The HEXACO Personality Model
5/28/2025
When it comes to understanding personality, psychologists have long relied on models that attempt to distill the complex spectrum of human traits into quantifiable dimensions. For decades, the Five-Factor Model (FFM), also known as the "Big Five", has dominated this field. However, a growing body of research suggests that the HEXACO model may offer a more nuanced and culturally inclusive framework. This article explores what the HEXACO personality test is, how it differs from the Big Five, and why some experts believe it may provide a better understanding of personality.
What Is the HEXACO Personality Model?
The HEXACO model is a six-dimensional framework for describing human personality. Developed by psychologists Kibeom Lee and Michael C. Ashton in the early 2000s, the model was derived from a lexical analysis of personality-descriptive adjectives across multiple languages. The name "HEXACO" is an acronym representing its six major dimensions:
- Honesty-Humility (H) – Sincerity, fairness, modesty, and a lack of greed.
- Emotionality (E) – Emotional sensitivity, fearfulness, anxiety, and dependence.
- eXtraversion (X) – Sociability, liveliness, and assertiveness.
- Agreeableness (A) – Forgiveness, patience, and tolerance (distinct from Big Five)
- Conscientiousness (C) – Organization, diligence, and reliability.
- Openness to Experience (O) – Creativity, curiosity, and aesthetic sensitivity
Relation To the Five Factor Model
The most widely used model of personality today is the Big Five, developed through analyses of personality-descriptive adjectives. This model includes five broad traits: Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (often contrasted with Emotional Stability).
Three of these—Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness—closely align with corresponding dimensions in the HEXACO model. However, the remaining two—Agreeableness and Neuroticism—differ somewhat from HEXACO’s Agreeableness and Emotionality. These HEXACO traits are rotated variants of their Big Five counterparts. For instance, traits like irritability or a quick temper are linked to low Emotional Stability (Neuroticism) in the Big Five, but to low Agreeableness in HEXACO. This illustrates that even similarly named traits between the models are not entirely equivalent.
One of the most notable differences is that the Big Five lacks a dimension corresponding to Honesty-Humility, a key component of the HEXACO model. Traits associated with honesty, modesty, and fairness—central to Honesty-Humility—are only partially captured within the Big Five’s Agreeableness dimension.
Earlier studies tended to identify only five factors, but more recent and comprehensive cross-linguistic research using larger sets of adjectives has consistently revealed six factors, supporting the HEXACO structure. Four of the HEXACO dimensions retain the Big Five’s original names, reflecting overlapping content, while Honesty-Humility and Emotionality introduce new distinctions.
Importantly, the inclusion of Honesty-Humility enables the HEXACO model to better account for traits such as narcissism and manipulativeness, offering a more refined analysis of personality in areas related to ethics and social behavior.
Three of these—Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness—closely align with corresponding dimensions in the HEXACO model. However, the remaining two—Agreeableness and Neuroticism—differ somewhat from HEXACO’s Agreeableness and Emotionality. These HEXACO traits are rotated variants of their Big Five counterparts. For instance, traits like irritability or a quick temper are linked to low Emotional Stability (Neuroticism) in the Big Five, but to low Agreeableness in HEXACO. This illustrates that even similarly named traits between the models are not entirely equivalent.
One of the most notable differences is that the Big Five lacks a dimension corresponding to Honesty-Humility, a key component of the HEXACO model. Traits associated with honesty, modesty, and fairness—central to Honesty-Humility—are only partially captured within the Big Five’s Agreeableness dimension.
Earlier studies tended to identify only five factors, but more recent and comprehensive cross-linguistic research using larger sets of adjectives has consistently revealed six factors, supporting the HEXACO structure. Four of the HEXACO dimensions retain the Big Five’s original names, reflecting overlapping content, while Honesty-Humility and Emotionality introduce new distinctions.
Importantly, the inclusion of Honesty-Humility enables the HEXACO model to better account for traits such as narcissism and manipulativeness, offering a more refined analysis of personality in areas related to ethics and social behavior.
