The Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire: Changes during psychological treatment of social phobia

Thirty-nine individuals completed 12 weekly group sessions of psychological therapy for social phobia (social anxiety disorder). Before and after treatment, participants filled out the Tridimensional Personality Questionnnaire (TPQ, [Cloninger C.R., 1987a. A systematic method for clinical description and classification of personality variants. Archives of General Psychiatry, 44, 573–58]) and measures of social anxiety and depression. Treatment led to a significant reduction in social anxiety, depression, harm avoidance, and reward dependence. However, only pre–post changes in harm avoidance and depression were significantly correlated with pre–post changes in social anxiety. These results suggest that harm avoidance shows state-dependent changes during the course of treatment for social phobia. The implications of these findings for the trait/state distinction of the TPQ scales are discussed.