Personality

HEXACO Personality Test

Five-factor personality models do not measure one thing separately: how fair you are when nobody is watching. HEXACO makes it a sixth factor of its own. Find out where you land on all six scales.

~8 minutes 60 questions 6 factors
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4.7 / 5 (186 ratings)

What you'll learn from the test

The test scores you on all six scales and shows what their combination adds up to.

Your six-factor profile

For each of the six factors you get your score and the band you fall into, from Honesty-Humility all the way to Openness.

The sixth factor the Big Five misses

A section devoted to Honesty-Humility: what your score suggests about money, status and the moments when cutting corners would go unnoticed.

How it maps onto the Big Five

A side-by-side look at how your six factors line up with the five Big Five dimensions, and where the two models part ways.

How the test works

1

60 statements

For each statement you choose how much you agree on a 1-5 scale, from "does not describe me at all" to "describes me exactly". It takes about 8 minutes.

2

Instant scoring

We calculate all six factor scores from your answers right away and build your profile, including the three factors that stand out most.

3

Full breakdown

The extended version walks through every factor, devotes a section to Honesty-Humility and compares your profile with the five-factor model.

The 6 HEXACO factors

Every factor is a scale. It is not about which box you belong in, but about where on the scale you sit.

H
Honesty-Humility Sincerity, fairness and modesty. How straight you play it when cutting a corner would cost you nothing.
E
Emotionality Sensitivity to threat and the need for closeness. How strongly worry hits you and how readily you lean on other people.
X
Extraversion Energy around other people. How easily you take the floor in a group and how much company recharges you.
A
Agreeableness Tolerance and forgiveness. How you react when someone lets you down, criticizes you or pushes back.
C
Conscientiousness Order, drive and caution. How much you work to a plan and see things through to the end.
O
Openness Curiosity and imagination. How strongly the new, the unusual and the beautiful pull at you.

What is HEXACO?

HEXACO describes personality with six scales: Honesty-Humility (H), Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C) and Openness (O). The model grew out of lexical studies that looked at the words people in different languages use to describe character - and those studies kept turning up six factors instead of five.

The sixth one is Honesty-Humility: being straight with people, playing fair, keeping a modest view of yourself and not chasing money and status at any cost. Five-factor models spread that content across Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, so it never shows up on its own. Yet it is the piece that tracks what matters in practice - cheating, taking advantage of others, and how someone behaves when nobody is checking.

Our HEXACO test is a 60-item questionnaire, ten items per factor. It builds on the six-factor HEXACO model described by psychologists Michael Ashton and Kibeom Lee. The items come from IPIP (the International Personality Item Pool, ipip.ori.org), a public scientific database of personality items used by researchers around the world. Ten items per factor cover all four of its sub-areas, so no score rests on a single question.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the HEXACO test take?

About 8 minutes. You will answer 60 short statements, rating on a 1-5 scale how well each one describes you.

What does HEXACO stand for?

Each letter stands for one personality factor: H for Honesty-Humility, E for Emotionality, X for Extraversion, A for Agreeableness, C for Conscientiousness and O for Openness. Each factor is a scale you land somewhere on, and neither end of it is better than the other.

How is HEXACO different from the Big Five?

The sixth factor is the real difference. Honesty-Humility captures how fairly you deal with people when there is nothing in it for you and nobody is watching. The five-factor model does not track that piece separately; it spreads it across Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. The other five factors overlap with the Big Five to a large degree, but they are not identical scales: HEXACO arranges Emotionality and Agreeableness differently from Big Five Neuroticism and Agreeableness. If you want both views, take the Big Five test as well.

Is the test scientifically grounded?

HEXACO is a six-factor model that came out of lexical personality research across many languages, and it is well established in personality psychology today. Our questionnaire measures the constructs of that model with items from IPIP (the International Personality Item Pool), a public scientific database of personality items. Even so, treat your result as approximate self-knowledge rather than a diagnosis: the bands are fixed thresholds, not published norms, and no online test replaces working with a psychologist.

Can I get a bad result?

No. The test does not measure ability or performance, and neither end of a scale is the right one. High Openness suits different situations than low Openness, and the same goes for Emotionality. What is useful is knowing where you sit and what follows from it.

Are my results confidential?

Yes, your results are completely confidential. They are not shared with third parties and are used solely for your personal benefit.

Ready to meet your sixth factor?

60 questions. 8 minutes. Instant results.

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HEXACO Personality Test 4.7 / 5
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