The Development of the Revised Version of the Formal Characteristic
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Personality and Individual Differences 127 (2018) 117–126 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid The development of the revised version of the Formal Characteristic of T Behaviour – Temperament Inventory FCB-TI(R) ⁎ Maria Cyniak-Cieciuraa, , Bogdan Zawadzkib, Jan Strelauc a University of Warsaw, Faculty of Psychology, Department of Psychology of Individual Differences, Poland b University of Warsaw, The Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Sciences, Poland c SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Psychology, Poland ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: The Regulative Theory of Temperament (RTT), developed by Jan Strelau, describes human's behaviour in formal Temperament characteristics expressed in six temperamental traits: briskness, perseveration, sensory sensitivity, endurance, FCB-TI emotional reactivity and activity. Theory validity was supported based on operationalisation of traits via the Temperament structure Formal Characteristic of Behaviour – Temperament Inventory (FCB-TI). Further research revealed shortcomings Regulative Theory of Temperament in the content of the Briskness and Sensory Sensitivity scales, lack of data on Rhythmicity and the need of empirical evidence for the postulated temperamental structure. This paper describes the preparation and vali- dation of a revised version of the FCB-TI. The item selection process was based on exploratory factor analysis and the structure of temperament was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. The results confirmed a seven- factor structure of temperament. The revised version of the FCB-TI(R) includes 100 items and seven scales: six analogical as in the FCB-TI, and a new one - Rhythmicity, all with a 4-point Likert response scale. The content of the Briskness and Sensory Sensitivity scales was changed. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the scales were satisfactory. Relations to other temperamental/personality measures were established. The FCB-TI (R) proves to be a robust operationalisation of RTT with a confirmed internal structure and acceptable psy- chometric properties. 1. Introduction essentially from the traditional approach. In broad psychometric studies several components considered as temperament traits, referring to the The Regulative Theory of Temperament (RTT), developed by Jan temporal and energetic characteristics, have been identified. The RTT Strelau, is an internationally recognised theory based on Tomaszewski's also offers an evidence-based psychometric tool – the Formal (1978) theory of action, Pavlov's (1928) and his followers' concepts of Characteristics of Behaviour – Temperament Inventory, that allows to nervous system properties, Gray's (1964) construct of arousability, and measure temperament traits as proposed by the RTT theory, the de- the idea that temperament moderates humans' reactions in different scription of which was included in the Encyclopedia of Personality and environmental conditions. The RTT theory has its roots in the old tra- Individual Differences (see Zawadzki & Strelau, in press). dition that involves interpreting the four Hippocrates' and Galen's According to Strelau (2008, p. 88) temperament refers to basic, temperament types in terms of formal characteristics, such as time and relatively stable personality traits expressed mainly in the formal energy. According to Kant (1912), fast and slow acts are typical for (temporal and energetic) characteristics of reactions and behaviour. choleric and phlegmatic types (consecutively), whereas deep and These characteristics manifest themselves from early childhood and shallow emotions are present in sanguine and melancholic tempera- have their counterpart in animal world. Although temperament is ori- ments. Wundt (1887), who limited temperament to emotions, dis- ginally determined by innate neurobiochemical mechanisms, it under- tinguished two dimensions, on which temperaments differ: strong – goes gradual changes due to maturation and individual-specific inter- weak and fast – slow. In contemporary psychology, Allport (1937) and play between the genotype and the environment. The definition was Diamond (1957) also referred to the temporal and energetic char- also elaborated in the form of ten basic RTT postulates (Strelau, 1996, acteristic of emotions and behaviour, when defining temperament. 2008), which assume that temperament manifests itself in the formal Although the RTT refers to the tradition that emphasises the role of characteristics of behaviour (postulate 1) which may be described in formal characteristics specific to each temperament, it differs terms of temporal and energetic traits (postulate 2) that differ among ⁎ Corresponding author at: Warsaw University, Faculty of Psychology, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warsaw, Poland. