HEXACO Personality Inventory – Revised 60 (HEXACO-60)

Abstract

The HEXACO Personality Inventory – Revised 60 (HEXACO-60) is an abbreviated, psychometrically validated instrument developed by Michael C. Ashton and Kibeom Lee (2009) to operationalize the six-factor operational framework of human personality structure. Derived from comprehensive cross-cultural lexical investigations across multiple Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages, the HEXACO model expands upon the traditional Five-Factor Model (Big Five) by systematically identifying and validating a sixth major personality dimension: Honesty-Humility (H). In addition to Honesty-Humility, the inventory captures Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to Experience (O).

The 60-item short form was engineered to retain robust structural fidelity to the longer 200-item (HEXACO-PI) and 100-item (HEXACO-PI-R) inventories while minimizing respondent burden in high-throughput research, industrial-organizational assessments, and multidisciplinary field studies. Each of the six domain scales is indexed by 10 items evaluated on a standard 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Across diverse international samples, the HEXACO-60 demonstrates sound internal consistency (mean Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically ranging from .73 to .82 across domains), high convergent correlations with full-length HEXACO scales ($r > .90$), clear structural invariance across cultures, and distinct predictive validity regarding social, organizational, and antisocial phenomena. Notably, the Honesty-Humility dimension serves as a potent theoretical and empirical predictor of exploitative behaviors, counterproductive workplace behaviors (CWB), academic dishonesty, and the malevolent personality traits defining the Dark Triad.

Keywords

HEXACO-60, Honesty-Humility, personality assessment, six-factor model, cross-cultural lexical hypothesis, psychometrics, Dark Triad, reciprocal altruism, kin altruism, Big Five comparison

Authors

The HEXACO-60 was developed and validated by:

• Michael C. Ashton, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Specialization: Personality structure, lexical studies of personality traits, psychometrics, evolutionary psychology.
• Kibeom Lee, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Specialization: Industrial and organizational psychology, workplace deviance, structural personality assessment, cross-cultural psychometrics.

Correspondence regarding the broader HEXACO inventory system is conventionally directed through academic channels at Brock University or the University of Calgary, and comprehensive materials are systematically indexed by the authors via the official academic repository hosted at hexaco.org.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the HEXACO-60 is to provide a brief, psychometrically sound measurement of the six major dimensions of human personality for empirical contexts where assessment time, survey length, or participant cognitive fatigue preclude the administration of the full 200-item or 100-item HEXACO inventories. While extensive multi-facet instruments yield highly granular psychological profiles, large-scale psychological surveys, epidemiological investigations, organizational screening batteries, and longitudinal designs require efficient yet representative measures that maintain the structural integrity of the underlying latent factors.

Historically, the Five-Factor Model (FFM) and the Big Five framework dominated personality psychology, summarizing individual differences along five broad axes: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience (or Intellect). However, repeated cross-cultural lexical studies—which examine the natural language lexicons that societies develop to describe persistent human characteristics—revealed that a six-factor solution emerged with remarkable consistency across diverse linguistic traditions, including Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Polish, and Greek. This sixth factor, designated as Honesty-Humility, captures individual differences in sincere versus deceitful behavior, fairness versus rule-breaking exploitation, greed avoidance versus ostentatious wealth pursuit, and modest versus arrogant self-conceptions.

The operational rationale for the HEXACO-60 centers on two foundational needs in modern psychological science:

• Capturing the Ethical and Prosocial Dimension of Personality: The Big Five model distributes characteristics related to morality, fairness, and deceit across Agreeableness and Conscientiousness in an indirect manner. The HEXACO-60 isolates these qualities into the discrete Honesty-Humility factor, providing superior predictive validity for dark personality traits, criminal conduct, ethical decision-making, workplace sabotage, and opportunistic exploitation in game-theoretic paradigms.
• Correcting Factor Rotations in Emotional and Interpersonal Traits: Lexical investigations indicated that the traditional Big Five Neuroticism and Agreeableness dimensions represent rotated variants of the cross-culturally replicable Emotionality and Agreeableness axes. In the HEXACO system, Agreeableness captures patience, tolerance, and anger-control versus irritability and hostility, whereas Emotionality captures vulnerability, sentimentality, and anxiety versus fearlessness and emotional detachment, fully decoupled from angry hostility.

Consequently, the HEXACO-60 serves as an essential tool across clinical, social, evolutionary, consumer, and industrial-organizational psychology. In organizational settings, it evaluates integrity and the likelihood of counterproductive workplace behaviors without relying solely on overt, easily faked integrity tests. In forensic and social contexts, it illuminates the psychological underpinnings of antisocial personality structures, interpersonal exploitation, narcissism, and sociopathy.

