Pii: s0165-1781(00)00127-x

Normative data and factor structure of the Fernand-Widal, AP-HP, 200 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, 75010 Paris, France Received 26 April 1999; received in revised form 24 August 1999; accepted 15 September 1999 Abstract
We explored the psychometric features of the French Temperament and Character Inventory Ž 602-subject community sample Ž263 men and 339 women , representative of the French population. The factor structures of the temperament and character dimensions, explored separately, were in agreement with the hypothe- sized constructs, except for the scales Novelty Seeking NS1 Žexploratory excitability., Persistence, and Self-Directed- ness SD4 Žself-acceptance. The internal consistency of the main dimensions was good ŽCronbach alpha coefficients 0.49 . The mean scores of the temperament dimensions were notably different from those published in other normative data ᎏ especially lower for Novelty Seeking Ž16.4" and higher for Harm Avoidance Ž16.1" 7.2 when compared with US data ᎏ suggesting cross-cultural differences in personality assessment, and the necessity to use specific normative values with each translated instrument. ᮊ 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Consistency; Cross-cultural; Personality; Questionnaire; Validity 1. Introduction
chobiological model of temperament and charac- ter. The four temperament dimensions are sup- TCI is a 226-item, self-administered, true᎐false posed to be highly heritable, stable throughout questionnaire developed by Cloninger to assess life, and underlined by specific neurotransmission seven dimensions of personality ŽCloninger et al., systems. No¨elty seeking Ž .
hereditary tendency to respond actively to novelstimuli, with frequent exploratory activity in re- U Corresponding author. Tel.: q33-1-40-05-48-69; fax: q33- sponse to novelty or impulsive decision-making.
E-mail address: [email protected] ŽA.
bias in the inhibition of behaviors, such as pes- 0165-1781r00r$ - see front matter ᮊ 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 6 5 - 1 7 8 1 Ž 0 0 . 0 0 1 2 7 - X simistic worry, passive dependent behaviors, or and in various clinical studies ŽBayon et al., 1996; rapid fatigability. Reward dependence Ž Allgullander et al., 1997; Ampollini et al., 1997; fined as a heritable bias in the maintenance or Black and Sheline, 1997; Tome et al., 1997; Be- continuation of ongoing behaviors, and is mani- jerot et al., 1998; Bulik et al., 1999; Hansenne et fest as sentimentality and social attachment or dependence. Persistence ŽP. is defined as a heredi- have been recently published from a Swedish tary tendency to perseverance despite frustration The three character facets, which reflect indi- metric investigations in large community samples vidual differences in goals, values, and self-consci- are rather scarce, especially for translated ver- ous emotions, are influenced by social learning sions of the TCI ŽTanaka et al., 1997; De la Rie et and are hypothesized to be less developed in immature personality and in personality disorder.
The TCI was translated into French based upon consensus of five bilingual clinicians. This trans- and ‘willpower’, to self-esteem, and to the ability lated version, approved by Cloninger, has been of an individual to control, regulate and adapt his used in France and in French-speaking countries behavior in accord with personal goals and values.
since 1993. Its factor structure and its reliability have been tested in various clinical and non-clini- ences in identification with and acceptance of other people Žagreeability, compassion, empathy, validation study on a computerized version of this maturity, transpersonal identification, and self- 1997 . This questionnaire has also been used in Each of these dimensions, except P, is explored by between 24 and 44 items of the TCI, and the French version of the TCI have been avail- involves three to five facets measured by sub- able to date. Such normative data are necessary to interpret the figures obtained with the TCI in scales of the main scales. Persistence is explored French-speaking subjects, but are also of interest by only eight items, not subdivided. The TCI is an to address some cross-cultural issues about the extension of the former Tridimensional Personal- assessment of personality in various countries, e.g. the US compared to European countries.
dimensions of temperament ŽCloninger, 1987; Indeed, cross-cultural validation studies have been published for depression scales ŽRoberts et al., Two studies have established the validity and the reliability of the original American version of the TCI in individuals from the general commu- functioning assessment instruments ŽVelligan et 1995 , but less information is available for psychometric studies have been carried out onthe TPQ ŽSvrakic et al., 1991; Kleifield et al.,1993; Takeuchi et al., 1993; Lepine and have supported the validity of the four tem- 2. Objectives
perament dimensions, especially from a geneticpoint of view ŽCloninger et al., 1993; Stallings et The primary objective of this study was to ob- tain French normative data for scores and sub- The TCI, as well as the TPQ, has been trans- scores of the TCI in a representative community lated into several languages and used in more and sample. Other objectives were to explore the in- more genetic studies Žreview in Cloninger, ternal consistency of the scores and sub-scores of the TCI in a translated version, to explore the 3. Methods
factor structures of temperament and character dimensions, and to determine cut-off scores for temperament dimensions in order to delineate categorical typology of personality as described by A group of 750 subjects was first identified by the SOFRES survey institute as representative of Table 1Mean scores Žand standard deviations. of the TCI, comparison between men and women Žtaking age into account., and Cronbach’salpha coefficients UU Gender difference: P-0.005.
