1 Costa & McCrae (1992a).
2 Tupes & Christal (1961); Goldberg (1990, 1993).
3 Hahn, Lee, & Ashton (1999).
4 Boies, Lee, Ashton, Pascal, & Nicol (2001). For a summary of the findings across these languages, see Ashton, Lee, Perugini, Szarota, de Vries, Di Blas, et al. (2004).
5 Ashton, Lee, & Goldberg (2004).
6 Lee & Ashton (2008).
7 See De Raad et al. (2010) for the argument that neither six nor five factors can be fully recovered across these languages; for responses see Ashton & Lee (2010), Ashton, Lee, & de Vries (2012), Saucier (2009).
8 The Emotionality factor of the HEXACO model is similar but not identical to the Big Five Neuroticism factor. We decided that Emotionality was a more accurate label, and it made for a very nice acronym. By the way, don’t take the names of the factors too seriously. The names are convenient, but they oversimplify; you can understand the factors better by knowing the traits that belong to them.
1 Because these strategies are personality dispositions rather than conscious choices, people aren’t completely free to change their strategies according to the circumstances they face. Although people can try to adjust their behaviour according to the conditions they encounter, this may be very difficult (though not impossible) when the behaviour is inconsistent with their personality disposition.
2 High-O people tend to know more facts and words than low-O people. But this difference isn’t because high-O people are any smarter in general than low-O people. On average, people low in O are just as good as people high in O at solving difficult problems in logic or math. But because high-O people tend to read widely and enjoy learning new things, on average they learn more facts and words than low-O people do.
3 Some researchers have suggested that high O also carries the risk of developing certain very harmful mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia or other delusional disorders. However, the link between O and these disorders is very weak (Ashton & Lee, 2012) and probably contributes very little to the total cost of being high in O.
4 Aiello & Wheeler (1995).
5 These advantages of high C don’t have anything to do with intelligence: high-C people aren’t any smarter, on average, than low-C people. Now, smarter people—as identified by well-validated IQ tests—do achieve better grades and do perform better on the job, just as high-C people do. But because IQ and C are uncorrelated with each other, we can predict people’s school and job performance much better by knowing their levels both of IQ and of C than by knowing either alone. The best performers are high in both C and IQ, and the worst are low in both; people who are high in C but low in IQ, or low in C but high in IQ, are in between.
6 Gailliot & Baumeister (2007).
7 Some researchers have suggested that because high-C individuals aren’t impulsive, they lack spontaneity and are too slow in seizing good opportunities. But this suggestion confuses two quite different kinds of impulsivity. The inability to control one’s impulses is associated with low C. But the readiness to seize opportunities is actually associated with high C (at least to a weak extent) and with high X (to a stronger extent); see Dickman (1990).
8 In case you were wondering, high-X and low-X individuals can be described pretty accurately by the common terms “extraverted” and “introverted.”
9 This raises the interesting question of how it is that high-X people are viewed as more attractive. Perhaps physically attractive people tend to develop higher levels of X as a result of the positive social attention they receive. Or perhaps high-X people are perceived as more attractive because of their vitality and sociability. Or maybe high-X people actually behave in ways that make them more attractive—even in their objective physical appearance—for example, by being more physically active or more interested in improving their appearance.
10 The costs and benefits of being high in X also depend on other people’s levels of this dimension. If most people are low in X, then a high-X person may easily attract friends, allies, and mates. But if most people are high in X, then a high-X person will be only one of many potentially attractive social partners. In such a case, the benefits of high X may be too small to justify the energy costs and risks, and people low in X will have an advantage for survival and reproduction.
11 People sometimes express surprise that traits of honesty and humility go together in the same category. But lack of humility and lack of honesty are part of the same tendency to exploit other people: persons who have a strong sense of superiority and entitlement tend to feel justified in using deceit and manipulation to get what they want from others.
12 This is not to say that high-H people consciously think in terms of these consequences. A truly high-H person is governed by a sense of personal ethics that makes him or her behave as if any act of exploiting others would be punished—as it will be, by the person’s own conscience—even when there is objectively no chance of being detected or of suffering retaliation.
