Comprehensive meta-analysis of associations between temperament and character traits in Cloninger’s psychobiological theory and mental disorders

Abstract

Objective To explore the relationship between temperament and character traits in Cloninger’s psychobiological theory and mental disorders. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted of five international databases for all articles published in English between January 1990 and April 2019 (PROSPERO-CRD42019133214). Owing to heterogeneity, pooled estimates of correlations for personality disorders and standardized mean differences for case–control studies related to other mental disorders were calculated using the random-effects method. Results The pooled effect sizes obtained from 149 studies showed that high harm avoidance (related to 22/24 diagnostic categories), low self-directedness (21/23), low cooperativeness (17/23), high self-transcendence (14/23), low reward dependence (11/24), high novelty-seeking (10/24), low novelty-seeking (7/24), high persistence (2/23), low persistence (2/23) and high reward dependence (2/24) were related to psychopathology. Conclusions All traits provided unique psychobiological tools for differential diagnosis of mental disorders. However, high harm avoidance and low self-directedness played a canonical role in psychopathology. Despite the study limitations, additional studies are warranted to evaluate the differential diagnoses suggested by the present model.

Comparison of the relative sensitivity of two dimensional personality models to the psychopathological symptoms: the section III DSM-5 maladaptive traits versus affective temperaments

“…Several review and meta-analytic studies have also pointed to the role of temperamental models in explaining the symptoms of NPDs [ 29 – 31 ]. The results of a comprehensive meta-analysis also showed that temperamental traits have a stronger relationship with NPDs than PDs [ 32 ].…”

Associations between temperament dimensions and dental anxiety in parents of the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study

“…Accordingly, those with higher effortful control might better cope with situations like dental treatment, and so be less likely to develop dental anxiety in which lack of control is a key phenomenon [6]. Previous publications have frequently reported an association between negative affect and more mental health symptoms, such as higher depression and general anxiety [29,30], which have also been associated with dental anxiety . Interestingly, general anxiety or depressive symptoms were not associated with dental anxiety when temperament dimensions were considered simultaneously.…”

“…The bivariate associations between dichotomized MDAS, temperament dimensions and education were assessed with Mann-Whitney U-test separately for women and men. The covariates were selected based on previous results [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][29][30]. Finally, the associations between all temperament dimensions and dental anxiety at the same model (with cut-off for high dental anxiety (MDAS ≥ 19) in logistic regression) were modelled using linear and logistic regression analyses adjusted for general anxiety and depressive symptoms, education (as dummy variable in linear regression) and age, separately for women and men.…”

“…These dimensions overlap considerably with personality traits, such as extraversion, agreeableness, intellect/openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism [ 28 ]. Psychological symptoms and disorders, such as general anxiety and depression, are reportedly associated with certain temperament and personality traits, especially harm avoidance, negative affect/neuroticism and poorer self‐regulation and self‐directedness [ 29 , 30 ].…”

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“…Ofte skilles det mellom trekkimpulsivitet eller impulsiv personlighet og atferdsimpulsivitet (Sliedrecht et al, 2021;Um et al, 2018). Et eksempel på førstnevnte er Cloningers psykobiologiske teori, der impulsivitet er et aspekt ved temperamentstrekket nyhetssøking og disponerer for AUD (Komasi et al, 2022). I en nevropsykologisk sammenheng forstås impulsivitet som svikt i hemming mer enn ønske om nyhet og spenning.…”