Psychological Construct

The HEXACO model operationalizes human personality as a six-dimensional hyperspace. In the full-length inventories (HEXACO-PI-R), each broad domain is composed of four distinct lower-order facet traits, plus an interstitial facet (Altruism). In the abbreviated HEXACO-60, the items were systematically selected from across these facets to represent the breadth of each domain while preserving structural balance. The six constructs measured by the HEXACO-60 are detailed below:

1. Honesty-Humility (H)

The Honesty-Humility dimension indexes individual differences in the tendency to be fair, sincere, and modest in interpersonal interactions, versus manipulative, deceitful, and entitled. Persons scoring high on Honesty-Humility refuse to exploit, deceive, or manipulate others for personal gain; they feel little temptation to bend ethical rules for self-enrichment, exhibit genuine disinterest in lavish displays of luxury or social status, and maintain a grounded, modest self-evaluation. Conversely, individuals who score low on this construct display marked propensities toward flattery, fraud, cheating, and opportunistic rule-breaking. They are motivated by excessive material gain, manifest a pronounced sense of entitlement, and view interpersonal relationships through an instrumental, exploitative lens. The facets synthesized within this construct include Sincerity, Fairness, Greed Avoidance, and Modesty.

2. Emotionality (E)

The HEXACO Emotionality construct differs fundamentally from the traditional Big Five Neuroticism domain. Emotionality captures a combination of fearfulness, anxiety, emotional vulnerability, and empathic sentimentality, while excluding the angry hostility component that is subsumed within Big Five Neuroticism. High scorers on Emotionality experience intense apprehension in response to physical perils, feel heightened stress and worry regarding life challenges, possess a strong need for emotional support and comfort during crises, and exhibit deep empathic emotional attachments to others. Low scorers are characterized by emotional toughness, high physical courage, minimal anxiety in high-stakes environments, marked independence from social-support systems, and an emotional detachment or insensitivity toward interpersonal distress. The underlying facets integrated within this domain are Fearfulness, Anxiety, Dependence, and Sentimentality.

3. Extraversion (X)

Extraversion measures engagement, assertiveness, and sociability within the social and environmental sphere. High scorers exhibit vibrant positive affectivity, express enthusiasm, enjoy dynamic group interactions, confidently voice their perspectives in public forums, and initiate social connections with ease. They view themselves with broad self-assurance and optimism. In contrast, low scorers (introverts) experience less social drive, prefer solitude or solitary activities over bustling social gatherings, feel uncomfortable or self-conscious in the center of attention, and display reserve and subdued emotional expressiveness. The facets represented across this domain are Social Self-Esteem, Social Boldness, Sociability, and Liveliness.

4. Agreeableness (versus Anger) (A)

In the HEXACO taxonomy, Agreeableness reflects the tendency to maintain cooperative, peaceful relationships and to control feelings of anger, resentment, and hostility when wronged or frustrated. High scorers are characterized by remarkable patience, a willingness to forgive past offenses, an inclination to compromise, and a mild-tempered, tolerant reaction to unfair treatment or provocative behavior. Conversely, individuals low on HEXACO Agreeableness are prone to quick tempers, hold long-standing grudges, react to minor slights with intense indignation, display high stubbornness, and aggressively criticize the perceived shortcomings of others. The core facets subsumed within this construct include Forgivingness, Gentleness, Flexibility, and Patience.

5. Conscientiousness (C)

Conscientiousness indexes systematic self-regulation, goal-directed behavior, orderliness, and impulse control. Individuals scoring high on Conscientiousness organize their physical and temporal environments meticulously, display strong discipline toward deadlines, exhibit thoroughness and precision regarding details, maintain high standards of achievement, and deliberate carefully before reaching decisions. Low scorers, conversely, are disorganized, tolerate untidy environments, act impulsively on the spur of the moment without analyzing potential outcomes, procrastinate, and expend the minimum effort necessary to fulfill obligations. The representative facets subsumed within this scale are Organization, Diligence, Perfectionism, and Prudence.

