Assessing personality features and their relations with behavioral problems in adolescents: tridimensional personality questionnaire and junior eysenck personality questionnaire

doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2003.09.011

Comprehensive Psychiatry

Volume 45, Issue 1, January–February 2004, Pages 20-28

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2003.09.011 Get rights and content

Abstract

This study examines the applicability for adolescents of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ), which was originally designed for adults, as compared to the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ). The study also evaluates their inter-relationship and associations with various behavioral problems as reported by parents using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). In a representative community sample of 905 adolescents, the results of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and factor analysis showed that both the Harm Avoidance (HA) and the Novelty Seeking (NS) scales of the TPQ have sound construct validity, although the Reward Dependence (RD) scale has less so. The intercorrelation and factor analysis of the two questionnaires showed that the TPQ and the JEPQ are not simply alternative descriptions of the same construct of personality. In their associations with various behavioral problems, the scales of the TPQ are relatively more specifically associated with behavioral problems than the scales of the JEPQ. Our results provide empirical support for the applicability of the NS and the HA scales of the TPQ in adolescents, particularly in relation to behavioral problems.

Section snippets

Participants

The subjects in this study were 905 junior high school students (458 girls and 447 boys) in Taipei City. The sampling of the participants has been described in detail elsewhere.43, 44 Briefly, we stratified the 73 public junior high schools in Taipei City in 1996 by educational levels of the residents into three groups, and selected randomly one school from each group. Then, three classes were randomly selected from each grade in each of the three selected schools. In total, there were 971

Distribution and reliability

The distributions of the scales of both the TPQ and JEPQ were approximately normal, as indicated by the values of skewness and kurtosis, which fell within the range of −0.87 to 0.83 for each scale of the TPQ and the E, N, and L scales of the JEPQ. The only exception was the P scale of the JEPQ, in which skewness was 1.20 and kurtosis was 1.67.

Results of descriptive statistics and reliability of the TPQ and JEPQ are shown in Table 1. Comparing the mean score of each scale between boys and

Discussion

As far as we are aware, this is the first study to examine the applicability for adolescents of the TPQ, which was originally designed for adults, and compare it to that of the JEPQ. We attempted to investigate the two questionnaires’ psychometric properties, inter-relationships, and associations with various behavioral problems. The results are discussed below.

The internal consistencies of the JEPQ scales in this study are equivalent or better than the mean alphas (0.73 for the E, 0.78 for the

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the late Dr. Hans J. Eysenck for granting Dr. Wei J. Chen permission to translate the JEPQ into Chinese, Dr. C.R. Cloninger for granting Dr. Suo-Jeng Wang permission to translate the TPQ into Chinese, and Dr. Tom Przybeck for providing us with the scoring keys of the TPQ. The authors also thank the principals and teachers of the participating schools for their help in recruiting students.

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^☆: Supported by grants from the National Science Council, Taiwan (NSC86-2314-B002-328, NSC87-2314-B002-290, NSC88-2314-B002-247, and NSC89-2320-B002-106).

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Assessing personality features and their relations with behavioral problems in adolescents: tridimensional personality questionnaire and junior eysenck personality questionnaire☆

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

Distribution and reliability

Discussion

Acknowledgements

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

J Subst Abuse

J Subst Abuse

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

Pers Individ Differ

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Pers Individ Differ

Compr Psych

Compr Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Pers Individ Differ

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry

Drug Alcohol Depend

Long-term relations of personality and healthdynamisms, mechanisms, tropisms

J Pers

Further evidence against the environmental transmission of individual differences in neuroticism from a collaborative study of 45,850 twins and relatives on two continents

Behav Genet

A population-based study of personality in 34,000 sib-pairs

Twin Res