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IntroductionThere has been a renaissance of the ancient concept of‘temperament’, starting with the pioneering work ofThomas and Chess (1977) in the 1950s and 1960s.Temperamental traits are defined as early developingindividual behaviour tendencies that are biologicallyrooted, present from infancy onwards, relatively stableover time and situations and are manifested in the con-text of social interaction (Goldsmith et al., 1987;Bates, 1989). Stable temperamental traits have beendescribed from second year of life onwards (Caspi andSilva, 1995; Caspi et al., 1995; Zentner, 1993).

According to Cloninger’s psychobiological theory ofpersonality (Cloninger, 1987; Cloninger et al., 1993,1994) temperament reflects the basic organization ofindependently varying brain systems for the activation,maintenance and inhibition of behaviour in responseto stimuli and include basic emotional responsepatterns. Recent molecular-biological studies (Ebsteinet al., 1996; Benjamin et al., 1996; Ekelund et al.,1999) support Cloninger’s postulates of a biologicalbasis for temperament.

Behavioural activation in response to novelty,

reward or relief of punishment is called novelty seeking;behavioural inhibition in response to punishment ornon-reward is harm avoidance; previously rewardedbehaviour that is maintained without continuedreinforcement is called reward dependence and continu-ance of a behaviour despite frustration and fatigue iscalled persistence (Cloninger et al., 1994).

Those parts of personality that refer to individualdifferences in self-concepts about goals and valuesare called character. Character has the followingbasic traits: self-directedness (one’s concept of the selfas an autonomous individual), cooperativeness (theself as an integral part of humanity or society) andself-transcendence (self as an integral part of the uni-verse) (Cloninger et al., 1994). Character is thoughtto represent those aspects of personality that areformed by sociocultural learning and are modified bytemperamental traits.

Findings from neuroanatomy and neurophysiologyas well as developmental and clinical psychology andpsychiatry constitute the basis of this unified biosocialtheory of personality. Differences in the major brainsystems for procedural versus propositional learning

International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, Volume 10, Number 4

Reliability and validity of the JuniorTemperament and Character Inventory

KLAUS SCHMECK, KIRSTIN GOTH, FRITZ POUSTKA, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany

ROBERT C. CLONINGER, Center for Psychobiology of Personality, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri,USA

ABSTRACT The Junior Temperament and Character Inventory (JTCI) was developed to assess the temperament(‘novelty seeking’, ‘harm avoidance’, ‘reward dependence’, ‘persistence’) and character (‘self-directedness’, ‘coopera-tiveness’, ‘self-transcendence’) dimensions of Cloninger’s biosocial model of personality in children and adolescents. Thepsychometric properties of the JTCI are presented.

We used the German version of JTCI in a clinical sample of 188 adolescent psychiatric patients (aged 12 to 18 years) andin a non-referred sample of 706 German adolescents of the same age range. Aspects of reliability and validity are discussed.

We subjected the JTCI to confirmatory factor analysis and were able to replicate the temperament and character scalesof the original TCI. The internal consistency of the scales was satisfactory with the exception of ‘reward dependence’ and‘persistence’. Construct validity was supported by good correspondence of JTCI dimensions with related constructs.

Psychometric properties of the German version of JTCI are very promising. Results yield strong support for Cloninger’spsychobiological theory.

Key words: JTCI, temperament, reliability, validity, confirmatory factor analysis

Reliability and validity of the JTCI 173

Analyses revealed good internal consistencies for thescales ‘harm avoidance’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.83), ‘noveltyseeking’ (α = 0.77), ‘self-transcendence’ (α = 0.75)and cooperativeness (α = 0.78) and moderate internalconsistencies for the scales ‘reward dependence’ (α =0.62), ‘persistence’ (α = 0.50) and ‘self-transcendence’(α = 0.56). In a confirmatory factor analysis, goodness-of-fit index for temperament scales was 0.75 (χ2 = 2.53,p = 0.0001) and 0.76 (χ2 = 2.30, p = 0.0001) for char-acter scales. So the model did not exactly fit theempirical data. However, the violation of the modelwas small, the internal consistencies quite promisingand the scale-intercorrelations in line with Cloninger’stheory so that the authors decided to keep to themodel.

Brandorf et al. (1999) tested a Swedish version ofTPQ with 151 schoolboys and schoolgirls aged 10years. Internal consistencies were good for ‘harmavoidance’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.78) and ‘novelty seek-ing’ (α= 0.71) but lower for ‘reward dependence’(α = 0.58).