13 For marital satisfaction, see Watson et al. (2004); for heart disease, see Chida & Steptoe (2009).
14 Cohen et al. (1996).
15 The costs and benefits of being high or low in A probably depend on the trait levels of other people. What matters here isn’t so much the levels of A that other people have, but rather their levels of H. When many people are low in H, then a low level of A can be better, because anger and resentment can help protect you from people who are inclined to exploit you. But when people are generally high in H, a high level of A can be better, because it’s safe to err on the side of tolerance when you’re dealing with people who are basically fair-minded. Likewise, the costs and benefits of high versus low H also depend on the levels of H that other people have. When almost no one else is low in H, a low-H person may exploit others rather successfully, but when many people are low in H, it may become much harder to do so.
16 See Silove, Marnane, Wagner, Manicavasagar, and Rees (2010) for links between adult separation anxiety disorder and personality traits related to Emotionality.
17 Ashton, Lee, Visser, & Pozzebon (2008).
18 Campbell (1999); Taylor et al. (2000).
19 Bouchard & Loehlin (2001); Loehlin (2005); Plomin & Caspi (1999); Riemann, Angleitner, & Strelau (1997); Riemann & Kandler (2010); Kandler, Riemann, Spinath, & Angleitner (2010). For a discussion of common misconceptions about heritability studies, see Visscher, Hill, and Wray (2008).
20 For some other psychological traits—such as intelligence, religious beliefs, and political attitudes—differences between households do contribute heavily to differences between people—but only until adolescence or early adulthood. Apparently, the household in which one is raised will have some influence on one’s IQ and beliefs and attitudes, but that influence becomes quite weak after early adulthood (Plomin & Spinath, 2004). We explore this further in Chapter 7, in discussing political attitudes.
21 Harris (1995).
22 Sulloway (1995).
23 Jefferson, Herbst, & McCrae (1998); Loehlin (1997).
24 Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer (2006).
25 For those of you who like numbers, the estimated correlation across this 50-year span is about .60 to .80. Although this value is very high, it also means that at least a few people undergo important changes in personality, relative to their age peers. For example, people who have experienced an episode of major depression—generally brought about by some crisis in their lives—tend to show larger shifts in levels of some personality traits, such as Extraversion or Emotionality. See Costa & McCrae (1992b).
1 Ashton, Lee, Pozzebon, Visser, & Worth (2010). Note that many forms of risk taking are not status driven, but are motivated instead by the sensations of the experience itself—consider, for example, outdoor adventures such as mountain climbing or deep-sea diving. This kind of adventure seeking depends on several personality factors in combination—low E, high X, high O, and low C, with only a weak element of low H (see, for example, de Vries, de Vries, & Feij, 2009; Lee, Ogunfowora, & Ashton, 2005; Weller & Tikir, 2011).
2 Kruger & Nesse (2004); Kruger (2007); Daly & Wilson (2001); Wilson & Daly (1985); Frank & Cook (1995).
3 Lee, Ogunfowora, & Ashton (2005).
4 Bourdage, Lee, Ashton, & Perry (2007).
5 Schmitt & Buss (2000).
6 See Buss (1989) for sex differences in mate preferences.
7 Lee & Ashton (2012).
8 Rubenzer & Faschingbauer (2004).
9 This particular Five-Factor Model questionnaire (Costa & McCrae, 1992a) includes an Agreeableness scale that incorporates some aspects of HEXACO Agreeableness, Honesty-Humility, and Emotionality (see Ashton & Lee, 2005), and a Neuroticism scale that incorporates some aspects of HEXACO Emotionality and (low) Agreeableness. Other aspects of HEXACO Honesty-Humility and Emotionality are not so well accommodated by this questionnaire.
10 Johnson (1998).
11 Godbold (2010).
12 Marcus, Lee, & Ashton (2007).
13 See Williams, Paulhus, & Hare (2007).
14 De Vries, Lee, & Ashton (2008).
15 Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990).
16 Our colleague Bernd Marcus has discussed some key issues in measuring self-control, the central trait of the general theory of crime; Marcus (2004).
17 Ashton & Lee (2008).
18 Bourdage, Lee, Ashton, & Perry (2007).
19 Twigger (2010) found that problem gamblers tended to be low in H and C, and also low in E.
20 Blickle, Schlegel, Fassbender, & Klein (2006).
21 The most serious criminal offenders—serial killers, for example—will likely combine low H with low C as well as low E and low A. But according to forensic psychologists, a few serial killers are particularly orderly and disciplined. These so-called “macho man” serial killers (who may appear to function well within military or law enforcement settings) would seem to be extremely low in H and E and A, but rather high in C.