Why HEXACO Might Be the Better Model
- More Comprehensive Ethical DimensionThe Honesty-Humility trait fills a gap in the Big Five by accounting for morality-related behavior. This trait has been shown to predict unethical decision-making, narcissism, and even criminality better than any of the Big Five traits.
- Cross-Cultural ValidityHEXACO was developed through the analysis of personality descriptors in over a dozen languages. This makes it arguably more culturally robust than the Big Five, which was primarily based on English-language data.
- Predictive Power for Negative BehaviorResearch has demonstrated that low Honesty-Humility is a strong predictor of the so-called "Dark Triad" traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy. The Big Five lacks this specificity, making HEXACO particularly valuable in forensic and organizational psychology.
- Refined Understanding of EmotionalityThe HEXACO model separates anxiety-related traits from interpersonal empathy more clearly, providing a more accurate depiction of how individuals respond emotionally to others and to stress.
- Improved Personality Assessment ToolsThe HEXACO-PI-R (Personality Inventory–Revised) is a well-validated, freely available assessment tool that can be used for both academic research and practical applications, such as employee screening or therapy.
History of Hexaco personality inventory
The development of the HEXACO model of personality began around the year 2000, building on earlier frameworks such as the Big Five personality traits found in tools like the NEO-PI. The Big Five—Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, Neuroticism, and Extraversion—emerged from English-language lexical studies and gained widespread recognition in the 1980s.
However, when similar lexical studies were conducted in a range of languages—including Dutch, French, Korean, Polish, Croatian, Filipino, Greek, German, Italian, Hungarian, and Turkish—researchers consistently found a sixth personality factor, which they labeled Honesty-Humility. These multilingual studies also revealed meaningful differences in the sub-facets of Agreeableness and Emotionality, suggesting that the original Big Five model did not fully capture the structure of personality across cultures.
As a result, the HEXACO model—comprising Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience—was proposed and has since gained wide acceptance in personality research.
More recently, researchers Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton, the model’s developers, introduced two additional "interstitial" facet scales to the HEXACO-PI. Unlike the original 24 facets, which align neatly with one of the six HEXACO dimensions, these new scales were designed to capture traits that span multiple dimensions.
The first, Altruism vs. Antagonism, was created to assess qualities like compassion and kindness—traits that often overlap with Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality in lexical studies. Including this facet enhances the model’s ability to predict prosocial or antagonistic behavior, which plays a vital role in social functioning.
The second, Negative Self-Evaluation, measures a tendency toward feelings of extreme low self-worth. It correlates negatively with Extraversion and positively with Emotionality, making it particularly useful for understanding vulnerability to depression and related personality disorders.
Together, these additions refine the HEXACO model’s ability to account for nuanced personality traits, offering deeper insights into both typical behavior and psychological dysfunction.
However, when similar lexical studies were conducted in a range of languages—including Dutch, French, Korean, Polish, Croatian, Filipino, Greek, German, Italian, Hungarian, and Turkish—researchers consistently found a sixth personality factor, which they labeled Honesty-Humility. These multilingual studies also revealed meaningful differences in the sub-facets of Agreeableness and Emotionality, suggesting that the original Big Five model did not fully capture the structure of personality across cultures.
As a result, the HEXACO model—comprising Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience—was proposed and has since gained wide acceptance in personality research.
More recently, researchers Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton, the model’s developers, introduced two additional "interstitial" facet scales to the HEXACO-PI. Unlike the original 24 facets, which align neatly with one of the six HEXACO dimensions, these new scales were designed to capture traits that span multiple dimensions.
The first, Altruism vs. Antagonism, was created to assess qualities like compassion and kindness—traits that often overlap with Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality in lexical studies. Including this facet enhances the model’s ability to predict prosocial or antagonistic behavior, which plays a vital role in social functioning.
The second, Negative Self-Evaluation, measures a tendency toward feelings of extreme low self-worth. It correlates negatively with Extraversion and positively with Emotionality, making it particularly useful for understanding vulnerability to depression and related personality disorders.
Together, these additions refine the HEXACO model’s ability to account for nuanced personality traits, offering deeper insights into both typical behavior and psychological dysfunction.