The aim of the present study was to test psychometricproperties of the German version of JTCI in a somewhatolder sample (12- to 18-year-old adolescents) and to testthe applicability of Cloninger’s psychobiological modelof personality to adolescents whose personality is not yetcompletely developed.

Method

Measures

The JTCI The original version of JTCI has been translated intoGerman by Schmeck, Meyenburg and Poustka (1995)and has been used in clinical assessment of adolescentpatients in the Department of Child and AdolescentPsychiatry, J. W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt(Schmeck, 1998).

lead to the distinction between temperament andcharacter. The phenotypic structure of personality thatis based on these two concepts is assumed to be theresult of interactions between genetic, environmentaland social influences throughout one’s whole life.

To assess the basic aspects of personality, Cloningerand co-workers produced the Temperament andCharacter Inventory (TCI) (Cloninger et al., 1994), adevelopment of the former Tridimensional PersonalityQuestionnaire (TPQ). The TCI has been successfullytested for its psychometric characteristics and has beenused in many international studies.

According to this model, temperament consists offour distinct factors that are independently inherited(Cloninger et al., 1993), which could be supported bytwo twin studies of Heath et al. (1994) and Stallings etal. (1996) so that intercorrelations between these tem-perament factors should be generally low. Howevernovelty seeking is thought to be modified by harmavoidance (Cloninger et al., 1994) so that moderateintercorrelations between these two factors couldoccur. Character dimensions are thought to maturestep by step throughout life on the basis of the specificconstellation of temperament (Cloninger, 1999).Intercorrelations between character and temperamentfactors can therefore be expected. Several studies withadults showed significant correlations between TCIdimensions (harm avoidance with self-directednessr = –0.39 to –0.47; co-operativeness with rewarddependence r = 0.36 to 0.54; cooperativeness with selfdirectedness r = 0.38 to 0.57; novelty seeking withharm avoidance r = –0.24 to –0.36) (for an overviewsee Richter et al., 1999).

Luby and Svrakic adapted the questionnaire for usewith children between 9 and 13 years of age (Luby etal., 1999). The JTCI is a self-administered question-naire with 105 items in a true-false format.Psychometric properties were tested in a sample of 322non-referred children (mean age 12.0 years, SD 1.3).

Table 1: TCI/JTCI dimensions

Novelty seeking (impulsive, exploratory, curious versus reflective, orderly)Harm avoidance (shy, worrying, pessimistic versus confident, outgoing, optimistic)Reward dependence (attached, sentimental, warm versus detached, withdrawn, cold)Persistence (hard-working, ambitious versus gives up easily, inactive)Self-directedness (responsible, reliable versus immature, unreliable)Cooperativeness (empathic, tolerant, helpful versus revengeful, intolerant)Self-transcendence (patient, creative, self-forgetful versus impatient, self-conscious)

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Our first analyses revealed that the corrected itemtotal correlations of some items were below ri t ≥ 0.2,which was in part due to misunderstandings about thewording, especially among younger adolescents. Wetherefore decided to remove 25 items from the ques-tionnaire. The final German version consists of 80items (‘novelty seeking’ 12 items, ‘harm avoidance’ 16items, ‘reward dependence’ nine items, ‘persistence’five items, ‘self-directedness’ 16 items, ‘cooperative-ness’ 14 items, ‘self-transcendence’ eight items)requiring ‘true-false’ answers. It takes about 10 minutesto complete the questionnaire.

Typical JTCI items are:

• When I’m curious, I disregard dangers and prohibi-tions. (Novelty seeking.)

• Often I’m scared to try things I wish I could do.(Harm avoidance.)

• I have difficulties tolerating other people dislikingme. (Reward dependence.)

• I take good care to make everything as right as pos-sible. (Persistence.)

• I feel strong enough, to master everything some-how. (Self-directedness.)

• I take good care not to hurt somebody with myactions. (Cooperativeness.)

• I believe in a higher force connecting all livingbeings. (Self-transcendence.)

Other rating scales• The Youth Self Report YSR (Achenbach, 1991) is

the self rating form of the Child BehaviorChecklist CBCL, a worldwide used screeninginstrument to assess psychopathology of childrenand adolescents. Behavioural and emotional prob-lems are covered in 120 items that are completed inrespect to the last six month prior to assessment.The YSR was translated to German and psychome-tric properties were successfully tested(Arbeitsgruppe Deutsche Child BehaviorChecklist, 1993; Döpfner et al., 1993).

