Comprehensive meta-analysis of associations between temperament and character traits in Cloninger’s psychobiological theory and mental disorders

Abstract

Objective To explore the relationship between temperament and character traits in Cloninger’s psychobiological theory and mental disorders. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted of five international databases for all articles published in English between January 1990 and April 2019 (PROSPERO-CRD42019133214). Owing to heterogeneity, pooled estimates of correlations for personality disorders and standardized mean differences for case–control studies related to other mental disorders were calculated using the random-effects method. Results The pooled effect sizes obtained from 149 studies showed that high harm avoidance (related to 22/24 diagnostic categories), low self-directedness (21/23), low cooperativeness (17/23), high self-transcendence (14/23), low reward dependence (11/24), high novelty-seeking (10/24), low novelty-seeking (7/24), high persistence (2/23), low persistence (2/23) and high reward dependence (2/24) were related to psychopathology. Conclusions All traits provided unique psychobiological tools for differential diagnosis of mental disorders. However, high harm avoidance and low self-directedness played a canonical role in psychopathology. Despite the study limitations, additional studies are warranted to evaluate the differential diagnoses suggested by the present model.