adjusting for total CES-D score. LIMITATIONS Cross-sectional data prevent analysis of causation; the severest cases of clinical depression may not be represented in a general population sample. Depressive symptoms are self-reported. CONCLUSION Substantial differences in level of symptoms and in symptom patterns exist among individuals in a continuum of depressed states and those differences are partially explained by temperament traits.

Further contribution to the conceptual validity of the unified biosocial model of personality: US and Yugoslav data

In this study, the conceptual validity of the unified model of personality, postulated by Cloninger (1987) and measured by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ), is tested in diverse Yugoslav and American societies. The issue of cross-cultural sensitivity of personality studies and the methodology that minimizes distortions and alternative explanations are discussed in detail. Similar personality structures were observed in the Yugoslav and US samples. Differences in novelty seeking (NS, attributed to age differences between the two samples) and harm avoidance (HA, possibly due to long-standing socioeconomic instability in Yugoslavia) are consistent with the unified biosocial theory of personality. Also, the TPQ was found to be psychometrically sound and valid for further research, although some revision in the reward dependence (RD) scale is warranted.