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Cyniak-Cieciura). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.01.036 Received 13 July 2017; Received in revised form 22 January 2018; Accepted 25 January 2018 0191-8869/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. M. Cyniak-Cieciura et al. Personality and Individual Differences 127 (2018) 117–126 people and are relatively stable for the same person (postulates 3 & 4). integrated functions of biological mechanisms make it legitimate to Temperamental traits are present from early infancy (postulate 5), are expect several relationships among temperament traits, especially be- common for people and animals (postulate 6), are biologically de- tween activity and other ECB traits. termined (postulate 7), but still are subject to change during ontogen- As mentioned, the RTT was operationalised by the Formal esis (postulate 8). Finally, temperament regulates the relationship be- Characteristic of Behaviour – Temperament Inventory (FCB-TI), devel- tween the subject and his or her environment and has its greatest oped by Strelau and Zawadzki (1993, 1995), the original Polish tool influence in difficult and extreme situations (postulates 9 & 10), de- which was widely used for clinical and scientific purposes and adapted termining humans' possibilities of external stimulation processing and to different languages and cultures (e.g., American, Chinese, Dutch, preferred ways of stimulus regulation. A particular and less adaptive Finnish, German, Italian, Russian, South Korean, and Ukrainian; see: De combination of temperamental traits may constitute a temperament Pascalis, Zawadzki, & Strelau, 2000; Hintsa, Hintsanen, Jokela, & risk factor (TRF; see: Strelau, 1998, 2008) for the development of so- Keltikangas-Järvinen, 2013; Liu, Chen, Yang, & Zhang, 2015; Strelau, matic and psychological dysfunctions, including heart disease, somatic Mitina, Zawadzki, Babajewa, & Menczuk, 2005; Zawadzki et al., 2001; complaints, anxiety, affective and personality disorders, alcohol abuse see also Zawadzki, 2002). Analyses conducted with the use of cross- and burnout syndrome (Fruehstorfer, Veronie, Cremeans-Smith, & cultural version of FCB-TI developed basing on data from eight coun- Newberry, 2012; Hintsa et al., 2016; Rzeszutek, Oniszczenko, Schier, tries (The Netherlands, South Korea, Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Biernat-Kałuża, & Gasik, 2015; Strelau & Zawadzki, 2005, 2011; USA and Italy) revealed a parallel structure of TCB and ECB scales as in Zawadzki & Popiel, 2012; for the summary of selected studies see the Polish version, with the exception of the mobility subdimension Strelau, 2008). (described below). Similar intercorrelations among scales as well as Originally, the RTT postulated that the energetic aspect of beha- good psychometric properties (internal consistency of scales ranging viour comprises two main dimensions: reactivity (influencing the in- from 0.70 to 0.83) have been obtained. tensity of reactions to stimuli, which refers to Gray's construct of Although the original tool presented acceptable psychometric arousability, assessed by two opposite, negatively related thresholds: properties (see: Strelau & Zawadzki, 1993, 1995), the theoretical ap- sensitivity and endurance) and activity (as a regulator of arousal). proach of inventory development led the authors to base the process of Analyses with the use of the original version of FCB-TI did not confirm item selection only on item analysis, which did not allow to fully this hypothesis; reactivity needed to be divided into a) emotional re- confirm the 6-factor temperamental structure of the original tool. Fur- activity (emotional sensitivity and endurance) and (almost orthogonal) ther research also showed that the status of TCB was unclear because of b) endurance and c) sensory sensitivity. The analyses confirmed, how- the exclusion of rhythmicity, which could not be classified into brisk- ever, the hypothesis about activity (comprising activity as a direct and ness and perseveration in the original research (Goryńska & Strelau, indirect source of stimulation). Within the temporal domain, the several 1979), making the status of this trait ambiguous. Later research, how- characteristics were distinguished: speed, tempo, recurrence, persis- ever, allowed extracting it into a separate factor along with openness tence, rhythmicity and mobility, later classified to briskness and per- (Strelau & Zawadzki, 1996; Zawadzki & Strelau, 2010). Still, previous severation, as two forms of lability, reflecting elicitation and termina- research done by Thomas and Chess (1977) as well as Windle and tion of the reaction (Goryńska & Strelau, 1979). The rhythmicity did not Lerner (1986) suggested