Temperament and Character Inventory

The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) is an

TCI operates with seven dimensions of personality traits: four so-called temperaments[4]

• 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

Originally developed in English, TCI has been translated to other languages, e.g., Swedish,[6] Japanese, Dutch, German, Polish, Korean,^[7] 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,^[8] French,^[9] Czech,^[10] and Italian.^[11]

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)
  1. Exploratory excitability (NS1)
  2. Impulsiveness
     (NS2)
  3. Extravagance (NS3)
  4. Disorderliness (NS4)
• Harm avoidance (HA)
  1. Anticipatory worry (HA1)
  2. Fear of uncertainty (HA2)
  3. Shyness (HA3)
  4. Fatigability (HA4)
• Reward dependence (RD)
  1. Sentimentality (RD1)
  2. Openness to warm communication (RD2)
  3. Attachment (RD3)
  4. Dependence (RD4)
• Persistence (PS)
  1. Eagerness of effort (PS1)
  2. Work hardened (PS2)
  3. Ambitious (PS3)
  4. Perfectionist (PS4)
• Self-directedness (SD)
  1. Responsibility (SD1)
  2. Purposeful (SD2)
  3. Resourcefulness (SD3)
  4. Self-acceptance (SD4)
  5. Enlightened second nature (SD5)
• Cooperativeness (C)
  1. Social acceptance (C1)
  2. Empathy (C2)
  3. Helpfulness (C3)
  4. Compassion (C4)
  5. Pure-hearted conscience (C5)
• Self-transcendence (ST)
  1. Self-forgetful (ST1)
  2. Transpersonal identification (ST2)
  3. 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,^[12] structural neuroimaging^[13] and genetics.

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

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.[15] Dopamine transporter DAT1 and dopamine receptor DRD4 are associated with novelty seeking.^{[citation needed]} Parkinson's patients, who are intrinsically low in dopamine, are found to have low novelty seeking scores.^{[citation needed]} Gene variants that have been investigated are, e.g., 5-HTTLPR in the serotonin transporter gene and gene variants in XBP1.^[16]

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

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,

• Harm avoidance is strongly positively associated with
  extraversion
  .
• Novelty seeking is most strongly associated with extraversion, although it also has a moderate positive association with openness to experience and a moderate negative association with conscientiousness.
• 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.
• Self-directedness has a strong negative association with neuroticism 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.^[3]
• Novelty seeking is related to Impulsive
  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.[3]

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

• Karolinska Scales of Personality
• NEO PI-R

References