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What is the Temperament and Character Inventory? |
The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) is a set of tests designed to identify the intensity of and relationships between the seven basic personality dimensions of Temperament and Character, which interact to create the unique personality of an individual.
Temperament refers to the automatic emotional responses to experience and is moderately heritable (i.e. genetic, biological) and stable throughout life. The four measured Temperament dimensions are Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA), Reward Dependence (RD), and Persistence (PS).
Character refers to self-concepts and individual differences in goals and values, which influence voluntary choices, intentions, and the meaning and salience of what is experienced in life. Differences in character are moderately influenced by socio-cultural learning and mature in progressive steps throughout life. Character takes into account the psychology of the development of personality. The three measured Character dimensions are Self-Directedness (SD), Cooperativeness (CO), and Self-Transcendence (ST).
Each of these aspects of personality interacts with the other one to adapt to life experiences and influence susceptibility to emotional and behavioral disorders. The integration of character and temperament, which reflects the psychobiology of personality, moves this test into a new dimension of understanding ourselves and humanity. This test preserves the time tested and proven aspects of previous psychological and psychiatric data, but negates the charged battles between biology and psychology to form a new integrative whole. This integration also includes a transpersonal sphere that allows an understanding of how much a person experiences life as an integral part of the universe. The resulting insight helps us to establish a definition and a way to measure an individual’s experience of well-being and happiness. With this, we can make a clearer choice of what the best therapy is to help bring someone to a state of happiness and well-being.
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TCI