• The Impulsiveness, Venturesomeness and Empathyquestionnaire (IVE) was developed by Eysenck andEysenck (1980) to assess impulsiveness, venture-someness and empathy in children and adolescents.The original 77-item self-rating questionnaire wastranslated to German, tested for its psychometricproperties and revised to a 48-item version with

good reliability and validity (Stadler et al., 2000).• The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) (Beck and

Steer, 1987) is a self-rating questionnaire that cov-ers a wide range of depressive symptoms in 21items. Symptoms are graded by severity andsummed up to a total score that represents theseverity of depression.

• The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders(SCARED) (Birmaher et al., 1997) is a self-ratingquestionnaire to assess five different facets of anxi-ety (panic, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety,social phobia, school phobia) in children and ado-lescents. The German version (Kappen andSchmeck, 1997) reveals good internal consisten-cies (Cronbach’s alpha 0.75–0.85) that arecomparable to the US version.

SampleThe JTCI was designed to assess basic personality ofchildren and adolescents both in clinical and non-clinical samples. To test psychometric properties of thequestionnaire we decided to use a combined sample ofreferred and non-referred adolescents aged 12 to 18years. The non-referred sample was assessed in differ-ent schools in the area of Frankfurt and surroundings.Because of state government rules we were not allowedto assess psychopathology in this sample.

Non-referred sampleTo draw the non-referred sample we cooperated withthe local school authorities of the city of Frankfurt anda provincial/rural area 60 km in the south-west ofFrankfurt (Kreis Groß-Gerau). The school authoritiesselected 10 different schools that are representative fortheir area concerning level of education and socio-demographical characteristics. Adolescents (n = 841)from all types of school of the German school systemcompleted the questionnaire in their classroom. Whilethe students were completing the questionnaire ateacher and one of the investigators were present inthe classroom to prevent the students from readingtheir neighbours’ answers. Criteria excluding studentsfrom further analysis were: insufficient ability to read;questionnaire with more than four missing responseitems; age below 12 or above 18 years. The final sam-ple consisted of 706 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years(350 male, mean age 15.1 years, SD 1.8; 356 female,mean age 14.7 years, SD 1.7); 67.9% were Germans,

Reliability and validity of the JTCI 175

the observed measures and the underlying latent con-structs are postulated a priori in a detailed model. If thetheoretical model fits the data (if it is consistent withthe empirical data) this strongly supports the constructvalidity of the instrument. Measurement errors (resid-uals) are explicitly taken into consideration and reflectthe unreliability of the indicators.

The following criteria were used to indicate good-ness-of-fit of the model to the data:

χ2 (chi-square) p > 0.05; χ2/df < 2; root-mean-squareerror of approximation (RMSEA) > 0.05; goodness offit (GFI) > 0.9; adjusted goodness of fit (AGFI) > 0.9.

To further check construct validity a test was carriedout to discern whether variables like age, sex, nation-ality, socioeconomic status, place of residence or typeof school significantly influence temperament andcharacter scores. Multiple analysis of variance(MANOVA) was used to prevent type I error due tomultiple comparisons.

Even small differences become statistically signifi-cant if sample size is large. The calculation of effectsizes ((mean1 – mean2) / ((standard deviation1 + stan-dard deviation2)/2)) is a way to demonstrate theimportance of mean differences independently of sam-ple size. According to Cohen (1988) effect sizes can beinterpreted as follows: <0.20 negligible; 0.20 to 0.50small; 0.50 to 0.80 medium; >0.80 important.

A common way to verify construct validity is to cor-relate the construct of interest with othercorresponding constructs. We calculated Pearson cor-relations between JTCI and YSR, the IVEquestionnaire, the BDI and the anxiety screeninginstrument, SCARED. Sample size is different for eachcalculation as patients did not complete all question-naires (JTCI-YSR: N = 139; JTCI-IVE: N = 65;JTCI-BDI: N = 52; JTCI-SCARED: N = 29).

Finally we subjected JTCI to a joint factor analysistogether with other constructs. If factors can be repli-cated in a joint factor analyses this yields strongsupport for the stability of the original factor solution.Because of the small sample size we excluded BDI andSCARED and restricted the analysis to JTCI tempera-ment factors, YSR internalizing and externalizingscales and the three IVE scales. Method was principalcomponent analysis with orthogonal Varimax rotation,number of factors was not determined in advance.

