Personality differences according to age and sex in a Mexican sample using the Temperament and Character Inventory–Revised
Introduction
Research on the neurobiological and experiential influences of personality features has increased since the introduction of the psychobiological model of personality proposed by Cloninger and his colleagues [1], [2], [3]. This model provides an alternative for the study of personality because it takes into account the respective contribution of biologically based mechanisms related to temperament and the environmentally shaped processes related to character [3]. Temperament refers to automatic, partially heritable responses to experiences that are stable throughout life; and character refers to individual differences in goals and values that are heritable but develop by insight learning through personal and social experiences [3], [4].
Cloninger's personality model includes 4 temperament and 3 character dimensions. The temperament dimensions are as follows: (1) Novelty seeking (NS) is defined as the tendency to respond impulsively to novel stimuli with active avoidance of frustration. It reflects the tendency to pursue reward and escape from punishment. (2) Harm avoidance (HA) is the tendency to inhibit responses to aversive stimuli leading to avoidance of punishment and nonreward. (3) Reward dependence (RD) is the tendency for positive attachment and response to signals of reward that maintain behavior. (4) Persistence (PS) is the tendency to perseverance despite frustration and fatigue based on resistance to extinction of reinforced behavior.
The character dimensions are as follows: (1) Self-directedness (SD) refers to the executive ability of an individual to control, regulate, and adapt behavior to fit the situation in accordance to personal goals. (2) Cooperativeness (CO) accounts for individual differences in the acceptance of other people and measures features related to agreeability vs self-centered aggression and hostility. (3) Self-transcendence (ST) is viewed as the identification with everything conceived as essential and consequential parts of a unified whole [2], [3], [5].
The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was developed with the goal of assessing the 7 dimensions of the psychobiological model of personality. The inventory has been translated and validated in general population in several countries. As a whole, TCI reliability studies consistently reported adequate coefficient values for most of the scales, although RD and PS scales had shown lower internal consistency values.
In 1999, Cloninger released the TCI-Revised (TCI-R). The TCI-R differs from the original TCI in several aspects. First, the original TCI true-false scale response was replaced by a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (definitively false) to 5 (definitively true) to enhance assessment precision for subscales. Second, the temperament dimensions RD and PS are now composed of 4 subscales to improve their description and evaluation. In the original TCI, PS was measured by only one scale and RD by 3 because PS was originally thought to be a component of RD until they were found to be independently inherited [6], [7]. Furthermore, a total of 51 items from the 240 of the original TCI were rewritten; and 5 validity items were included in the TCI-R.
Up to now, the translation and adaptation of the questionnaire in several countries showed that the TCI-R is provided with adequate internal consistency and even with higher reliability coefficients than the original TCI.
Despite the widespread use of the TCI-R in clinical and nonclinical settings around the world, it requires that its factor model and transcultural validity undergo evaluation. Furthermore, it is necessary to obtain data for men and women in different age cohorts because it has been reported that age and sex differences can be found in terms of personality features [8], [9], [10], having different dominant characteristics across cultures [7].
In this way, the main objective of the present study was to examine age and sex differences in personality features and to examine the TCI-R's psychometric properties according to age and sex in a sample in Mexico City. We tested Cloninger's predictions that character traits all increase with age as a person matures through experience, whereas temperament traits are relatively stable except for a decrease in NS with age [3], [11].
Section snippets
Subjects
Recruitment was performed by a convenience sampling approach with subjects from the general population of Mexico City. This sample is not intended to be representative of Mexico City's population because the methods include a nonprobabilistic sample approach. This type of sampling was the most useful for the present study because it only samples those who are available and willing to participate. A total of 2076 adults were included. The sample was made up of 1017 (49%) men with a mean age of
Age and sex distribution of the TCI-R higher-order dimensions
Both temperament and character dimensions showed acceptable values of skewness and kurtosis by age cohorts, where none of the values was excessively out of range (skewness range, −0.53 to 0.46 and kurtosis range, −0.55 to 1.08 for all age cohorts). In addition, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed normal distribution of the TCI-R scores on each age cohort with P values > .05.
The mean scores and standard deviations for the groups according to age and sex are reported in Table 1. Differences were
Discussion
The main purpose of the present study was to examine age and sex differences in personality features as well as data for men and women in different age cohorts, factor structure, and reliability of the TCI-R in a community sample of Mexico City.
There have been many comparisons between men and women in terms of psychological characteristics (eg, cognition, communication, and social variables) and personality features. Our results support previous findings about the effects of age and sex on
Acknowledgment
We acknowledge Dr Ariel Graff for his valuable review and comments to the manuscript.
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2020, Journal of Clinical NeuroscienceCitation Excerpt :On the contrary, we found that BSP patients were older than EH and HFS patients. Although we could not exclude the possible confounding effect of age on the personality differences between BSP and EH and HFS groups, several normative studies of the TCI-R have demonstrated that age is associated consistently only with Novelty Seeking [32–36]. Regarding the association between age and Harm Avoidance, Persistency and Reward Dependence, the validation studies have revealed mixed results.
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2018, Journal of Science and Medicine in SportCitation Excerpt :As a result of negligible differences between ANOVA and Mann Whitney U results, all data was represented as being normally distributed with the ANOVA results displayed. Due to the possible effect of age on personality traits,15 a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with age as a covariate, examined the differences in TPQ scores between groups. If significant differences were found in any of the three TPQ dimensions, additional analysis was completed on the four corresponding subscales.
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2017, Psychiatry ResearchCitation Excerpt :All dimensions contain 20 items except for ST, which has only 16 items leaving the place for the four additional control items (Zohar and Cloninger, 2011). Items are rated on a five-point Likert-scale ranging from 1 (definitely false) to 5 (definitely true) (Fresan et al., 2011). TCI-R140 has been validated across various sociocultural populations including French (Pelissolo et al., 2005), Belgian (Hansenne et al., 2005), Italian (Martinotti et al., 2008), Brazilian (Goncalves and Cloninger, 2010).
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2016, Journal of Affective DisordersCitation Excerpt :Finally, gender differences were found also in ST scores, with higher scores in females compared to males in the 30–39 age group. Higher scores in this character dimension have been consistently found in different studies and populations (Cloninger et al., 1993; Fresán et al., 2011; Brändström et al., 2001). Therefore, our results seemed to confirm not only that adult women tend to be more wise and spiritual than males especially between 30 and 39 years but also that this trait remains higher, although less evident, throughout all adulthood.
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2016, Journal of Affective DisordersCitation Excerpt :Further, age was confirmed to have a negative effect on NS and a positive effect on HA and C, respectively (Brändström et al., 2001; Chen et al., 2002, 2013; Cloninger, 1994a; Cloninger et al., 1993; Mikolajczyk et al., 2008). Indeed, impulsive behaviour and automatic decision-making may decrease with age, while fearfulness and social inhibition, and consequently, the search for social support, become more pronounced with age (Fresan et al., 2011). Finally, the prevalence of female gender was confirmed to have a positive effect on HA and a negative effect on SD (Brändström et al., 2001; Cloninger et al., 1993; Gutierrez-Zotes et al., 2004; Miettunen et al., 2007; Pelissolo and Lepine, 2000).