the French general population in terms of sex, RD , in accordance with recent clinical stud- age, socio-professional categories, household lo- cation and type. The TCI was sent by mail to Internal consistency of scores and sub-scores these subjects, with the usual instructions and was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient cal- explanations of the purposes of the study pre- culated on responses to items. The structure of sented as an investigation into the ‘vision of the the TCI was explored by two principal component life’ of the French people. A total of 602 subjects analyses with Varimax transformation, one for 80.3% completed and returned the question- the temperament dimensions and one for the naire, with fewer than 10 non-completed items.
character dimensions, in accordance with the To preserve the representativeness of the sample, weighting coefficients were computed, but the differences between weighted and unweighted All analyses were conducted with SPSS, version values for TCI scores were not statistically sig- nificant; thus, we present here only unweighted values which are more in accordance with the 4. Results
Mean scores and sub-scores and standard devi- ations of the TCI were calculated in the whole 602-subject sample, and a comparison of mean scores of men and women was performed, taking of 46.5"17.7 years, i.e. 46.3"17.7 years in men into account the age as an associated variable in a and 46.7"17.7 years in women. Educational level general linear model. Correlations between TCI was under 6 years for 20.6% of subjects, and scores and age were also calculated, using the above 15 years for 14.3%. Almost half of the Pearson correlation coefficient. Quartiles of the distributions of temperament and character scores or higher than the French baccalaureat. The ma- were computed, and cut-off scores for tempera- ment types ŽCloninger et al., 1994; Cloninger and were cohabiting, 19.8% were single, 6.1% di- vorced, and 8.3% widowed. The subjects lived in scores of each temperament dimension ŽNS, HA all areas of France, with 20.3% in the Paris area.
deviations in three age groups, and correlation of TCI scores with age ŽPearson coefficient.
Table 3Median and quartile segmentation of TCI dimensions In addition to temperament types, subjects are considered to have a high risk of immaturity, and Mean scores of the TCI in the whole sample therefore of personality disorder, if their SD and and by sex are presented in Table 1. When age C scores are significantly low ŽCloninger et al., was taken into account, significantly higher scores were found in women for HA, RD and ST, and each category of the temperament typology, those subjects who were considered as ‘immature’ had The distribution of TCI scores according to age SDqC in the lowest quarter of the SDqC dis- groups is shown in Table 2. A significant Žnega- tribution of the whole sample, i.e. below 58. The tive. correlation with age was found only for NS, categorization of the subjects according to the temperamental typology, with or without this im- Median and quartile segmentations for each maturity criterion, is presented in Table 4.
dimension of the TCI are shown in Table 3.
According to Cloninger’s theory of temperament 4.3. Internal consistency and principal component ŽCloninger et al., 1993; Cloninger and Svrakic, 1997 , high and low scores for NS, HA and RD were set using the median as the cut-off scores, The Cronbach alpha coefficients for each score and sub-score of the TCI are listed in the last Table 4Distribution of temperament typology according to Cloninger’s classification Correlations between temperament and character scores of Principal component analysis of temperament sub-scales Žthree-factor solution with eigenvalues of 1 or more, after Correlations with P-valuesF0.01 are shown in bold.
column of Table 1. All alpha coefficients for main scores were higher than 0.68, except for Persis- 0.49 which includes only eight items. Six sub-scores had alpha coefficients lower than 0.50: Correlations between the four temperament and the three character dimensions are shown in Loadings with absolute values of 0.40 or more are shown Table 5. Notable correlations Žhigher than were found between HA and NS Žnegative., HA 5. Discussion
Two principal component analyses were per- formed for temperament and character sub-scores Two types of results about the TCI are avail- separately, with Varimax orthogonal transforma- able in this study, conducted in a French repre- tion taking into account factors with eigenvalues of 1 or more. Three factors were identified for temperament sub-scales, accounting for 53% of Principal component analysis of character sub-scales Žthree- to the rationally defined dimensions, except for factor solution with eigenvalues of 1 or more, after Varimax Persistence, which loaded negatively on the NS Three factors were also identified for character sub-scales, accounting for 53% of the variance 7 , and corresponding closely to the three dimensions, except for SD4, which loads moder- In order to analyze the main cross-cultural differences in TCI figures, we present in Table 8 the scores found in our sample as well as those obtained in three general population studies car- Loadings with absolute values of 0.40 or more are shown sentative sample, and can be discussed: normative data, and psychometric features about the struc- and NS, differences between French and US data ture and the reliability of the instrument.
were found in the same direction for all sub- Mean scores of this French version of the TCI scores, except for NS2 Žimpulsiveness., for which can first be compared to those published by similar values were obtained in both samples.