32.1% had a foreign nationality (mostly fromEuropean and north-african countries; 71.4% of themhad been born in Germany). Socioeconomic status waslow in 33.3 % of families, middle in 45.6% and high in21.1% (according to the scheme of Kleining andMoore, 1968, which is often used in Germany).

Referred sampleThe referred sample consisted of 188 inpatients andoutpatients (age 12–18 years) who were admitted tothe Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry ofthe Frankfurt university clinic and 22 adolescents whohad been referred to a child guidance clinic (total clin-ical sample N = 188: 89 male, mean age 14.6 years, SD1.8; 99 female, mean age 15.9 years, SD 1.6); 83% ofthem were Germans, 17% foreigners. Socioeconomicstatus was low in 41.4% of families, middle in 38.6%and high in 20.0%. Diagnoses covered all kinds ofchild and adolescent psychiatric disorders (ADHDN = 11; conduct disorder N = 48; emotional disordersN = 47; eating disorders N = 39; psychoses N = 17;personality disorders N = 19; other disorders N = 7).Exclusion criteria were IQ < 85, insufficient ability tospeak and read the German language; questionnairewith more than four missing items.

Data base for statistical analysesAll statistical analyses were conducted using the com-bined clinical and non-referred sample (N = 894) withonly two exceptions: correlation of JTCI with YouthSelf Report (N = 139), IVE (N = 65), BDI (N = 52),SCARED (N = 29) and retest-reliability (N = 21)were checked in sub-samples of the clinical group.

StatisticsTo evaluate reliability we computed the internal con-sistency of scales (Cronbach’s alpha). Test-retestcorrelations and scale intercorrelations were checkedwith two-tailed Pearson correlations.

With a first order confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) (LISREL8; Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1996) wetested the factorial validity of the questionnaire. Thisprocedure applies a hypothesis-testing approach to themultivariate analysis of a structural theory, which rep-resents causal processes (Bollen, 1989). According tothis model, latent variables or latent constructs (‘fac-tors’ or ‘dimensions’) generate variation in theobserved variables (‘indicators’). Relations between

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Table 2: JTCI intercorrelations (scores above the diagonal are for girls; scores below the diagonal are for boys)

NS HA RD P SD CO ST

NS –0.32 0.08 –0.35 –0.10 –0.28 0.08HA –0.22 –0.25 –0.03 –0.45 0.03 0.11RD 0.03 –0.10 0.01 0.22 0.16 0.05P –0.31 –0.03 0.09 0.35 0.23 0.07SD –0.19 –0.31 0.23 0.18 0.21 –0.11CO –0.34 0.17 0.15 0.13 0.20 0.08ST –0.07 0.21 0.06 0.16 –0.14 0.18

Legend: NS = Novelty seeking, HA = Harm avoidance, RD = Reward dependence, P = persistence, SD = Self-directedness,CO = Cooperativeness, ST = Self-transcendence

Results

ReliabilityBoth temperament and character factors are basic per-sonality traits that cover a wide range of behaviouraland emotional reactions. Such broad personality fac-tors have to be heterogeneous constructs. So we cannot expect high internal consistency with JTCI-scales.With the exception of harm avoidance (Cronbach’sα = 0.81) the internal consistencies are in a mediumbut acceptable range for four scales (novelty seekingα = 0.67, self-directedness α = 0.67, cooperativenessα = 0.67, self transcendence α = 0.66) but in an unac-ceptably low range for the two temperament scalesreward dependence (α = 0.51) and persistence(α = 0.48).

To check retest-reliability 21 inpatients completedthe questionnaire a second time after an interval oftwo to three weeks. During this period they took partin all therapeutic activities which could influence theway they filled out the questionnaire. So the test ofretest reliability is conservative because any change inpsychopathology should decrease the correlationbetween first and second test.

Stability of scale scores is high with test-retestcorrelations between 0.75 and 0.92 (novelty seeking0.86, harm avoidance 0.88, reward dependence 0.81,persistence 0.86, self-directedness 0.92, cooperative-ness 0.75, self-transcendence 0.91).

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)The four-factor-model of temperament provides a verygood approximation of the data. Although reliabilityof the scales was only moderate, all criteria indicated a

good fit of the model to the data (χ2(14 df) = 25.42,

p = 0.03, χ2/df = 1.82; RMSEA = 0.03, GFI = 0.99,AGFI = 0.98).

