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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–6Cite as

The HEXACO Model of Personality Structure

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Definition

A model of personality structure positing that human personality traits can best be summarized by six broad, independent dimensions called honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.

Introduction

The model originated in psycholexical studies of personality structure, in which self- or observer ratings on a representative set of personality-descriptive adjectives are factor analyzed. Such studies have been conducted in various languages, and the results show that the largest factor space to be widely replicated across languages is the six-factor solution (Ashton et al. 2004; Lee and Ashton 2008), which corresponds to the HEXACO factor space.

Six Personality Factors in the HEXACO Model

The HEXACO name was derived as an acronym from the names of the six personality factors. Each of those factors is a dimension or continuum; by convention, each of the six factors is named for one of its poles. Some of the adjectives...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Kibeom Lee

  2. Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada

    Michael C. Ashton

Authors
  1. Kibeom Lee
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  2. Michael C. Ashton
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kibeom Lee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Ashton Southard

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Cite this entry

Lee, K., Ashton, M.C. (2016). The HEXACO Model of Personality Structure. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1227-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1227-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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