Validity of Yin-Yang temperament in Sasang Personality Questionnaire

Abstract

BackgroundThe Yin-Yang is a pivotal concept of traditional East-Asian medicine, however the stability of Yin-Yang temperament in Sasang Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) over time has not been extensively studied. The purpose of this study was to examine the test-retest validity of SPQ with a large number of participants.MethodsSPQ test was conducted two times with three months interval in 247 Korean university students. The structural validity of first SPQ data was examined with Factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha, and the correlation between first and second measure of SPQ was attested with Pearson's correlation. Yang, Uncertain and Yin temperament groups were determined with SPQ total scores, and agreement of temperament group clustering between first and second measures were analyzed with Cohen's Kappa.ResultsThree subscales of SPQ explained 55.25% of total variances, and internal consistency of SPQ total score was 0.772. The correlation coefficient between first and second measures of SPQ were 0.851 and 0.888 in male and female, respectively, and the agreement of first and second Yin-Yang temperament group clustering as Cohen's Kappa was 0.536 for male and 0.637 for female.ConclusionThe repeatability of SPQ measuring Yin-Yang temperament at three months of interval was found to be satisfactory. The SPQ would be a reliable clinical measure for the biopsychological studies of traditional East-Asian medicine.

The Yin-Yang personality from biopsychological perspective using revised Sasang Personality Questionnaire

“…Besides, the HA (t = −3.032), SD (t = 2.474) and ST (t = −2.061) scores of the current study were found to be gender dependent ( Table 4 ), and these psychological characteristics of current participants 11 , 13 , 30 might influence the gender differences observed in both SPQ-Emotion and rSPQ-Emotion ( Table 5 ).…”

“…Third, the revision in the current study provided the operational definition of Yin-Yang personality clearly and distinctively by lowering the correlation coefficient among the three rSPQ subscales ( Table 3 ). Previous studies using the SPQ showed significant correlations between SPQ-Behavior and SPQ-Cognition in preschoolers, 28 elementary students, 27 , 28 middle school students, 26 , 36 high school students 12 , 29 and university students, 11 , 13 as well as adults 13 showing correlation coefficient ranged from 0.256 to 0.541. However, the current study showed no significant correlation coefficient between rSPQ-Behavior and rSPQ-Emotion subscales ( Table 3 ), and no significant correlations (r = −0.063∼0.111) among the three rSPQ subscales ( Table 5 ).…”

“…The current study suggested a more defined and organized psychological characterization of Yin-Yang personality and its subdomains by considering the behavioral, cognitive and emotional perspectives ( Table 1 ). Based on the correlations with TCI subscales ( Table 5 ), the description of three domains of Yin-Yang or three subscales of rSPQ, along with repeatedly reported associations with Novelty-Seeking and Harm-Avoidance, 2 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 19 , 20 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 36 would be as follows ( Table 1 ). The rSPQ-Behavior was observed to significantly correlate with RD (r = 0.436, p < 0.01), PS (r = 0.430, p < 0.01), SD (r = 0.359, p < 0.01) and CO (r = 0.246, p < 0.01), indicating that those with high rSPQ-Behavior are cooperative, sociable, persistent and proactive.…”

“… 2 The previous study with university students reported that the internal consistency for SPQ total, SPQ-Behavior, SPQ-Cognition and SPQ-Emotion were 0.772, 0.769, 0.581, and 0.641, respectively. 11 …”

“…The Yin-Yang denotes opposite and complementary qualities or matters, 2 , 11 such as night-day, dark-light, inside-outside, introvert-extrovert, passive-active, stable-dynamic, aloof-sociable and others. 1 , 8 , 12 The Sasang Personality Questionnaire (SPQ), a clinical measure for the Yin-Yang psychobiology with three dimensions of behavior, cognition and emotion, has been developed based on the previous traditional East-Asian medicine studies.…”