The explained variance of indicator variables variedbetween 26% and 80%; the residual unexplained vari-ance is seen as measurement error.

The three-factor-model of character provides anexcellent approximation of the data. All criteria indicat-ed an extremely good fit of the model to the data (χ2

(6 df)

= 4.59, p = 0.6, χ2/df = 0.77; RMSEA = 0.00; GFI = 0.99;AGFI = 0.99). Explained variance of indicator variablesvaries between 40% and 60%. (A complete descriptionof method and results of CFA can be found in Goth,2000, and Goth et al., in preparation.)

Intercorrelation of JTCI dimensionsTable 2 presents intercorrelations of JTCI dimensionsseparately for girls and boys. Intercorrelations betweentemperament factors are generally low, with only mod-est correlations between novelty seeking and harmavoidance (–0.32 for girls, –0.22 for boys) as well asnovelty seeking and persistence (–0.35 for girls, –0.31for boys). Correlations between reward dependence andpersistence are very low (0.01–0.09) which emphasizesthe need to distinguish between these two basic per-sonality factors that had been merged together in theformer Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire.

As predicted, the correlations between temperamentand character factors are somewhat higher with highestintercorrelations between harm avoidance and self-directedness (–0.45 for girls, –0.31 for boys). Allcorrelations between self-directedness and the four tem-perament factors are in the predicted direction (negativewith novelty seeking and harm avoidance, positive with

reward dependence and persistence), which yields sup-port for Cloninger’s theory of personality development(Cloninger, 1999). For children and adolescents the rela-tionship between self directedness and cooperativeness(0.21 bzw. 0.20) is not as distinct as it is for adults.

ValidityIt is important to know if the magnitude of scores of aquestionnaire depends on different sociodemographicvariables like age, sex, socioeconomic status, nationality/

ethnicity, place of residence (urban versus rural sur-roundings) or level of education (which is representedin this study by type of attended school). If scores varywith these variables, norms have to becalculated separately and the intervening variables haveto be included in multivariate analyses as covariates.

As can be seen in Table 3, the influence of sociode-mographic variables on JTCI-scores is generally verylow. There are no medium (effect size > 0.50) or impor-tant effects (> 0.80) for all variables except sex that

Reliability and validity of the JTCI

Table 3: JTCI scores and socioeconomic variables

NS HA RD P SD CO ST

Age 12–14 Mean 4.9 5.2 4.8 2.5 11.1 10.4 3.4SD 2.5 3.5 2.0 1.3 2.9 2.4 2.1

15–18 Mean 5.3 4.5 5.0 2.5 12.0 10.5 3.5SD 2.6 3.5 1.8 1.4 2.6 2.0 2.0

Effect size <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 0.34 <0.20 <0.20Sex Boys Mean 5.3 4.5 4.2 2.5 11.1 9.6 3.3

SD 2.6 3.3 1.7 1.3 2.7 2.6 2.1Girls Mean 4.9 5.1 5.7 2.5 12.0 11.2 3.7

SD 2.6 3.5 1.8 1.4 2.6 2.0 2.0Effect size <0.20 <0.20 0.86 <0.20 0.34 0.70 <0.20

Nationality Germ. Mean 5.1 4.6 5.0 2.4 11.8 10.5 3.2139 SD 2.7 3.3 1.9 1.4 2.6 2.4 2.0

Foreig Mean 5.2 5.1 4.7 2.5 11.2 10.1 4.111 SD 2.5 3.5 2.0 1.3 2.9 2.8 2.1

Effect size <0.20 0.21 <0.20 <0.20 0.26 <0.20 0.39Socioeconomic status Low Mean 4.9 5.2 4.7 2.5 11.0 10.4 3.5

SD 2.5 3.4 1.8 1.3 2.9 2.5 2.0Med. Mean 5.1 4.7 5.0 2.4 11.7 10.5 3.6

SD 2.7 3.2 2.0 1.4 2.6 2.4 2.1High Mean 5.4 4.5 5.2 2.5 12.1 10.3 3.4

SD 2.5 3.7 1.9 1.4 2.5 2.5 2.0Effect size <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 0.40 <0.20 <0.20

Type of school Haup Mean 5.1 4.9 4.6 2.5 11.2 10.3 3.4SD 2.7 3.3 1.7 1.2 2.6 2.6 1.8

