خلق و خوی کاهش یافته و پرسشنامه کاراکتر (TCI-56). ویژگی های روان سنجی در یک نمونه غیربالینی

The aim of this study is to present a short version with 56 items (TCI-56), based on the Temperament and Character Inventory revised version (TCI-R). The psychometric properties of the TCI-56 were studied in a sample of 822 university students (526 women). The factorial structure of the inventory was explored using parallel analysis with normalized promax rotation, considering jointly the items of the Temperament dimensions (HA: Harm avoidance, NS: novelty seeking, RD: Reward dependence and PS: Persistence) and the Character dimensions (SD: Self-directedness, C: Cooperativeness and ST: Self-transcendence). The reliability coefficients were adequate, ranging from .69 for NS to .85 for ST, and the factorial matrices showed a dimensional clustering with satisfactory item saturation in the total sample and both genders. Women presented higher values for HA, RD, PS, SD and C, while men had higher values for NS. The TCI-56 could be a useful instrument to assess Cloninger’s model of the 7 dimensions of personality in non-clinical samples, whenever there is an interest to reduce the time needed to respond. Further studies, however, should explore its adequacy in clinical samples, its test–retest reliability, and the convergent or discriminant validity with other measures of personality.

Cloninger has developed a model which understands personality as the interaction between Temperament and Character (Cloninger, 1987, Cloninger, 1999a and Cloninger et al., 1993). This model tries to integrate the biological basis of personality with the development produced by experience and socio-cultural learning. Temperament is considered as a biological predisposition which remains stable throughout development, mostly inherited, and which is not modified by learning processes. Character is a set of characteristics that gets structured during development through learnt socio-cultural mechanisms resulting from experience, introspective learning or the reorganisation of self-concepts. Cloninger’s model is also known as the 7 factor model because it considers four dimensions of Temperament and three of Character. The four dimensions of Temperament are: Harm avoidance (HA), which reflects the activity of the system of behavioural inhibition or punishment, Novelty seeking (NS), related with the system of behavioural activation or reward, Reward dependence (RD), related to social reinforcement and sensitivity to social stimuli, and Persistence (PS), which implies the tendency to maintain behaviour in extinction conditions. The three dimensions of Character are: Self-directedness (SD), the capacity to regulate behaviour in order to adjust it to one’s principles, goals and personal beliefs, Cooperativeness (C), which involves the subject’s prosocial behaviour as a measure of social adaptation, and Self-transcendence (ST), related to the identification with what is conceived as essential and consequential parts of a unified whole. The union of the dimensions of Temperament and Character makes it possible to combine different paradigms and to develop what Cloninger called the “unified biosocial theory of personality”. Cloninger’s model and his instrument of measurement have proven useful both for normal personality description and for clinical purposes in different psychopathological disorders (Cloninger, 1987, Cloninger, 1999a, Cloninger, 2006, Jylhä and Isometsä, 2006 and Svrakic et al., 2002). The first questionnaire based on the 7 factor personality model was the “Temperament and Character Inventory” (TCI), composed of 240 items of dichotomous answer (yes/no) (Cloninger et al., 1993 and Svrakic et al., 2002). Later the revised version was developed (TCI-R), with the same number of items although 51 of them were modified, improving substantially the psychometric properties of the TCI. In addition, the TCI-R changed the answer format to a 5-point Likert scale, currently the most used. There are several versions of the TCI in different languages and normative data for different countries are available, together with cross-cultural comparisons that support their use (Miettunen, Kantojärvi, Veijola, Järvelin, & Joukamaa, 2006). For the most recent TCI-R (Cloninger, 1999b), the standardised scores are already available for Spain (Gutiérrez-Zotes et al., 2004), France (Pelissolo et al., 2005), Belgium (Hansenne, Delhez, & Cloninger, 2005), and Italy (Fossatti et al., 2007 and Martinotti et al., 2008). There are two shorter proposals to assess Cloninger’s 7 dimension personality model, both with a Likert-type 5-point answer scale. The TCI-140 made up of 140 items from the TCI-R, with 20 items for each dimension (Gutiérrez-Zotes, Cortés, Valero, Peña, & Labad, 2005), and the TCI-56, with only 56 items from the TCI, 8 for each dimension (Rigozzi & Rossier, 2004). The psychometric properties of both inventories are good, with acceptable reliability values and internal consistency, although inferior to the complete questionnaires. Using the abbreviated versions of the personality questionnaires allows the researcher to reduce substantially the administration time and optimises the process of gathering the information in those situations where the convergence of different tests is needed, whether in the areas of basic or clinical research. The TCI-56 was validated with a reduced sample of subjects (n = 211), five of its items belong to those eliminated in the TCI-R, and several of its items come from items modified in the TCI-R. On the other hand, factor analysis studies have yielded controversial results as to the latent structure of the TCI. The studies that provide evidence for a 7-factor structure analysed Temperament and Character scales separately. When joint factor analyses of both Temperament and Character dimensions were carried out, the results with the TCI suggested that the conceptual distinction between Temperament and Character may not be supported (Ando et al., 2004 and Herbst et al., 2000) whereas with the TCI-R they were (Fossatti et al., 2007). Moreover, although most of the studies done on the different versions of the TCI found gender differences in Cloninger’s personality dimensions (Miettunen, Veijola, Lauronen, Kantojärvi, & Joukamaa, 2007), little interest was paid to explore separately the factorial structure for men and women. Our work aims to present the psychometric properties of a reduced version of the TCI-R composed of 56 items (TCI-56), exploring the factor structure and taking into account the potential gender differences in a wide sample of Spanish university students. The inventory is inspired by the proposal by Rigozzi and Rossier (2004), but disregarding the items from the TCI that were eliminated in the revised version because of their little sensitivity.