The HEXACO Personality Space Before and After Re-Rotation to Approximate the Big Five Dimensions.

We re-oriented the HEXACO personality dimensions to approximate the Big Five, using two measures of the Big Five as targets in a derivation sample and then in cross-validation samples. The HEXACO approximations of Big Five Agreeableness represented blends of HEXACO Agreeableness, Emotionality, and Honesty-Humility. The HEXACO approximations of Big Five Neuroticism represented blends of Emotionality with low Agreeableness and low Extraversion. The residual sixth dimension, unrelated to the Big Five, contrasted Honesty-Humility with HEXACO Agreeableness. We then examined, in additional samples, some correlates of the original and re-rotated HEXACO dimensions. In the original HEXACO factor space, Honesty-Humility was the strongest correlate of unethical behaviors (selfishness and cheating), participant age, and "assumed similarity" to a friend or partner. Upon re-rotation of the HEXACO factors, associations involving these variables were divided between Big Five Agreeableness and the residual sixth dimension. Sex differences were mainly associated with Emotionality but after re-rotation of the HEXACO factors were divided between Big Five Agreeableness and Neuroticism. We discuss the relative merits of the original and Big Five-targeted HEXACO dimensions with reference to the practical utility of Big Five Agreeableness and Neuroticism and the simplicity and theoretical interpretability of the original HEXACO factors.

On the relations between HEXACO agreeableness (versus anger) and honesty-humility.

The HEXACO personality factors of Agreeableness-versus-Anger (A) and Honesty-Humility (H) are interpreted as two complementary aspects of reciprocal altruistic tendency. Here we consider several ways of representing the positive associations between the defining traits of A and of H, through common factor analysis of self-report HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) facet scale scores (N ≈ 111,000). We describe orthogonal solutions that differ in the extent to which H facets show secondary loadings on A (and vice versa), as well as an oblique solution compatible with a higher-order "cooperativeness" factor. We discuss the psychological plausibility of these solutions, and we review research showing differential associations of several phenomena or outcomes with A and H. We conclude that the optimal representation of A/H trait associations is not yet known but that the value of separate A and H factor scales is well established.

A review of personality/religiousness associations.

We review research on personality/religiousness associations, integrating earlier meta-analyses with recent large-sample online studies. We find that general religiousness shows small positive associations with broad personality factors (e.g. HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Big Five Agreeableness, Conscientiousness) and somewhat stronger positive associations with narrower personality traits involving prosocial tendencies (e.g. altruism, fairness, forgivingness). The link between religiousness and prosociality appears not to be an artifact of self-report method variance. Religious fundamentalism and spirituality show negative and positive associations, respectively, with the Openness factor of personality. Religiousness/personality associations tend to be weak in relatively non-religious countries but moderately strong in highly religious countries. The direction of causal influence between personality and religiousness is not yet clear. Religiousness shows modest negative associations with IQ and appears to be somewhat negatively related to scientific thinking.

Sex differences in HEXACO personality characteristics across countries and ethnicities.

OBJECTIVE: We examined sex differences in the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) factor- and facet-level scales and the associations of national sex differences in those scales with national characteristics such as wealth and gender equality. METHOD: HEXACO-PI-R self-reports were collected online from persons in 48 countries (N = 347,192). RESULTS: (1) Women averaged substantially higher than men in Emotionality and in Honesty-Humility, with (sample-unweighted) mean differences across countries of d = 0.84 and d = 0.37, respectively; (2) the HEXACO-PI-R factor scales showed a rather large multivariate sex difference (D > 1 in most countries), about 19% larger than found in similar samples with the Big Five personality factors, (3) some facet scales belonging to the same factor showed widely varying sex differences, (4) national-level sex differences in Emotionality were larger in wealthy and gender-egalitarian countries, replicating previous counterintuitive findings, but such a tendency was not clearly observed for Honesty-Humility, and (5) within several English-speaking countries, sex differences in Emotionality showed comparatively little ethnic variation, suggesting that societal characteristics may influence the size of sex differences in Emotionality. CONCLUSION: The HEXACO model of personality structure provides some new insights in understanding sex differences in personality at the individual and national levels.

The HEXACO-100 Across 16 Languages: A Large-Scale Test of Measurement Invariance.

The HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) has become one of the most heavily applied measurement tools for the assessment of basic personality traits. Correspondingly, the inventory has been translated to many languages for use in cross-cultural research. However, formal tests examining whether the different language versions of the HEXACO-PI-R provide equivalent measures of the 6 personality dimensions are missing. We provide a large-scale test of measurement invariance of the 100-item version of the HEXACO-PI-R across 16 languages spoken in European and Asian countries (N = 30,484). Multigroup exploratory structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analyses revealed consistent support for configural and metric invariance, thus implying that the factor structure of the HEXACO dimensions as well as the meaning of the latent HEXACO factors is comparable across languages. However, analyses did not show overall support for scalar invariance; that is, equivalence of facet intercepts. A complementary alignment analysis supported this pattern, but also revealed substantial heterogeneity in the level of (non)invariance across facets and factors. Overall, results imply that the HEXACO-PI-R provides largely comparable measurement of the HEXACO dimensions, although the lack of scalar invariance highlights the necessity for future research clarifying the interpretation of mean-level trait differences across countries.

Religiousness and the HEXACO personality factors and facets in a large online sample.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations of religiousness with personality characteristics. METHOD: We obtained self-ratings of religiousness along with self-reports on the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised in a sample of nearly 200,000 online respondents. Respondents also indicated their religious affiliation, religiousness of upbringing, and political orientation; a subset of the respondents also indicated attitudes about immigration and foreign aid. RESULTS: Religiousness showed weak associations (|r|s < 0.15) with several HEXACO factors but somewhat stronger associations with the Fairness and Altruism facets (both rs > 0.20). On those facets, participants with the highest religiousness self-rating (7 on a 1-to-7 scale) averaged about 1 SD higher than did participants with the lowest religiousness self-rating. In addition, religiousness was negatively related to the Unconventionality facet among persons whose upbringing was very religious, but not among persons whose upbringing was very nonreligious. Religiousness/personality associations were generally quite similar within different religious affiliations (Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and several branches of Christianity) but were stronger within relatively religious countries than within nonreligious countries. Despite the positive association of religiousness with the Altruism facet, religiousness was uncorrelated with pro-out-group attitudes (i.e., favoring multicultural immigration and foreign aid). CONCLUSION: The findings advance our understanding of religiousness/personality associations.

How Well Do Big Five Measures Capture HEXACO Scale Variance?

We examined the ability of several Big Five measures to account for variance in HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) scales and vice versa. Some Big Five measures accounted for more variance in HEXACO Honesty-Humility than did others, but these differences were largely offset by opposing differences in accounting for variance in HEXACO Agreeableness and Emotionality. As a consequence, the various Big Five measures showed similarly large overall deficiencies in accounting for HEXACO scale variance, relative to variance accounted for in Big Five scales by HEXACO-PI-R scales. The results imply that the use of Big Five instead of HEXACO scales entails a large loss of information, about equal to the amount that would be lost by discarding one of the Big Five scales.

Honest People Tend to Use Less-Not More-Profanity: Comment on Feldman et al.'s (2017) Study 1.

This article shows that the conclusion of Feldman et al.'s (2017) Study 1 that profane individuals tend to be honest is most likely incorrect. We argue that Feldman et al.'s conclusion is based on a commonly held but erroneous assumption that higher scores on Impression Management Scales, such as the Lie Scale, are associated with trait dishonesty. Based on evidence from studies that have investigated (1) self-other agreement on Impression Management Scales, (2) the relation of Impression Management Scales with personality variables, and (3) the relation of Impression Management Scales with objective measures of cheating, we show that high scores on Impression Management Scales are associated with high-instead of low-trait honesty when measured in low-stakes conditions. Furthermore, using two data sets that included an "I never swear" item, we show that profanity use is negatively related to other reports of HEXACO honesty-humility and positively related to actual cheating.

Psychometric Properties of the HEXACO-100.

Psychometric properties of the 100-item English-language HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) were examined using samples of online respondents ( N = 100,318 self-reports) and of undergraduate students ( N = 2,868 self- and observer reports). The results were as follows: First, the hierarchical structure of the HEXACO-100 was clearly supported in two principal components analyses: each of the six factors was defined by its constituent facets and each of the 25 facets was defined by its constituent items. Second, the HEXACO-100 factor scales showed fairly low intercorrelations, with only one pair of scales (Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness) having an absolute correlation above .20 in self-report data. Third, the factor and facet scales showed strong self/observer convergent correlations, which far exceeded the self/observer discriminant correlations.

