Relationships between Chronotypes and Temperament and Character Dimensions in Healthy Young Adults

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Circadian rhythms have been known to have associations with psychiatric disorders and personality traits. The present study investigated the relationships between circadian typology and temperaments/characters in a non-clinical Korean population. METHODS: Two hundred six healthy Korean college students (male 109, female 97) participated in this study. The subjects completed the Composite Scale of Morningness for circadian typology and 140-item Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised-Short version (TCI-RS). RESULTS: Multivariate analyses of covariance showed a significant association between chronotypes and temperamental dimensions of the TCI-RS. Morning types were significantly associated with lower harm avoidance and higher persistence and self-directedness dimensions, compared to evening types and intermediate types. No interaction effects between sex and chronotypes were shown for temperamental dimensions. CONCLUSIONS: The present findings suggest that high persistence and self-directedness characters are related to morning types and high harm avoidance temperament is more related to evening types.