Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire (ZKA-PQ) and Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory Revised (TCI-R): a comparative study

The aim of this study was to compare the psychometric properties (normal distribution values, reliabilities and factor structure) of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire (ZKA-PQ) and the Temperament and Character Inventory revised (TCI-R). The total sample consisted of 482 subjects (53.1% men and 46.9% women) from diverse age. Results showed somewhat better psychometric properties, like reliability and facet-factor structure, for the ZKA-PQ than the TCI-R. The expected five-factor facet structure of the ZKA-PQ was clear found. However, the seven-factor structure of TCI-R was not clear and it did not show a clear distinction between Temperament and Character factors. When ZKA-PQ and TCI-R variables are analyzed together, the ZKA-PQ factors are related to the Character as well as the Temperament factors. In some cases they represent the opposite poles of ZKA-PQ factors; for example, Neuroticism versus Self-Directiveness and Aggression versus Cooperativeness. Some are directly and highly related to ZKA-PQ factors; for example, Sensation Seeking and Novelty Seeking, Extraversion and Reward Dependence, Neuroticism and Harm Avoidance, and Activity and Persistence.     

The location of coping strategies within the Alternative Five Factor Model of personality

This study aimed to determine which personality dimension(s) as measured by the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire best explain a given coping strategy as measured by the COPE-48. Additionally, to clarify the location of these strategies in the broader framework of personality structure. Neuroticism-Anxiety contributed mostly to strategies focused on emotions, acceptance and denial, Activity to proactive and resolute strategies, and Sociability to obtaining emotional support and advice. Moreover, Impulsive Sensation-Seeking contributed to denial and substance use while Aggression-Hostility to focus on and venting of emotions, and inversely to restrain coping. Besides, we replicated the approach-avoidance axis and obtained an independent component grouping Religion and the inverse of Drugs, Humor and Impulsive Sensation-Seeking. Positioning coping strategies within the well-known, broader and multidimensional space of personality structure may help in a better understanding of its organization and a rethinking of its conceptualization including their underlying neurobiological basis, ultimate evolutionary nature and survival functions.