[Affective temperaments: psychometric properties of the Hungarian TEMPS-A].

The study examines the psychometric properties of the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A) based on 717 (438 females and 279 males) healthy subjects in a Hungarian normative sample. The questionnaire is a self-report 110-item tool that postulates five affective temperaments: depressive, cyclothymic, irritable, hyperthymic, and anxious. Most of the TEMPS-A scales have excellent internal consistencies (0.78-0.84), except for the Depressive Temperament Scale, which had a Cronbach's alfa coefficient of 0.63. The item-analyses have identified a few deficient items which do not fit into the scale. In line with the literary data, women had higher mean scores on the depressive, cyclothymic, and anxious subscales, whereas men scored higher on the cyclothymic subscale. Cut-offs for each temperament were based on z-scores higher than + 2S.D. Dominant nervous-anxious (4.3%), depressive (3.8%), cyclothymic (3.2%), and irritable (3.2%) temperaments were the most common in this normative population, whereas dominant hyperthymic (1.8%) temperament was relatively uncommon. Factor analyses of the TEMPS-A items yielded considerable overlap between depressive and cognitive anxiety traits. The strongest correlation was observed between the anxious and the depressive temperament subscales in line with some international findings (r=0.62**). To test construct validity, we administered the Beck Depression Inventory, Profile of Mood States (shortened version) and the Cloninger Temperaments and Character Inventory, which all supported the validity of TEMPS-A subscales. Based on the results obtained with the Hungarian normative sample, the TEMPS-A is a reliable and valid instrument in personality psychology, and further refinement on clinical samples opens new and interesting research avenues.