Gesa Mean 4.9 5.1 5.0 2.5 11.2 10.7 3.8SD 2.5 3.2 2.0 1.3 2.8 2.3 2.2

Gym Mean 5.2 4.5 5.1 2.4 12.1 10.5 3.4SD 2.7 3.6 2.0 1.4 2.7 2.5 2.2

Effect size <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 0.33 <0.20 <0.20Place of residence Urban Mean 5.2 4.8 4.9 2.5 11.5 10.3 3.7

SD 2.7 3.5 1.9 1.3 2.7 2.4 2.0Rural Mean 5.0 4.8 4.9 2.5 11.6 10.5 3.3

SD 2.6 3.3 2.0 1.4 2.6 2.5 2.1Effect size <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 <0.20 <0.20

Legend: NS = Novelty seeking, HA = Harm avoidance, RD = Reward dependence, P = Persistence, SD = Self-directedness, CO= cooperativeness, ST = self-transcendence* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001 (MANOVA)

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(except the externalizing scales), with depression andespecially with anxiety. This result is in line with thefindings of Giancola et al. (1994) with 377 students ofpsychology (‘harm avoidance’ was correlated withSpielberger’s trait anxiety (0.67) and with the BeckDepression-Score (0.48)). Reward dependence and per-sistence show generally low negative correlations withYSR scores. The highest negative correlations are forboth dimensions with the externalizing scale delin-quent behaviour.

‘Self-directedness’ is negatively correlated with allkinds of psychopathology (except somatic complaints),impulsivity, anxiety and depression. Low scores in self-directedness represent an immature self-structure(Mulder et al., 1996) which is associated with variousmental disorders. The character dimension ‘coopera-tiveness’ (being empathic, tolerant and helpful) showsonly one high correlation (with the IVE scale ‘empa-thy’) but no important association with anxiety,depression, impulsivity or psychopathology, whichstrongly supports the validity of this scale. ‘Self-transcendence’ shows small to medium positive

shows a strong effect with higher scores for girls inreward dependence and cooperativeness (similarresults can be found with adults; Cloninger et al.,1994). Small effects can be found for self-directedness,with higher scores for older adolescents, for girls andfor adolescents of higher socioeconomic status andhigher educational level. Place of residence shows noeffect at all on temperament and character variables.These results are in line with Kohnstamm’s (1989) andFullard’s (1989) view that only sex and to some extentage and ethnicity show an influence on temperamentvariables.

In Table 4 the correlation of temperament and char-acter dimensions with measures of psychopathology isshown. Correlations between temperament and psy-chopathology are in line with the predictions ofCloninger’s psychobiological theory of personality.Novelty seeking is significantly positive correlated withthe externalizing scales ‘aggression’ and ‘delinquentbehaviour’, the second-order dimension ‘externalizingbehaviour’ and ‘impulsivity’. By contrast, ‘harm avoid-ance’ is positively correlated with all YSR-dimensions

Table 4: Correlation of JTCI with YSR (N = 139), IVE (N = 65), BDI (N = 52), SCARED (N = 29)

NS HA RD P SD CO ST

YSR – withdrawn –0.06 0.47*** –0.18 –0.14 –0.39*** 0.13 0.12YSR – somatic complaints –0.04 0.41*** –0.06 –0.17 –0.20 0.19 0.24**YSR – anxious/depressed –0.20 0.59*** –0.08 0.05 –0.38*** 0.24** 0.26**YSR – social problems –0.08 0.43*** –0.17 –0.18 –0.38*** 0.04 0.11YSR – thought problems 0.08 0.30*** –0.11 –0.05 –0.31*** 0.04 0.27**YSR – attention problems 0.15 0.31*** –0.17 –0.29*** –0.47*** 0.09 0.21YSR – delinquent behaviour 0.46*** –0.05 –0.23** –0.31*** –0.37*** –0.11 0.13YSR – aggressive behaviour 0.36*** 0.05 –0.08 –0.25** –0.43*** –0.10 0.29***YSR – internalizing –0.12 0.56*** –0.09 –0.06 –0.37*** 0.25** 0.22**YSR – externalizing 0.43*** –0.01 –0.11 –0.28** –0.39*** –0.07 0.19YSR – total score 0.14 0.39*** –0.16 –0.19 –0.49*** 0.10 0.29***IVE – impulsivity 0.46*** 0.18 –0.15 –0.32** –0.53*** –0.08 0.35**IVE – venturesomeness 0.27 0.00 –0.28 0.09 –0.16 –0.10 0.22IVE – empathy –0.19 0.28 0.26 0.05 –0.07 0.54*** 0.26Beck Depression Inventory 0.15 0.51** –0.04 0.01 –0.51** 0.07 0.25SCARED – panic –0.12 0.61*** –0.18 –0.08 –0.44*** 0.05 0.31SCARED.– gener. anxiety –0.17 0.52*** –0.26 –0.05 –0.37** 0.33 0.28SCARED – separ. anxiety –0.14 0.51*** –0.21 –0.06 –0.43** –0.08 0.31SCARED – social phobia –0.26 0.68*** –0.30 –0.07 –0.35 0.04 0.28SCARED – school phobia –0.12 0.55*** –0.15 –0.16 –0.47*** 0.12 0.30SCARED – total score –0.21 0.74*** –0.28 –0.11 –0.51*** 0.13 0.37**

