TEMPERAMENT AND CHARACTER INVENTORY-R (TCI-R) AND BIG FIVE QUESTIONNAIRE (BFQ): CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE

This study evaluated the correspondence between measures of two competing theories of personality, the five-factor model as measured by the Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ), and Cloninger's psychobiological theory measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised (TCI-R). A sample of 900 Italian participants, balanced with respect to sex (393 men and 507 women), and representative of the adult population with respect to age (range 18 to 70 years; M = 39.6, SD = 15.7) completed the TCI-R and the Big Five Questionnaire. All TCI-R personality dimensions except Self-Transcendence were moderately correlated with one or more of the Big Five dimensions (from r=.40 to .61), and the two instruments showed areas of convergence. However, the differences outweighed the similarities, indicating that these current conceptualizations and measures of personality are somewhat inconsistent with each other.