The genetic and environmental relationship between Cloninger's dimensions of temperament and character

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether Cloninger's revised 7-factor model of personality showed incremental validity over his four dimensions of temperament. A sample of 2517 Australian twins aged over 50 between 1993 and 1995 returned completed self-reported measures of Self-directedness, Cooperativeness, and Self-transcendence from Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory. Many of these twins had participated in a 1988 study containing Cloninger's temperament measures of Harm Avoidance, Novelty Seeking, Reward Dependence and Persistence. Contrary to theoretical expectations, univariate analyses revealed that familial aggregation for the character dimensions could be entirely explained by additive gene action alone. Although temperament explained 26, 37 and 10% of additive genetic variance in Self-directedness, Cooperativeness and Self-transcendence, respectively, seven genetic factors were required to explain the genetic variance among the TPQ dimensions, and almost all of the non-shared environmental variance was unique to each dimension of character. Our results indicate that the inclusion of all seven dimensions in a taxonomy of personality is warranted.

Depressive Expression and Anti-Depressive Protection in Adolescence: Stress, Positive Affect, Motivation and Self-Efficacy

“…As a genetic attribute distractiveness has an impact on temperament, i.e. novelty-seeking, harm avoidance and reward dependence (Cloninger, Svrakic, & Przybeck, 1993), and is likely to be modulated through childhood and adolescence as character is formed (Gillespie, Cloninger, Heath, & Martina, 2003;Joyce et al, 2003). From the results in the present investigation it is suggested that stress accentuates distractive behaviour.…”

Temperament, character and serotonin activity in the human brain: a positron emission tomography study based on a general population cohort

“…The heritability of ' selfdirectedness ' is high and in several studies it may be even higher than that for the four temperament traits (Comings et al 2000 ;Ando et al 2002Ando et al , 2004Gillespie et al 2003 ;Isen et al 2009). However, little is known about the biology of character dimensions.…”

The Neurobiology, Genetics and Evolution of Human Spirituality: The Central Role of the Temporal Lobes

“…When all factors were considered together using a statistical tool called multivariate analysis, the genetic contribution to selftranscendence averaged 40 percent for both sexes. These results were unchanged by the time the size of this study had increased to 2,517 twins (Gillespie, 2003). Ando and colleagues, (2002; reported twin studies for 617 pairs of adolescent and young adult twins in Japan.…”