In another normative sample with the Swedish 300 subjects in US with the original version ate scores between our results and those pub- for all dimensions except for HA Ž16.1 vs.
dimensions, except for Persistence Ž3.7" higher scores than those of both samples for SD 19.2 . These differences can be explained by language and translation issues, andror by dif- ferences in personality characteristics among the two samples, since the US group was not selected obtained with the French version in two Belgian as being representative of the general population.
samples of 40 depressed subjects and 40 control The difference in HA Žmore anxious and de- subjects. Compared to our results, the mean scores were higher for NS both in depressed subjects only partially explained by the fact that we have a higher for HA in depressed subjects Ž25.6" in depressed subjects. It is worth noting that the higher than the mean score for HA in American mean ages were lower in both samples than in found for NS in the French sample can be par- tially or totally explained by the fact that the mean age of our sample was higher than in the have reported that the HA score is related to depression, as well as SD Žnegatively. Therefore, Table 8Comparison of four normative studies of the TCI in France Žour 1998 , and the Netherlands ŽDe la Rie et al., a N, number of subjects; S.D., standard deviation.
a methodological shortcoming of our study is that coefficients are higher than those obtained with we do not have a depressive assessment of our the Swedish version in a normative sample subjects. However, such assessment was not avail- able for other normative samples, and there is no Concerning the principal component analysis, procedure to investigate whether psychopatho- the hypothesized factor structures of tempera- logic differences can explain the differences found ment and character dimensions are relatively well in TCI scores between samples. Moreover, our confirmed, as has already been shown in other objective was to obtain normative data in the normative samples ŽCloninger et al., 1994; general population, and not TCI figures in healthy However, the portion of the variance explained by these factor solutions ᎏ 53% for temperament pared to men have been found in other popula- and character dimensions ᎏ is relatively low. In tions using either the TPQ or the TCI ŽCloninger et al., 1991; Svrakic et al., 1991; Lepine 58.9% of the variance of temperament dimen- sions explained by a four-factor solution, and slight elevation of SD in women, whereas such a difference was observed only for C by Cloninger For temperament dimensions, NS1 Žexploratory excitability. seemed to load more on the HA factor Žnegatively. than on the NS factor. Similar compared to women, but with an interaction results were obtained with the French version of between sex and psychiatric status Ždepressed vs.
with the English TPQ in a group of patients with A significant negative correlation of NS with age appeared in our sample, as in other studies results may suggest that exploratory tendencies are notably influenced by inhibition traits, and that NS1 is a heterogeneous sub-factor. Another find any significant difference in the other dimen- unanticipated result of our study is that Persis- sions according to age, whereas Cloninger et al.
tence is not an isolated dimension, but loads 1994 noted in a US community sample that SD negatively on the NS factor. Several studies have and C showed a strong positive correlation.
suggested that RD and P are less robust than the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients are similar, or slightly inferior, to those published by Cloninger ity of these factors can be questioned. For charac- ter dimensions, the three hypothesized factors are patients. They are high for main scores ŽG validated, even if SD4 Žself-acceptance. appeared to be poorly specific. The same figure was found ate or low for sub-scores, particularly for NS4 and C5. P is actually a sub-score ᎏ corresponding to character dimensions were analyzed separately.
RD2 in the first versions of the TPQ ŽCloninger, The negative correlation observed between NS 1987 ᎏ with a limited number of items. The and HA does not fit with the model of indepen- alpha coefficient obtained by Cloninger et al.
dent temperament factors described by Cloninger suggesting that the internal consistency of this scale is, in general terms, weak and that transla- community sample and by Hansenne et al. Ž tion issues are not entirely responsible for the low in French-speaking control subjects. It may be coefficient obtained in our population. Similar related to an overlap of some items within the conclusions can be drawn for RD and certain two dimensions, in particular because of the in- sub-scores. As a whole, these Cronbach’s alpha teraction found between NS1 and HA in the factor analysis. Other high correlation coefficients References
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