6. Openness to Experience (O)

Openness to Experience reflects intellectual curiosity, aesthetic sensitivity, imagination, and receptivity to unconventional ideas and non-traditional perspectives. High scorers possess an intrinsic appreciation for visual art, literature, and classical or diverse musical forms; they engage actively in deep theoretical, political, or philosophical questions, appreciate unusual ideas, and employ creative thinking to explore alternative lifestyles or unconventional solutions. Low scorers exhibit pragmatic, utilitarian orientations, show little interest in high culture or creative arts, avoid abstract philosophical speculation, and prefer familiar, conventional approaches over radical innovations. The facets synthesized within this domain are Aesthetic Appreciation, Inquisitiveness, Creativity, and Unconventionality.

Theoretical Framework

The HEXACO model rests upon two mutually reinforcing foundations: the lexical hypothesis of personality structure and an evolutionary-ecological theory of human sociality.

The Cross-Cultural Lexical Hypothesis

The empirical genesis of the HEXACO framework lies in the lexical hypothesis first articulated by Sir Francis Galton and refined by psychometricians such as Raymond Cattell, Warren Norman, and Lewis Goldberg. The lexical hypothesis posits that the most salient, consequential, and socially adaptive individual differences in human personality eventually become encoded as single-word descriptors within natural spoken languages. Consequently, factor-analyzing comprehensive dictionaries of personality-descriptive adjectives allows psychometricians to discover the fundamental, universal structural taxonomy of human personality without theoretical preconceptions.

When the lexical paradigm was initially popularized in English, it yielded the prominent Five-Factor Model. However, as Ashton and Lee conducted and re-examined rigorous lexical investigations across twelve diverse languages throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, a recurring empirical anomaly became evident: a six-factor solution emerged with far higher cross-linguistic replicability than the classical five-factor structure. Across Italian, Korean, German, French, Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, and Greek, the same six broad dimensions repeatedly manifested. The six-factor taxonomy proved not to be an artifact of American English, but rather a universal representation of how humans categorize one another’s behavioral dispositions across cultures.

Evolutionary-Ecological Theory of Personality

To provide a functional theoretical explanation for why these specific six dimensions emerge across human societies, Ashton and Lee (2007) proposed an evolutionary framework centered around two primary mechanisms of human social cooperation: reciprocal altruism and kin altruism, alongside mechanisms for managing personal and social resources.

• Reciprocal Altruism (Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness): Mutual cooperation among non-kin requires mechanisms to balance individual gain against collective welfare. Ashton and Lee demonstrated that Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness represent two complementary facets of reciprocal altruism. Honesty-Humility governs the tendency not to exploit or cheat cooperative partners; high scorers refrain from taking unfair advantage even when there is no risk of detection. Agreeableness governs the complementary tendency to tolerate or forgive minor transgressions by cooperative partners, preventing costly cycles of retaliatory conflict. In game-theoretic terms, Honesty-Humility prevents an individual from defecting first, while Agreeableness maintains cooperation by forgiving non-fatal defections.
• Kin Altruism (Emotionality): Emotionality is evolutionary anchored in the preservation of self and genetic relatives. The fearfulness and anxiety facets promote harm-avoidance and personal survival, preserving the organism to provide long-term parental investment. The sentimentality and dependence facets foster emotional bonding, empathic concern, and mutual protection among kin and close social allies. High Emotionality prioritizes survival and protective maternal/paternal investment over high-risk physical exploration.
• Task and Social Endeavors (Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness): The remaining three domains govern how individuals navigate social hierarchies, direct energy toward material endeavors, and engage with intellectual or technological problems. Extraversion influences engagement in social competition, mate acquisition, and leadership dynamics. Conscientiousness regulates the investment of time, physical effort, and executive planning into acquiring material resources and maintaining social commitments. Openness to Experience reflects the cognitive pursuit of novel solutions, technological innovations, and cultural learning.

Validity

The construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity of the HEXACO-60 have been evaluated across numerous empirical investigations worldwide.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Ashton and Lee (2009) initially established the structural fidelity of the HEXACO-60 by correlating its scales with the 200-item HEXACO-PI and the 100-item HEXACO-PI-R across college and community samples ($N = 1,444$). The domain correlations between the 10-item scales of the HEXACO-60 and the corresponding parent scales of the full-length inventories consistently exceeded $r = .90$ ($r = .91$ for Honesty-Humility, $.92$ for Emotionality, $.93$ for Extraversion, $.92$ for Agreeableness, $.92$ for Conscientiousness, and $.90$ for Openness to Experience). These correlations demonstrate that the reduction in item count does not distort the conceptual breadth of the latent personality domains.