Legend: NS = Novelty seeking, HA = Harm avoidance, RD = Reward dependence, P = Persistence, SD = Self-directedness, CO= Cooperativeness, ST = Self-transcendence; ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, two-tailed test

correlations with internalizing and externalizing syn-dromes, impulsivity and anxiety. These results go inline with Cloninger’s predictions that high self-transcendence is associated with psychopathology ifself-directedness is decreased.

In a next step we performed a combined factoranalysis with JTCI temperament dimensions, IVEdimensions and internalizing and externalizing YSRsyndromes (see Table 5). Number of extracted factorswas not determined in advance.

Each of the four temperament dimension has highpositive loadings only on one factor. These four factorsexplain 71.7% of the total variance. The first factor(34% explained variance) has high positive loadingson ‘novelty seeking’, ‘externalizing syndromes’, ‘impul-sivity’ and ‘venturesomenness’, the second factor on‘harm avoidance’, ‘internalizing syndromes’, ‘attentionproblems’ and (to a lesser extent) on ‘empathy’. Thethird and fourth factors show high loadings only ontwo dimensions (‘reward dependence’ and ‘empathy’;‘persistence’ and ‘venturesomeness’).

DiscussionThe aim of the present study was to check psychomet-ric properties of the German version of JTCI and theapplicability of Cloninger’s psychobiological model ofpersonality to an age group whose personality develop-ment is not yet complete.

Table 5: Combined factor analysis of JTCI temperament dimensions, YSR and IVE (N = 59)

FactorI II III IV

JTCI –Novelty seeking 0.746 –0.357 <0.30 <0.30JTCI – Harm avoidance <0.30 0.774 <0.30 <0.30JTCI – Reward dependence <0.30 <0.30 0.843 <0.30JTCI – Persistence –0.468 <0.30 <0.30 0.709YSR – Anxious/depressed <0.30 0.856 <0.30 <0.30YSR – Social problems <0.30 0.802 <0.30 <0.30YSR – Somatic problems <0.30 0.663 <0.30 <0.30YSR – Aggressive behaviour 0.802 <0.30 <0.30 <0.30YSR – Delinquent behaviour 0.810 <0.30 <0.30 <0.30YSR – Attention problems 0.517 0.676 <0.30 <0.30IVE – Impulsivity 0.807 <0.30 <0.30 <0.30IVE – Venturesomeness 0.512 <0.30 <0.30 0.716IVE – Empathy <0.30 0.389 0.726 <0.30Explained variance 34.0% 18.9% 10.0% 8.8%

Principal component analysis, Varimax-rotation, five iterations. Total explained variance 71.7%

Reliability and validity of the JTCI 179

Our data yield excellent support for Cloninger’smodel of personality with two distinct areas called‘temperament’ and ‘character’. The goodness-of-fit-indices are remarkably high for both temperament andcharacter dimensions. This fit between the model andthe empirical data is markedly better for adolescentsthan it is for older children aged nine to 13 years (Lubyet al., 1999) indicating that the structure of personalityis further developed and more stable in the older agegroup and comparable to the personality structure ofadults. This finding has important implications for thedebate if personality disorder exists in children andadolescents or not (Kernberg, 1990; Shapiro, 1990). Ifstructure of personality is fairly stable from adolescenceto adulthood disorders of personality should already bedetected in adolescence. In a clinical sample of 58 ado-lescents aged 14 to 18 years we could show that clusterB-personality disorders were associated with the sametemperament constellation that can be found in adults(Schmeck, 2001).

