Reliability and construct validity of the German version of Cloningerʹs Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire

Cloninger (Psychiatry Development, 3, 167–226, 1986; Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 573–588, 1987a) postulated a biosocial theory of personality consisting of three independent dimensions. The Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) was developed for the measurement of Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA) and Reward Dependence (RD). In this study reliability and construct validity of a German translation of the TPQ were investigated in a sample of 160 subjects. The internal consistencies of the superscales NS, HA and RD were high. The small intercorrelations of the TPQ superscales and the factorial structure of the twelve TPQ subscales yielded some support for Cloningerʹs personality theory. NS seems to tap an impulsivity factor because of strong correlations with Psychoticism, Extraversion, Impulsiveness and Sensation Seeking. HA correlates with Neuroticism and Introversion and appears to measure a neuroticism or behavioral inhibition factor. RD, however, showed only marginal associations with other variables. In general, results for the German version indicate, with exception for the RD scales, sufficient psychometric properties.