Temperament and Character Inventory in the context of Alternative five

Self-directedness is a personality trait held by someone with characteristic self-determination, that is, the ability to regulate and adapt behavior to the demands of a situation in order to achieve personally chosen goals and values.

It is one of the "character" dimensions in Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). Cloninger described it as "willpower"—"a metaphorical abstract concept to describe the extent to which a person identifies the imaginal self as an integrated, purposeful whole individual, rather than a disorganized set of reactive impulses." Cloninger's research found that low self-directedness is a major common feature of personality disorders generally.

Self-transcendence is a personality trait that involves the expansion or evaporation of personal boundaries. This may potentially include spiritual experiences such as considering oneself an integral part of the universe. Several psychologists, including Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, and Pamela G. Reed have made contributions to the theory of self-transcendence.

Self-transcendence is distinctive as the first trait-concept of a spiritual nature to be incorporated into a major theory of personality. It is one of the "character" dimensions of personality assessed in Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory. It is also assessed by the Self-Transcendence Scale and the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory.

Claude Robert Cloninger (born April 4, 1944) is an American psychiatrist and geneticist noted for his research on the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual foundation of both mental health and mental illness. He previously held the Wallace Renard Professorship of Psychiatry, and served as professor of psychology and genetics, as well as director of the Sansone Family Center for Well-Being at Washington University in St. Louis. Cloninger is a member of the evolutionary, neuroscience, and statistical genetics programs of the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University, and is recognized as an expert clinician in the treatment of general psychopathology, substance dependence, and personality disorders. Dr. Cloninger is currently professor emeritus [1].

Cloninger is known for his research on the genetics, neurobiology, and development of personality and personality disorders. He identified and described heritable personality traits predictive of vulnerability to alcoholism and other mental disorders in prospective studies of adoptees reared apart from their biological parents. Cloninger also carried out the first genome-wide association and linkage study of normal personality traits, and has developed two widely used tools for measuring personality: the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) and the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI).

Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) is a personality test.It was devised by C. Robert Cloninger.A newer version of the questionnaire is called Temperament and Character Inventory.

As the name indicates TPQ seeks to measure three dimensions (traits) of the personality.These personality traits are novelty seeking, harm avoidance and reward dependence.Each have four subscales.There are 100 true-false questions which form the basis for the computation of the traits.