Validation of the Temps-A in university student population in Serbia

Abstract

Background and aims: The TEMPS-A scale is a self-evaluation measure which assesses five affective temperaments. This study is a comparative analysis of affective temperament types in different educational fields, and the first validation of the Serbian version of the TEMPS-A.

Methods: The TEMPS-A questionnaire has been adapted following the translation-back translation methodology from English to Serbian. It was then administered to 770 undergraduate students from eight different faculties.

Results: Five factors were extracted through Principal Component Analysis (Varimax rotation), each including ten items with loadings above 0.40. The internal consistency of this abbreviated 50-item scale was α=0.77 and the average test-retest coefficient (rho=0.82) indicates a stable reliability. The correlations among the temperaments ranged from weak to moderate, with the highest positive correlations obtained between the depressive and cyclothymic, and, depressive and anxious scales. The highest score was detected among the hyperthymic (0.64) and lowest among the depressive temperament (0.15). The male participants attained significantly higher scores for the hyperthymic temperament, while female scored significantly higher on the depressive and anxious temperaments. The students of physical education showed significantly lower results on the depressive and anxious subscales and higher on the hyperthymic, in comparison to other educational fields.

Limitations: The student sample is not representative of the general population, therefore further investigation in older population would be necessary for the evaluation of norms in additional age categories. The external validation with other personality scales has not been the subject of this research, but will be a part of some future studies.

Conclusions: The Serbian 50-item version of the TEMPS-A showed good overall internal consistency and reliability, and the results generally cohere with those from previously validated versions in other languages.