Interrelations between temperament, character, and parental rearing among delinquent adolescents: a cross-validation.

We performed a cross-validation of results from investigations in juvenile delinquents in Russia and Germany concerning relationships of personality characteristics in terms of temperament and character with parental rearing. Both studies used the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) based on Cloninger's psychobiological theory, and the Own Memories on Parenting (Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran-Swedish [EMBU]) questionnaire on parental rearing based on Perris' vulnerability model. The inter-relatedness of parental rearing, temperament, and character traits in socially normally integrated adolescents, as well as in delinquent adolescents, implying direct and indirect pathways from personality and parental rearing to delinquency, could be cross-validated. Differences between delinquents and socially normally integrated adolescents are rather based on different levels of expressions of various temperament traits, harm avoidance and novelty seeking in particular, and the character trait self-directedness, as well as on parental rearing behavior (predominantly parental rejection and emotional warmth) than on different structures within related developmental processes. Copyright 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.