22 Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo (1973).
23 Zimbardo, Maslach & Haney (2000).
24 Carnahan & McFarland (2007).
25 Ashton & Lee (2008).
26 Ashton & Lee (2008); Lee et al. (2008).
27 See Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont’s (1998) Intellectual Impostures for a criticism of the pretentious but nonsensical writings of several postmodernists.
1 Vazire, Naumann, Rentfrow, & Gosling (2008).
2 By the way, there’s another objection to the use of self-reports to measure H, although we’ve never heard anyone mention it: you could argue that humble people will never claim to be humble in self-report questionnaires, because their very humility will forbid them from doing so. But in fact, high-H people do reveal their humility, as for example when they state that they don’t consider themselves to be any better or more deserving than others.
3 Noftle & Robins (2007); Anderson, John, Keltner, & Kring (2001).
4 Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg (2007).
5 See Funder, Kolar, & Blackman (1995); Costa & McCrae (1992a); Lee & Ashton (2006).
6 Paulhus, Bruce, & Trapnell (1995).
7 Borkenau & Liebler (1992).
8 However, there is one trait within the H factor that doesn’t show particularly strong agreement between self-reports and observer reports, even when the observer is the spouse. Specifically, people’s self-reports of sincerity or straightforwardness—of the tendency not to engage in subtle manipulation, such as flattery or false friendliness—are only modestly correlated with observer reports of these traits. Apparently, people who subtly manipulate others really are subtle about it, to the extent that even their spouses have only a roughly accurate sense of how much they do this.
9 Bolino & Turnley (1999).
1 White (1980).
2 Lykken & Tellegen (1993); Watson et al. (2004).
3 It’s interesting to speculate about the trait of intelligence in this context of selecting mates. Does it behave like physical attractiveness (the more, the better), or like religiosity (the more like me, the better)? Studies show that spouses tend to be similar in some but not all aspects of intelligence: they’re usually similar in verbal ability (their vocabulary, general knowledge, etc.) but not necessarily in mathematical ability. But it isn’t clear whether this similarity in verbal ability results from a competitive marketplace situation, whereby people implicitly try to get someone as verbally smart as they possibly can, or simply from a preference for people similar to oneself. (Either way, it makes sense that spouses would be more similar in verbal ability than in mathematical ability: most couples spend a lot of time in conversation with each other, but only the nerdiest couples would spend any time doing math together.)
4 Feng & Baker (1994).
5 Actually, another way to examine similarity would be to compare Jack’s observer report about Jill with Jill’s observer report about Jack. This method generally gives results similar to those based on comparisons of self-reports.
6 Lee, Ashton, Pozzebon, Visser, Bourdage, & Ogunfowora (2009).
7 As noted earlier, our participant samples consisted mainly of friendship pairs, but there were also many romantic couples, including even a few married couples, as well as some sibling pairs and other pairs of relatives. But because most of our participant pairs consisted of two friends, we’ll describe the results here in terms of friendship pairs. The results were generally about the same, by the way, for the romantic couples and for the pairs of relatives.
8 Schwartz (1992).
9 This importance of personal values also helps to explain why perceived similarity is stronger than actual similarity. For example, what matters when Jill forms or maintains a social relationship with Jack is not how similar to her Jack really is, but how similar Jill thinks Jack is.
10 Of course, this would depend on that person having a large enough circle of people to choose friends from—it might not work for people living in a small community where the choice of friends is limited.
1 Note that this isn’t the case for other matters of opinion or taste that lack any element of values. For example, “morning people” and “evening people” are unlikely to feel much discomfort about this difference between them, nor are “dog people” and “cat people,” or “tea people” and “coffee people,” and so on.
2 Altemeyer (1981, 1996).
3 Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle (1994).
4 The terms “left-wing” and “right-wing” have a similar meaning across countries. However, the terms “liberal” and “conservative” differ in meaning between Europe and North America. Here we use the North American meanings, whereby “liberal” and “conservative” are more or less interchangeable with “left-wing” and “right-wing,” respectively.
5 Federico, Hunt, & Ergun (2009).
6 Schlenker, Chambers, & Le (2012).
7 Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum (2002); McFarland (2005).
