Cloninger’s psychobiological model of personality
a seven-factor model that includes four dimensions of temperament and three dimensions of character. The temperament dimensions include harm avoidance (sensitivity to, and avoidance of, punishing stimuli), novelty seeking (a tendency toward exhilaration or excitement in response to cues of potential reward or relief of punishment), reward dependence (a tendency to respond to positive signals such as social approval and to maintain rewarded behavior), and persistence (a tendency to continue a task or activity regardless of frustration, dissatisfaction, or fatigue). The character dimensions include self-directedness (the extent to which individuals are goal-oriented and resourceful), cooperativeness (the extent to which individuals relate to others), and self-transcendence (the extent to which individuals are transpersonal, spiritual, and idealistic). The model suggests that dimensions of temperament are
heritable and that novelty seeking and harm avoidance are closely related to the behavioral approach system and behavioral inhibition system, respectively, described by British psychologist Jeffrey Alan Gray (1934–2004). In addition, the model proposes a link between certain temperaments and specific neurotransmitters: that is, between novelty seeking and dopamine, between harm avoidance and serotonin, and between reward dependence and norepinephrine. Major character traits, however, are said to be related to insight learning and shaped both by temperament and environmental factors. The model has been influential in framing research questions in both psychiatry and psychology, although empirical support for its theoretical assumptions and predictions has been mixed. Measures that assess central concepts of the model include the Temperament and Character Inventory. [developed by C. Robert Cloninger]