RELIABILITY AND CONSTRUCT-VALIDITY OF THE GERMAN VERSION OF CLONINGERS TRIDIMENSIONAL PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE

Cloninger (Psychiatry Development, 3, 167-226, 1986; Archives of Gener al Psychiatry, 44, 573-588, 1987a) postulated a biosocial theory of pe rsonality consisting of three independent dimensions. The Tridimension al Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) was developed for the measurement o f Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA) and Reward Dependence (RD) . In this study reliability and construct validity of a German transla tion of the TPQ were investigated in a sample of 160 subjects. The int ernal consistencies of the superscales NS, HA and RD were high. The sm all intercorrelations of the TPQ superscales and the factorial structu re of the twelve TPQ subscales yielded some support for Cloninger's pe rsonality theory. NS seems to tap an impulsivity factor because of str ong correlations with Psychoticism, Extraversion, Impulsiveness and Se nsation Seeking. HA correlates with Neuroticism and Introversion and a ppears to measure a neuroticism or behavioral inhibition factor. RD, h owever, showed only marginal associations with other variables. In gen eral, results for the German version indicate, with exception for the RD scales, sufficient psychometric properties.