Personality and Sexual Orientation: Extension to Asexuality and the HEXACO Model.

Previous research has examined self-identified sexual orientation in relation to self-reports on the Big Five personality factors. Here we extend this research by including asexuality as a fourth sexual orientation and by assessing the HEXACO personality factors, using self-report data from a large anonymous online sample (N ≈ 100,000). A large overlap was observed among all sexual orientation groups on all six HEXACO dimensions, but notable group differences also emerged. All nonheterosexual groups, particularly bisexual people, averaged higher in openness to experience than did heterosexuals. Heterosexual men averaged much lower in emotionality than heterosexual women, but only a small difference was observed between gay men and lesbians on this dimension. Asexual men and women averaged lower in extraversion and in some facets of emotionality (specifically, dependence and sentimentality) than did the other sexual orientation groups of the same sex. Results are discussed in relation to the different social realities that each sexual orientation group often experiences, along with the (gender-related) developmental influences hypothesized to underlie in part the origins of sexual orientation.

Trait Variance and Response Style Variance in the Scales of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5).

Using self- and observer reports on the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) and the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R), we identified for each inventory several trait dimensions (each defined by both self- and observer reports on the facet-level scales belonging to the same domain) and 2 source dimensions (each defined by self-reports or by observer reports, respectively, on all facet-level scales). Results (N = 217) showed that the source dimensions of the PID-5 were very large (much larger than those of the HEXACO-PI-R), and suggest that self-report (or observer report) response styles substantially inflate the intercorrelations and the alpha reliabilities of the PID-5 scales. We discuss the meaning and the implications of the large PID-5 source components, and we suggest some methods of controlling their influence.

Connectedness to Nature and to Humanity: their association and personality correlates.

People differ in the extent to which they identify with humans beyond their ingroup and with non-human living things. We refer to the former as the Connectedness to Humanity (CH) and to the latter as the Connectedness to Nature (CN). In a sample of 324 undergraduate students, CH and CN were operationalized using the Identification with All Humanity Scale (McFarland et al., 2012) and the CN Scale (Mayer and Frantz, 2004), respectively. These variables correlated moderately with each other (r = 0.44) and shared Openness to Experience and Honesty-Humility as their primary personality correlates. CN was found to play an important role in mediating the relationships between the two personality variables and some specific pro-environmental/pro-animal attitudes and ecological behaviors.

Hogan's framework for the study of behavior as applied to personality psychology.

Hogan's framework for the study of behavior can be used as a guide to the study of personality, considered here as interindividual differences in typical behavioral tendency. For any given dimension of personality variation, one can examine its development, its causal biological bases, its genetic and environmental origins, and its function and evolutionary history. These topics are discussed after a brief introduction to personality assessment and structure, and are followed by a brief review of personality research on non-human animals. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: In Honor of Jerry Hogan.

The HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality factors: a review of research and theory.

We review research and theory on the HEXACO personality dimensions of Honesty-Humility (H), Agreeableness (A), and Emotionality (E), with particular attention to the following topics: (1) the origins of the HEXACO model in lexical studies of personality structure, and the content of the H, A, and E factors in those studies; (2) the operationalization of the H, A, and E factors in the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised; (3) the construct validity of self-reports on scales measuring the H factor; (4) the theoretical distinction between H and A; (5) similarity and assumed similarity between social partners in personality, with a focus on H and A; (6) the extent to which H (and A and E) variance is represented in instruments assessing the "Five-Factor Model" of personality; and (7) the relative validity of scales assessing the HEXACO and Five-Factor Model dimensions in predicting criteria conceptually relevant to H, A, and E.

The maladaptive personality traits of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) in relation to the HEXACO personality factors and schizotypy/dissociation.

The Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), a new measure of maladaptive personality traits, has recently been developed by the DSM-5 Personality and Personality Disorders Workgroup. The PID-5 variables were examined within the seven-factor space defined by the six HEXACO factors and the Schizotypy/Dissociation factor (Ashton & Lee, 2012) using participant samples from Canada (N = 378) and the Netherlands (N = 476). Extension analyses showed that several PID-5 facet-level scales represented each of the Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Schizotypy/Dissociation factors. In contrast, only one PID-5 scale loaded strongly on HEXACO Agreeableness, and no PID-5 scales loaded strongly on Openness to Experience. In addition, a joint factor analysis involving the PID-5 variables and facets of the Five-Factor Model was conducted in the Canadian sample and recovered a set of seven factors corresponding rather closely to the HEXACO factors plus Schizotypy/Dissociation. The authors discuss implications for the assessment and structure of normal and abnormal personality.