8 Altemeyer (2004, 2006).
9 Lee, Ashton, Ogunfowora, Bourdage, & Shin (2010).
10 Koenig et al. (2005); Eaves et al. (1997).
11 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2009).
12 Nakhaie & Brym (1999).
13 Data from Goldberg’s Oregon sample.
14 See Nakhaie & Brym (1999).
15 Carney, Jost, Gosling, & Potter (2008).
16 http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p3
17 Lippa (2005).
18 Lewis & Seaman (2004).
19 Hodson, Hogg, & MacInnis (2009); Lee et al. (2010).
20 Son Hing, Bobocel, Zanna, & McBride (2007).
21 Duriez, Soenens, & Vansteenkiste (2008).
22 See McFarland, Ageyev, & Abalakina-Paap (1992) for a discussion of right-wing authoritarianism in the Soviet Union.
23 Chirumbolo & Leone (2010); Zettler & Hilbig (2010); Zettler, Hilbig, & Haubrich (2011).
24 Some studies indicate a role for the C factor in political party support: people higher in C are slightly more likely to favour right-wing political parties. Presumably, the policies typically espoused by those parties—for example, favouring stricter law enforcement or economic self-reliance—have somewhat weaker appeal to low-C persons, who are more impulsive and less hard working.
1 Here we’ll treat as religions only those ethical or philosophical systems that are based on supernatural beliefs. Note, however, that for some people in modern societies, religion primarily represents a cultural or ethnic affiliation that is now largely independent of any supernatural beliefs—consider, for example, the many secular Jews who retain a strong sense of Jewish identity. Note also that some movements widely viewed as religions do not necessarily involve any supernatural elements. One example is Confucianism, which provides a way of life without prescribing any particular supernatural forces. However, even Confucianism is practised within the traditions of Chinese folk religion, which does include supernatural beliefs.
2 Lee, Ogunfowora, & Ashton (2005).
3 Saroglou (2010). Saroglou also found that religious people tended to be a bit higher in the C factor—to be more disciplined and organized. This suggests that religions tend to attract and retain high-C people—who presumably are better able to follow the ordered lifestyle that is prescribed by religious teachings—or to promote high-C tendencies in their followers.
4 Wink, Ciciolla, Dillon, & Tracy (2007).
5 The tendency for soft-hearted people to be a bit more religious is true even if we consider either sex alone: soft-hearted men are slightly more likely to be religious than are hard-hearted men, and the same is true among women.
6 Brooks (2006).
7 The link between religiosity and the H factor in particular shows up in an interesting way in unpublished data from Goldberg’s sample of Oregon residents. One of the surveys administered to that sample asked about the respondents’ possessions. Among the findings of that survey was that high-H people tended to own more religious books—such as the Bible—than did low-H people. In contrast, low-H people owned more cellphones, credit cards, and bottles of liquor than did high-H people. The correlations were not very strong, however: many high-H people do own cellphones and credit cards and bottles of liquor and don’t own a Bible.
8 http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=1549
9 Larson & Witham (1997, 1998).
10 See Nyborg (2009). Nyborg confined the analyses to teenagers who were White and non-Hispanic, so that any racial or ethnic differences would not influence the results.
11 Saucier & Skrzypińska (2006).
12 Note that traditional religious beliefs and mystical spiritual beliefs are unrelated to each other—they’re not opposite to each other. Some people are both traditionally religious and mystically spiritual and hence accept both kinds of supernatural beliefs described above. And some people are neither traditionally religious nor mystically spiritual, rejecting all supernatural beliefs.
13 Data from Goldberg’s sample of Oregon residents.
14 For a detailed discussion, see Wilson (2002, pp. 134–135).
1 The link between H and theft is found across different countries: in a study with our colleague Reinout de Vries, we found similar results for college students in Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands (Lee, Ashton, & de Vries, 2005).
2 Hershfield, Cohen, & Thompson (2012).
3 Ashton & Lee (2008); Lee, Ashton, Morrison, Cordery, & Dunlop (2008).
4 Smith (1776).
5 Hilbig, Zettler, & Heydasch (2012).
6 Frank (1999).
7 Book, Volk, & Hosker (2012).
8 Bourdage, Lee, Ashton, & Perry (2007).
9 Ashton & Lee (2008); see also Lee, Gizzarone, & Ashton (2003).
10 See Frank (1999) for a progressive consumption tax.
1 Twigger (2010).