Discriminant validity among the six scales is equally pronounced. Intercorrelations among the six HEXACO-60 domains are typically low to moderate (average absolute intercorrelation $|r| < .20$), indicating that the six axes operate as orthogonal, independent dimensions of personality. When compared with the Five-Factor Model (such as the NEO-PI-R or NEO-FFI), HEXACO Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness converge strongly with their Big Five counterparts ($r > .65$). However, HEXACO Agreeableness correlates moderately with both Big Five Agreeableness and Big Five Neuroticism (negatively), while HEXACO Emotionality correlates strongly with Big Five Neuroticism ($r \approx .60$) but displays unique positive variance with Big Five Agreeableness (due to empathic sentimentality).

Criterion and Predictive Validity

The clinical, organizational, and behavioral validity of the HEXACO-60 is especially apparent when examining behaviors that the Big Five model cannot adequately account for:

• Workplace Deviance and Counterproductive Workplace Behaviors (CWB): Lee, Ashton, and de Vries (2005) demonstrated that Honesty-Humility is the single strongest personality predictor of workplace delinquency, theft, vandalism, absenteeism, and organizational sabotage ($r$ typically ranging from $-.35$ to $-.50$). Conscientiousness serves as a secondary predictor, but Honesty-Humility uniquely accounts for deliberate interpersonal harm and fraud.
• The Dark Triad: Extensive psychometric research shows that the core shared variance defining the Dark Triad traits—Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy—is virtually isomorphic with low Honesty-Humility. Correlations between composite Dark Triad scores and the HEXACO Honesty-Humility factor range between $r = -.55$ and $r = -.72$.
• Ethical and Prosocial Behavior: In laboratory behavioral economics (e.g., Dictator Games, Ultimatum Games, Public Goods dilemmas), low Honesty-Humility uniquely predicts greedy distributions, ruthless punishment of competitors, and opportunistic defection whenever immediate personal gains can be obtained without reprisal.
• Cheating and Academic Misconduct: In educational psychology, students with low scores on the Honesty-Humility scale of the HEXACO-60 demonstrate significantly higher frequencies of plagiarism, exam cheating, and illicit collaboration.

Reliability

Despite compressing each major personality domain into only 10 items, the HEXACO-60 displays stable internal consistency and test-retest reliability across clinical, collegiate, and general population cohorts.

Internal Consistency

In the foundational validation study by Ashton and Lee (2009), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the six 10-item scales across self-report and observer-report formats demonstrated adequate to good internal consistency:

• Honesty-Humility (H): $\alpha = .79$ (self-report), $.80$ (observer-report)
• Emotionality (E): $\alpha = .78$ (self-report), $.79$ (observer-report)
• Extraversion (X): $\alpha = .80$ (self-report), $.81$ (observer-report)
• Agreeableness (A): $\alpha = .77$ (self-report), $.78$ (observer-report)
• Conscientiousness (C): $\alpha = .77$ (self-report), $.78$ (observer-report)
• Openness to Experience (O): $\alpha = .77$ (self-report), $.78$ (observer-report)

Subsequent psychometric adaptations in languages such as German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Polish have reported comparable reliability indices, with scale alphas consistently falling within the .73 to .82 window. Because the 10 items within each scale were purposefully selected to reflect diverse facet content (e.g., the Honesty-Humility scale balances sincerity, fairness, greed avoidance, and modesty items), these internal consistency levels are particularly impressive; they do not inflate alpha coefficients through redundant, paraphrased questions.

Test-Retest Stability and Observer Agreement

Longitudinal investigations evaluate the temporal stability of the HEXACO-60 over test-retest intervals ranging from several weeks to over two years. Temporal stability coefficients ($r_{tt}$) remain high, typically spanning from $.75$ to $.86$, reflecting the enduring nature of these core personality dispositions over time.

Additionally, self-observer cross-rater convergence is substantial. When close informants (friends, romantic partners, family members) complete the observer-report version of the HEXACO-60 alongside the self-reporter, convergent validity correlations consistently range between $.50$ and $.65$ across all six domains, demonstrating that the behavioral markers assessed by the 60 items are observable and externally validated.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality and construct validity of the HEXACO-60 have been rigorously evaluated via Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM).

