Background: Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a debilitating condition where underlying personality traits are crucial for diagnosis and treatment. This study aimed to investigate the complete temperament and character profile of patients with SAD using Cloninger's model.
Methods: In this case-control study, 120 participants (60 drug-naïve patients... and 60 matched healthy controls) were recruited... Results: Patients scored significantly higher on all seven dimensions (p<0.01). Large effect sizes were observed for Harm Avoidance (HA) (r=0.84) and Cooperativeness (CO) (r=0.72). Unexpectedly, dimensions like Self-Directedness (SD) and Novelty Seeking (NS) were also significantly elevated. Demographic variables did not have a significant impact on this pattern.
Results: Patients with SAD scored significantly higher than the control group on all seven dimensions of the TCI (p<0.01), including Temperament (Novelty Seeking, Harm Avoidance, Reward Dependence) and Character (Persistence, Cooperativeness, Self-Directedness, Self-Transcendence). The largest differences were observed in Harm Avoidance (HA), Cooperativeness (CO), and Reward Dependence (RD).
Conclusion: This study reveals a personality profile characterized by a broad-based increase in scores across all temperament and character dimensions in patients with SAD. The unexpected finding of higher scores in Self-Directedness and Persistence suggests these traits may have a perfectionistic and anxiety-driven nature, rather than an adaptive one. This finding underscores the need for comprehensive personality assessment to design interventions that target not only anxiety but also these maladaptive character patterns.