Objective: The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was developed to assess temperament including Novelty Seeking (NS), Harm Avoidance (HA), Reward Dependence (RD), Persistence (PS), and Character including Self-Directedness (SD), Cooperativeness (CO) and Self Transcendence (ST) dimensions of Cloninger's biopsychosocial model of personality in adults. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of this inventory.

Materials & Methods: In this validity test and standardization study, after translation of TCI into Farsi and back translation, the final form was prepared and administered to 220 students who were selected via simple sampling. Cronbach's alpha procedure and test-retest method was used to assess the reliability, and factor analysis of promax rotation was utilized to determine the validity of the inventory. Correlation of interscales and age with scales of TCI was calculated by Pearson correlation. A comparison of TCI scores between sex and also cross-cultural was down using independent t-test.

Results: The alpha cofficients for the inventory ranged from 0.44 for the Persistence scale to 0.81 for the ST scale with a median 0f 0.68. The overall alpha cofficients for the whole inventory was 0.74. The Pearson correlation cofficient for the test-retest on 31 students after two months ranged from 0.53 for Novelty Seeking and Persistence to 0.82 for Harm Avoidance scales and from 0.24 for disorderliness vs regimentation (NS4) to 0.86 for fear of uncertainty vs self-confidene (HA2) subscales. The factor analysis showed six factors. Significant correlations were obtained between scales of Self–Directedness with Harm Avoidance (0.57), Self–Directedness with Cooperativeness (0.46).

Conclusion: The current study confirms that Persian version of the Temperament and Character Inventory has satisfactory psychometric properties and acceptable reliability and validity for the use students of university population.