Research Of The HEXACO Personality Model

Introduction

The HEXACO – PI – R is a model which explains the structure of personality with six dimensions. It was firstly designed in the year 2000 and originated in lexical studies of personality structure of different languages. The revised model applied nowadays has six dimensions namely Honesty – Humility (H), Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C) and Openness to Experience (O). These factors aim to stand for all basic components of possible variation in personalities of humans, four facet – level scales define each of the factors, 8 questionnaire items measure each of the four facet – level scales.

The HEXACO personality questionnaire consists of a self – and observer report (also known as self – and other – rating) and is made up of either 200, 100 or 60 items. The factor Honesty – Humility measures a person’s sincerity, modesty, fairness and greed - avoidance. People with high scores on this dimension are likely not very interested in breaking rules neither they feel entitled of having a special status in society. On the contrary people who are not particular honest according to this model feel as if they are more important than others believe in equal rights and do not use other humans for their own purposes. With the dimension Emotionality the researcher aims to detect traits like fearfulness, anxiety, dependence and sentimentality. People with low “emotionality” for example would feel less anxious when it comes to stressful situations and typically do not share their concerns with their loved ones. Humans with a highly pronounced emotionality traits are behaving in a opposite way meaning they experience positive mood around others and have the urge to get emotional support from them.

The four facets of Extraversion are social self – esteem, social boldness, sociability and liveliness. Introverted people usually score very low on this dimension as preferring to be alone instead of seeking out social contact preferably with large groups. Extraverted people are usually energetic and enthusiastic and as well as comfortable with leadership positions.

Agreeableness is the dimension assessing a person’s forgiveness, gentleness, flexibility and patience whereas organization, diligence, perfectionism and prudence are measured with Conscientiousness. Agreeable humans are generally very cooperative and decent when it comes to controlling their temper. On the other hand, stubborn or people that tend to hold grudges against other people that treated them badly are not considered overly agreeable according to the HEXACO model. Highly organized and disciplined individuals in contrary to humans that are not perfectionistic or impulsive score high on the dimension of contentiousness.

The last dimension, Openness to Experience shows the researcher how creative, unconventional or inquisitive a person is. Normally these people are characterized through a constant thirst for new knowledge, are excited about arts and culture and are particularly interested in unconventional people or ideas. Aesthetic Appreciation, inquisitiveness, creativity and unconventionality are all four facets assessing a person’s openness to experience.

Although the HEXACO model can be used to measure an individual’s personality it is clearly not an indicator of mental health and thus results should not be taken to diagnose various mental disorders. Furthermore, it should be noted that although these six broad factors help us to have an overview on people’s personalities that humans cannot be reduced to a set of personality categories and therefore have many narrower traits which are unique to them. The English version of the HEXACO PI – R is marked extremely complimentary and shows internal consistency reliabilities ranging from 0. 87 from emotionality in an adult sample and 0. 91 for honesty – humility in a student sample.

Personality description

Honesty – Humility

Traits in this domain measure people’s differences in fairness, sincerity, modesty and greed avoidance. Whereas individuals with low scores are characterized by rebellious, selfish and dishonest behaviour people with high scores tend to treat people equal, do not exploit others, do not value high status and do not see themselves any better than other humans. Comparing the participants score to other adults she scored very high on this dimension. The results suggest that this person is genuine, has high integrity, is not concerned with obtaining status or wealth and does not feel entitled to better treatment than others. Scores on self – and observer report closely correspond with a slight difference of 2, 52.

Emotionality

The Emotionality dimension aims to assess how people deal with physical dangers, how anxious they are in response to stressful events or experiences and how much emotional support. Furthermore, it can be used as an indicator of a person’s empathy as well as sentimental attachments. Low scoring individuals are usually not avoidant of dangers, are not particularly worried in times of stress, don’t necessarily share concerns and are not attached to others on an emotional basis. On the other hand, people with high scores on this domain are rather anxious.

The participant showed a high score compared to the general population. It indicates that this person tends to avoid situations where she could get in danger and is likely to get anxious when she experiences a lot of stress. As a person scoring high on Emotionality she likes to search for comfort from her loved ones and heavily relies on them when she is not feeling to well psychically. She is an empathic human being and thus sensitive to her and other people’s emotions. Again, both reports obtained a similar result with a difference of 2, 52.

Extraversion

Differences in sociability, liveliness, social self – esteem and social boldness are measured by means of this dimension. Humans scoring high on Extraversion are self-confident especially when approaching groups of people, they actively search for social gatherings, love being in leadership positions, talking and are full of energy. Since my participant scored extremely low on extraversion she is likely to behave in an opposite way. Instead of being outgoing and energetic she is rather shy and prefers a quiet evening alone at home over a social event. She does not feel confident to be the leader of a group of people and tends to be somewhat more pessimistic than most people. The person described often times has a feeling of being worthless and would not consider herself as being particularly popular. Both observer and participant scored similar on the dimension of Extraversion with a difference of 3. 84.

Agreeableness

Agreeableness aims at detecting individual differences of forgivingness, gentleness, flexibility and patience. Low scoring people are generally more inclined to judge other people harshly are not specially invested in cooperating with others and usually seen as stubborn. They are also known for their quick temper. Scores on Agreeableness for the participant however ve ry really high as seen by the participant herself and the observer (difference of 2, 77). Interpreting the results, the person can be described as not being easily offended and forgiving when having an argument with others. She is tolerant and acceptant of other human beings and not feisty in the first place or easily angered.

Conscientiousness

How organized, perfectionist, prude or diligent someone tend to be is measured with the dimension of Conscientiousness. Whereas disorganized or lazy people score low on this factor perfectionistic and self – disciplined people are on the other end of the range. Scoring low on Conscientiousness the participant most often lacks enough motivation in order to achieve goals and does not mind mistakes in her work. When approaching tasks, she is rather sloppy than structured. Considering the prudence facet however she conforms to the standard of a more conscientious person as being more careful when considering her options and not being particularly impulsive. Results of observer- and self – report show high correspondence with a low difference of 3, 35.

Openness to Experience

The sixth dimension measures a person’s creativity, unconventionality, inquisitiveness and aesthetic appreciation. High scores opposite to low scorers are characterised by enjoying art and culture and are curious to obtain new knowledge in various sciences and are known to like when people try to approach problems in a new, strange way. People who score low like the participant, seem to prefer spending their free time with something different than reading scientific articles, visiting museums or going to art exhibitions. The scores of this dimension resulted in the highest difference with 5, 73 and causing the participant to score low when assessing her openness herself and very low when assessed of the observer.

Differences might be explained by not having enough insight on what the participant is reading when browsing the internet or another explanation could be a lack of free time in the participants live as being a mother of four children and working full days meaning that she does not have enough time to engage in educational activities like visiting the museum or reading scientific articles. Whether there is a lack of interest in the first place or simply not enough time cannot be accurately assessed by the observer and further information would be needed to collect from the person to be surer to interpret this result correctly.