Moreover the nearly optimum fit of the four tem-perament model to the empirical data supports thenecessity to distinguish between ‘reward dependence’and ‘persistence’. These two temperament dimensionshad been merged together in one common factor inthe former Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire.

As in adult samples (Richter et al., 1999) the fourtemperament factors are not completely independent

Schmeck et al.180

from one another. The negative correlation between‘novelty seeking’ and ‘harm avoidance’ (–0.32 for girls,–0.22 for boys) is in line with Cloninger’s predictionthat ‘novelty seeking’ is modulated by ‘harm avoid-ance’ (Cloninger et al., 1994). The negativecorrelation between ‘novelty seeking’ and ‘persistence’(–0.35 for girls, –0.31 for boys), however, is not pre-dicted by the model and cannot be found in adultsamples (Richter et al., 1999). All other intercorrela-tions between temperament factors indicate only weakrelationships.

Reliability of the German version of JTCI is some-what lower than reliability of TCI (American,Swedish and German samples; Richter et al., 1999)but in a similar range than reliability of JTCI in anAmerican (Luby et al., 1999) and TPQ in a Swedish(Brandorf et al., 1999) sample. The lower internalconsistencies of JTCI could be due to the threefoldfewer number of items compared to TCI (80 versus240 items). Because of the partly unsatisfactory relia-bilities (especially for ‘reward dependence’ and‘persistence’) we change some items of the Germanversion of JTCI and the true-false format to a four-stepscale to increase the internal consistencies.Preliminary analyses of this revised German versionshow markedly improved reliability.

Retest reliability is high with test-retest-correlationsmostly above r = 0.80. This should be qualified by say-ing that the period of time between first and secondassessment was quite short (two to three weeks).Evaluation of TCI retest reliability over a period of sixmonths that has been conducted by Cloninger et al.(1999) revealed test-retest correlations between r = 0.75(persistence) and r = 0.50 (cooperativeness).

As should be expected with biologically routedaspects of personality the influence of sociodemo-graphic variables on temperament factors is generallylow (effect sizes below 0.20). Only the factor sexshows a strong effect on ‘reward dependence’ (0.86)with higher scores for girls than for boys. Characteron the other hand is supposed to be influenced bysociocultural factors. However with the exception ofmarkedly higher ‘cooperativeness’ in girls than inboys the influence of sociodemographic variables oncharacter factors is only moderate (‘self-directedness’)to low (‘cooperativeness and self-transcendence’).Nationality, socioeconomic status and type of schoolonly have a moderate influence on ‘self-directedness’,but no effect on all other scales. Whether a child

grows up in an urban or rural environment has noeffect at all on basic personality traits.

The analyses of construct validity support both thevalidity of the German version of JTCI as well asCloninger’s concepts of basic personality traits.Completely in line with the theoretical predictions theonly significant correlations of ‘novelty seeking’ arewith impulsivity (which forms a part of this dimen-sion) and externalizing behaviours like aggression ordelinquency. ‘Harm avoidance’ is significantly corre-lated with different internalizing problems, depressionand anxiety. Self-directedness is significantly negativecorrelated with all kinds of psychopathology. Thehighest correlation of ‘cooperativeness’ can be foundwith empathy (which actually forms a part of this fac-tor). The validity of the character dimension‘self-transcendence’ is difficult to assess because thistranspersonal facet of personality is quite different frommost other constructs in the field of personalityresearch.

Construct validity of the temperament model isunderlined by the fact that a common factor analysis oftemperament factors with other constructs (withoutdetermination of factor number) revealed four inde-pendent factors with high positive loadings of each ofthe four temperament dimension on only one factor.Explained variance was very high (71%).

The analysis of construct validity is based on a clin-ical sample. We assume that the results can begeneralized also to population-based samples. At themoment we conduct another JTCI-study that is basedon a non-referred sample to verify this assumption.

In general the results of this study confirm the psy-chometric properties of the Junior Temperament andCharacter Inventory, which seems to be a useful tool forthe assessment of personality in adolescence. A revisionof some items helps to increase reliability. The empiri-cal data of this sample of German adolescents yieldstrong support for Cloninger’s psychobiological theory.

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Correspondence: Klaus Schmeck, Department of Childand Adolescent Psychiatry, Johann Wolfgang Goethe –University. Deutschordenstrasse 50, D-60528 Frankfurta.M., Germany.