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In exploratory factor analyses using principal axis factoring with varimax or promax rotation conducted at the item level, the scree plot and parallel analysis systematically endorse a six-factor solution. The first six unrotated eigenvalues clearly dissociate from the scree baseline. Following orthogonal or oblique rotation, all 60 items cleanly map onto their designated theoretical dimensions. Primary factor loadings for designated items generally fall within the .40 to .70 range, with minimal secondary cross-loadings onto non-target factors (typically $|lambda| < .20$). This structural clarity is notable given that each 10-item scale intentionally integrates heterogeneous facet content.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Invariance

When evaluated via standard Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), strict independent-cluster models often yield somewhat attenuated fit indices (e.g., Comparative Fit Index [CFI] $\approx .85 – .88$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] $\approx .055 – .065$). This is an established mathematical characteristic of broad, multi-facet personality scales where subtle cross-loadings naturally exist due to the rich semantic landscape of natural language. However, when analyzed using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) or when residual covariances among items stemming from the same lower-order facet are accounted for, the model fit improves substantially (CFI > .92, TLI > .90, RMSEA < .045).

Crucially, measurement invariance studies across diverse demographic groupings have established metric and scalar invariance for the HEXACO-60 across genders, age groups, and cultures. Multigroup CFA models comparing samples across North America, Europe, and Asia confirm that the factor loadings and item intercepts are invariant, demonstrating that cross-cultural comparisons using the HEXACO-60 reflect true differences in latent personality constructs rather than measurement bias.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Standardized self-report inventory (parallel observer-report forms also available).
• Format: Paper-and-pencil or computer-administered psychological questionnaire.
• Item Count: 60 items (10 items per domain).
• Domain Subscales:
  • Honesty-Humility (H): 10 items
  • Emotionality (E): 10 items
  • Extraversion (X): 10 items
  • Agreeableness (A): 10 items
  • Conscientiousness (C): 10 items
  • Openness to Experience (O): 10 items
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = strongly disagree
  • 2 = disagree
  • 3 = neutral (neither agree nor disagree)
  • 4 = agree
  • 5 = strongly agree
• Scoring and Transformation Rules:
  • Reverse-Scoring: Before computing domain composite scores, 28 designated reverse-keyed items must be inverted using the formula: $X_{reversed} = 6 – X_{raw}$. The reverse-scored items are: 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 17, 18, 23, 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 48, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 60.
  • Subscale Item Composition:
    • Honesty-Humility (H): Items 6(R), 12(R), 18(R), 24(R), 30(R), 36, 42(R), 48(R), 54, 60(R)
    • Emotionality (E): Items 5, 11, 17(R), 23(R), 29, 35, 41(R), 47, 53(R), 59
    • Extraversion (X): Items 4(R), 10, 16, 22, 28, 34, 40(R), 46(R), 52(R), 58(R)
    • Agreeableness (A): Items 3, 9, 15, 21, 27(R), 33, 39, 45, 51, 57(R)
    • Conscientiousness (C): Items 2(R), 8(R), 14(R), 20, 26(R), 32, 38, 44(R), 50, 56
    • Openness to Experience (O): Items 1, 7, 13, 19, 25, 31(R), 37(R), 43(R), 49, 55(R)
  • Domain Aggregation: Domain scores are calculated as the mean of the 10 corresponding items after reverse-scoring (yielding scores between 1.00 and 5.00) or as the total sum (ranging from 10 to 50). Using the mean preserves the intuitive metric of the original 1-to-5 Likert scale.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The HEXACO-60 was formally published in 2009 by Michael C. Ashton and Kibeom Lee in the Journal of Personality Assessment. In keeping with the creators’ dedication to open scientific inquiry, the HEXACO-60 is an open-access psychological instrument. It is freely available without royalties, licensing fees, or financial cost for academic, clinical, educational, and scientific research endeavors.

Researchers and practitioners may administer the inventory via paper formats, integrate it into computerized online survey platforms (e.g., Qualtrics, REDCap), and translate the items into additional languages, provided appropriate academic attribution is cited in resulting publications. The authors host inventory copies, scoring syntax, and international translations on their educational website (hexaco.org). Commercial applications, for-profit personnel pre-employment screening, or large-scale corporate distribution may require specific permission or commercial licensing from the authors.

References

• Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 150–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868306294907
• Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2009). The HEXACO-60: A short measure of the major dimensions of personality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(4), 340–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890902935878
• Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., & de Vries, R. E. (2014). The HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality factors: A review of theoretical and experimental evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(2), 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314523838
• Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO Personality Inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39(2), 329–358. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr3902_8
• Lee, K., Ashton, M. C., & de Vries, R. E. (2005). Predicting workplace delinquency and overt integrity with personality traits. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78(2), 195–214. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317905X26183
• Sibley, C. G., & Pirie, P. (2013). Personality in the social sciences: An introduction to the HEXACO model and its applications. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(11), 814–829. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12070

Items of the Scale