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J Pers. 2021 Jul 30; doi: 10.1111/jopy.12664. Epub 2021 Jul 30.

Exploring the stability of HEXACO-60 structure and the association of gender, age, and social position with personality traits across 18 countries.

Journal of personality

Luis F García, Anton Aluja, Jérôme Rossier, Fritz Ostendorf, Joseph Glicksohn, Barry Oumar, Tarek Bellaj, Willibald Ruch, Wei Wang, Zsuzsanna Kövi, Dawid Ścigała, Đorđe Čekrlija, Adam W Stivers, Lisa Di Blas, Mauricio Valdivia, Sonia Ben Jemaa, Kokou A Atitsogbe, Michel Hansenne

Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
  2. Institute of Biomedical Research of Lleida, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain.
  3. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
  4. University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany.
  5. Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
  6. University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal.
  7. Qatar University, Doha, Qatar.
  8. University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
  9. Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
  10. Károli Gáspár University, Budapest, Hungary.
  11. The Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
  12. University of Banja Luka, Banja Luka, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  13. Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington, USA.
  14. University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
  15. Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Chile.
  16. University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia.
  17. University of Lomé, Lome, Togo.
  18. University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.

PMID: 34328208 DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12664

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The present paper tests the cross-national stability of the HEXACO-60 structure across 18 countries from four continents. Gender and age differences across countries will be examined. Finally, this is the first study to explicitly analyze the relationships between the HEXACO and social position.

METHOD: Ten thousand two hundred and ninety eight subjects (5,410 women and 4,888 men) from 18 countries and 13 languages were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis techniques were used to test configural, metric and scalar invariance models. Congruence coefficients with the original structure of the HEXACO-60 were computed for every culture. Effect sizes of gender, age, and social position factors across countries were also computed.

RESULTS: HEXACO-60 demonstrates configural and metric invariance, but not scalar invariance. Congruence coefficients show a great equivalence in almost all countries and factors. Only Emotionality presents a large gender difference across countries. No relevant effect of age is observed. A profile of high scores on Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience, and low scores on Emotionality increases the likelihood of achieving a higher social position, although the effect sizes are small.

CONCLUSIONS: HEXACO-60 is a useful instrument to conduct personality trait research and practice around the world. Implications of gender, social position, and country differences are discussed.

© 2021 The Authors. Journal of Personality published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Keywords: HEXACO-60; cross-national stability; gender differences; measurement invariance; social position

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