Structure of Temperament Questionnaire


Structure of Temperament Questionnaire is a test to measure 12 biologically and neurochemically based individual differences.

Purpose and format

The Structure of Temperament Questionnaire is a self-report or observer-administered questionnaire measuring 12 biologically-based characteristics of behaviour. These characteristics are the most consistent aspects of the behaviour of an individual across his or her lifespan and are relatively independent of the content of the situation. Initially, all versions of the STQ were validated on adult samples and were designed for the purposes of organizational, educational and clinical psychology. Now there are Child versions of the Short and Compact STQ, for administration by observers and guardians of the child in question. Items in all versions of the STQ are given in the form of a statement, with a response following the Likert scale format: "strongly disagree," "disagree," "agree," "strongly agree ".

Experimental background of the STQ models

The STQ is based on the Eastern-European tradition of experiments investigating the types and properties of nervous systems. This tradition is the longest in among all traditions of temperamental research. It started from extensive experiments on several species of mammals, and then continued with human adults and children within the Pavlovian Institute of Highest Nervous Activity. It then was continued within the Laboratory of Differential Psychophysiology and Differential Psychology, supervised by Boris Teplov, then Vladimir Nebylitsyn, and then Vladimir Rusalov.
The STQ has several versions, which are based on two models of the structure of temperament: Rusalov`s model and Trofimova`s model. All versions of the STQ are based on the Activity-specific approach in temperament research. This approach differentiates between the traits related to 3 aspects of behaviour: social-verbal, physical and mental. All models and all modern versions of the STQ have 12 temperament scales.

Rusalov`s versions of the STQ

There are two versions of the Structure of Temperament Questionnaire based on Rusalov’s model: an Extended STQ and a Short STQ
Both versions use 12 scales, which are grouped by 3 types of activities and 4 formal-dynamical aspects of activities, and a validity scale:
`s model of the STQ
The Extended STQ is a 150-item self-report measure with 144 items assigned to 12 temperament scales, 1 validity scale, and 6 indexes, which combine these scales. The values on each of temperament scales vary between 12 and 48. The validity scale is designed to measure a social desirability tendency. The value on this scale varies from 6 and 24, and protocols having a score higher than 17 on this scale are considered to be invalid.
Testing with the STQ-150 takes 30 minutes.
There was also an initial version of Rusalov`s model, STQ-105, which used the same items and scales as the 8 scales of the STQ-150 version, with the exception of the three scales related to intellectual aspects of activities. Rusalov upgraded his model to 12 components implemented in his Extended STQ in the mid-1990s.
Rusalov`s version of the STQ measures 12 traits related to 4 aspects of behaviour, which are grouped by three aspects of behavior: motor-physical, social-verbal and intellectual. This model was incorporated in the extended Structure of Temperament Questionnaire. The factor analysis of the data received on Russian, Australian, American, Canadian, Urdu-Canadian, Polish-Canadian and Chinese samples confirmed a separation between the factors related to these three aspects of behavior.
Administration of the Extended STQ in practice was rather time-consuming, so Rusalov and Trofimova agreed to develop shorter, more compact versions of the STQ, which would be more suitable for screening purposes in clinical, organizational, vocational and educational settings. The items with the highest item-total correlations were selected for these versions. Rusalov developed the Short version of the STQ, and Trofimova developed the Compact version of the STQ. The Short STQ is composed of 2 out of 12 items on each scale of the Extended STQ, including the validity scale. This version was adapted for the assessment of adults, teenagers, preschool and early school children.