Is low anxiety part of the psychopathy construct?

Low anxiety has traditionally been considered a feature of psychopathy, but there has been mixed research support for this conceptualization. We investigated the PPI-R-SF Stress Immunity subscale (a measure of low anxiety) in relation to 2 widely used self-report psychopathy scales in a sample of 346 undergraduate students. Results indicated that PPI-R-SF Stress Immunity was nearly unrelated to other indicators of psychopathy, showing a near-zero loading on the common psychopathy factor defined jointly by the scales of the PPI-R-SF and SRP-III. Stress Immunity also showed a pattern of personality and temperament correlates much different from those of other psychopathy subscales. Finally, Stress Immunity had a slight negative correlation with self-reports of diverse antisocial acts. These results suggest that despite its historical importance in the conceptualization of psychopathy, low anxiety is likely not a core feature of psychopathy.

Profiling the "pro-environmental individual": a personality perspective.

There is considerable scientific interest in the psychological correlates of pro-environmental behaviors. Much research has focused on demographic and social-psychological characteristics of individuals who consistently perform such actions. Here, we report the results of 2 studies in which we explored relations between broad personality traits and pro-environmental actions. Using a wide variety of behavior and personality measures, we consistently found moderate positive relations between Openness to Experience and pro-environmental activities in both a community sample (Study 1: N = 778) and an undergraduate student sample (Study 2: N = 115). In Study 2, we showed that the effect of Openness on pro-environmental behaviors was fully mediated by individuals' environmental attitudes and connection to nature. Our findings suggest that high levels of aesthetic appreciation, creativity, and inquisitiveness, but not personality traits associated with altruism, may have motivated the performance of pro-environmental actions among our respondents. Implications for intervention development are discussed.

Oddity, schizotypy/dissociation, and personality.

The construct of Oddity was examined in relation to the dimensions of normal personality variation and a dimension of schizotypy and dissociation. In 2 studies involving samples of community adults (N = 409) and college students (N = 378), Oddity-as operationalized in terms of perceived strangeness or eccentricity-was found to be moderately related to a Schizotypy/Dissociation factor and also to factors of normal personality variation, particularly Openness to Experience. The modest loading of Oddity on the Schizotypy/Dissociation factor, along with the somewhat stronger projection of Oddity within the space of normal personality dimensions, indicates that the Schizotypy/Dissociation factor should not be interpreted as a dimension of Oddity. The interpretation of the Schizotypy/Dissociation factor is discussed, as are the implications of these results for proposed dimensional models of personality disorders.

Psychometric characteristics of a public-domain self-report measure of vocational interests: the Oregon Vocational Interest Scales.

We investigated the psychometric properties of the Oregon Vocational Interest Scales (ORVIS), a brief public-domain alternative to commercial inventories, in a large community sample and in a college sample. In both samples, we examined the factor structure, scale intercorrelations, and personality correlates of the ORVIS, and in the community sample, we also examined the correlations of the ORVIS scales with cognitive abilities and with the scales of a longer, proprietary interest survey. In both samples, all 8 scales-Leadership, Organization, Altruism, Creativity, Analysis, Producing, Adventuring, and Erudition-showed wide variation in scores, high internal-consistency reliabilities, and a pattern of high convergent and low discriminant correlations with the scales of the proprietary interest survey. Overall, the results support the construct validity of the scales, which are recommended for use in research on vocational interests and other individual differences.

The HEXACO-60: a short measure of the major dimensions of personality.

We describe the HEXACO-60, a short personality inventory that assesses the 6 dimensions of the HEXACO model of personality structure. We selected the 10 items of each of the 6 scales from the longer HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (Ashton & Lee, 2008; Lee & Ashton, 2004, 2006), with the aim of representing the broad range of content that defines each dimension. In self-report data from samples of college students and community adults, the scales showed reasonably high levels of internal consistency reliability and rather low interscale correlations. Correlations of the HEXACO-60 scales with measures of the Big Five factors were consistent with theoretical expectations, and convergent correlations between self-reports and observer reports on the HEXACO-60 scales were high, averaging above .50. We recommend the HEXACO-60 for use in personality assessment contexts in which administration time is limited.