The HEXACO Personality Model
The description of the personality has always been one of the great milestones set by psychology, eager to explore who we are and identify those variables that have more weight in our decision-making. There are a large number of personality models, developed within differential and personality psychology. Today we bring one of them: the HEXACO personality model, whose acronym corresponds to the 6 categories through which it is intended to describe the personality of people.
At present, we have a questionnaire whose objective is to explore the 6 facets proposed by the model, called: HEXACO-PI (revised in 2006). The questionnaire has three different versions according to the number of items (200, 100 or 60). Do you want to know more about the model? Including its 6 facets? We will tell you!
The HEXACO personality model
The HEXACO Personality Model (Ashton and Lee, 2001) is made up of 6 categories. It is a proposal within the field of personality psychology that has received much coverage and scientific interest in the last two decades.
6 categories or factors
Each of the 6 categories (or basic factors) that make up the model correspond to each of its letters (HEXACO). Thus, the model proposes the following categories:
- H: honesty-humility.
- E: emotionality.
- X: extraversion.
- A: cordiality.
- C: conscientiousness.
- Or: openness to experience.
In this way, we obtain the acronym of the model, based on the initials of each factor. The model bases each of its categories on an intensity spectrum where people will score more or less. This spectrum ranges from “normal” to pathological (the latter predisposes to mental health problems).
Relevant contributions of the model
Highlight as the most important contribution of the model the category “honesty-humility”, since to date, there was no analogue in previous personality models. On the other hand, the model renames the neuroticism of the Big Five , and labels it as “emotionality.” In addition, it incorporates, as a facet of the latter, sentimentality (previously included in kindness).
More factors than other models
The HEXACO personality model increases the number of factors compared to other known classical models, such as Eysenck’s three-dimensional model, with three factors (neuroticism, extraversion, and psychoticism) and Costa and McCrae’s five-dimensional model, the famous “Big Five” (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, kindness and responsibility).
Construction of the model
How did the HEXACO personality model come about? Well, it was built like the famous Big Five, that is, from a lexical analysis. This analysis was carried out from the information given by a large number of people on how to describe personality. Specifically, a large sample was used, with people who spoke different languages.
The words that served to define the behavior and personality of human beings were extracted and analyzed. A consensus between cultures was observed, and the multiple factors mentioned (the “HEXACO” categories) were eventually extracted.
Of the 6 categories, the most relevant were two: neuroticism and extraversion. Why? Because they were the ones that showed the most predictive power in everything related to emotional difficulties.
Objectives of the HEXACO personality model
One of the great objectives of the HEXACO personality model is, logically, to describe people’s personalities. That is, behind it lies the interest in knowing how people act, think and relate to other people in their environment and with themselves.
This is important because from here, behavior can be predicted and the nuances of the affective and intimate life can be explained. What can this be for? To design intervention programs that take into account the personality and idiosyncrasies of the patient, for example. On the other hand, the model also seeks to find protective and risk factors for the appearance of various psychopathological disorders.
Description of the 6 categories
What does each category of the HEXACO personality model mean? Let’s briefly describe them:
Honesty-humility
This category is, as we said, the most relevant contribution that the model makes when it comes to explaining how personality works. The “honesty-humility” refers to the sincerity, the preference to tell the truth and the omission of any interested distortion of the facts.
Emotionality
With this category, the authors refer to a persistent pattern of behavior and thought, the fundamental consequence of which is vulnerability to suffer from depressive or anxious disorders. It is the dimension that is most related to psychopathology; people who score high on it feel anxious most of the time and worry excessively about “what has already happened or could happen.”
Extraversion
This feature is related to the social image that the subject has of himself, as well as the way in which it is projected on the scene of relationships with others. Scoring high in this category means that the person enjoys making friends, being with people, doing group tasks, etc.
Cordiality
The cordiality facet of the HEXACO personality model has been associated with kindness and the will to seek that social relationships bring well-being. To score high in it implies being a kind person in relationships and flexible in the face of imperfection.
Conscientiousness
With this category we refer to the tendency to act in an organized way and with a specific plan of action. That is, it would be the opposite of impulsiveness or thoughtlessness.
Openness to experience
Finally, this category represents the preference for everything that is far from the norm, from the conventional; It implies pleasure and interest in everything that is not “typical”, and is related to creativity. People who score high in this category are adventurous people, who like to try new things.
As we can see, the HEXACO personality model resembles other previous models, not only because of how it has been built but also because of its categories, most of which are already described in other models. This model has been widely studied to date, as it is considered very accurate to describe patterns of behavior, thought and affect.
