temperament and character dimensions in patients with schizophrenia relatives and controls studies of patients with schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorders and general population control groups consistently show differences regarding personality dimensions however the profile of personality dimensions in firstdegree relatives of those patients is not well understood we used temperament and character inventory to explore personality dimensions in 61 clinically stable patients with schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorders 59 of their firstdegree relatives and 64 healthy controls patients scored significantly higher than controls in harm avoidance and selftranscendence and lower in selfdirectedness and cooperativeness firstdegree relatives showed a tendency to lower novelty seeking and selftranscendence than controls interpretations of these findings include the possibility that lower novelty seeking and lower selftranscendence provide a protective influence in the relatives further studies are needed to go into this issue in greater depth