Compact version of the STQ (STQ-77)

During the studies of psychometric properties of the Extended STQ and a selection of the most valid items for the Compact version of the STQ Trofimova suggested an alternative structure of temperament and reflected this structure in the Compact version of the STQ. The STQ-77 consists of 12 temperament scales, and a validity scale, i.e. in total 77 items. STQ-77 has adult and several pilot Childhood versions.
Testing with the STQ-77 takes 12-15 minutes.
The STQ-77 arranges the dimensions of temperament into functional groups differently than the STQ-150. Similar to the Rusalov’s STQ-150, the STQ-77 differentiates between the traits regulating motor-physical, social-verbal and mental-probabilistic aspects of behaviour.
The differences between Trofimova’s and Rusalov’s models of temperament are:
The STQ-77 is therefore partially based on the model of Rusalov’s STQ-150, but also on the work of Luria describing the functionality of three neurophysiological systems: “sensory-informational block”, “programming block” and “energetic block” regulating human behaviour. The re-arrangement of the STQ scales in the STQ-77 scales was also based on the analysis of commonalities between the leading European and American models of temperament and the latest findings in neurophysiology and neurochemistry. The support of the STQ-77 architecture was recently reinforced by the review in neurochemistry research resulted in development of a neurochemical model Functional Ensemble of Temperament that maps an interplay between main neurotransmitter systems and temperament traits

Description of the temperament scales of the STQ-77

Validation history of the STQ-105 and STQ-150

The Extended version was adapted to five languages: English, Russian, Chinese, Polish and Urdu.
Evidence for construct, concurrent and discriminatory validity of the STQ-105 and STQ-150 was demonstrated through significant correlations with the following measures:
Factor analysis of the Russian version of the STQ-150 consistently showed four factors: Motor-physical activity, Social-Verbal activity, Intellectual Activity and Emotionality
The administration of the English version of the STQ to American, Australian, and Canadian samples showed that the factor structure of this version is similar to the Russian language version, and that the English version possesses good reliability and internal consistency,
Chinese, Urdu and Polish Extended versions of the STQ, administered among corresponding populations, showed reliability coefficients in the range 0.70-0.86, item-total correlations in the range 0.42-0.73, and all versions demonstrated robust factor structures similar to those of the original version

Validation of the STQ-77

The Compact version was adapted to three languages: English, Russian and Chinese.. Moreover, evidence for the construct, concurrent and discriminatory validity of the STQ-77 was demonstrated through significant correlations with the following measures:
Clinical validation studies conducted with the use of the STQ-77 showed that its scales match the structure of symptoms of mental disorders described in main classifications DSM-V, ICD much better than other temperament models, and they are capable of differentiating between anxiety and depression
Validation of the STQ-77 structure was successful by its comparison to the main findings in neurochemistry. As the result of such comparison the scales of the STQ-77 were linked to the ensemble interactions between main neurotransmitter systems

Factor structure of the STQ-77

The Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Compact STQ using data from a Canadian sample shows a satisfactory fit of the traditional 4-factor STQ activity-specific model, grouping the scales to the factors of Motor, Social, Intellectual activity and Emotionality and having 2 correlated residuals with the CFI >.90, RMSEA <.07 and RMSR <.06.
The STQ-77 arranges the dimensions of temperament into 12 components differently than it is done in the STQ-150. The structure of the STQ-77 relies on verified neurochemical biomarkers and expands a rough 4-factor structure derived from factor analysis. Similar to the Rusalov’s STQ-150, the STQ-77 differentiates between the traits regulating motor-physical, social-verbal and mental-probabilistic aspects of behaviour

Language versions

Beginning from 2017 the STQ-77 is offered for free for a non-commercial use : Chinese-Simplified, Chinese-Traditional, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finish, French, Italian, Hebrew, Hindu, Korean, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish and Urdu. There are versions for screening child temperament in English and Russian for the ages 0-3, 4-7, 8-11 and 12-16, freely available on the website of test developers. There are also several child versions in other languages.
A battery of behavioural testing in line with 12 components of the STQ-77/FET has been developed for adult and age 12-15 groups in English, Russian and Portuguese, in collaboration with Michael Araki. Behavioural testing batteries are designed for individual and in-group testing.
The extended STQ-150 was adapted in 6 languages: English, Chinese-Simplified, Russian, Polish, Urdu and German. The STQ-150 has an old, less efficient scale structure in comparison to the STQ-77 and, therefore, is not recommended for further translations.