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Types / Six traits

A broader personality reading

See more of what matters, including the trait five leaves out.

Personality and Character brings a sixth broad trait into the picture, then breaks all six into more specific facets. This library explains what the model measures, where it differs from a five-trait reading, and what its limits are.

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A woman in a blue sweater sorts neat stacks of pastel cards across a long wooden table beside a brass balance scale.

Six traits, with more detail

The six traits come from studies of the words languages use to describe people, published as public-domain scales in 2007. Each trait divides into four narrower facets, making 24 in all. The result describes how somebody describes themselves. It can’t settle what a person is like in every setting or say whether they can be trusted.

  • Six ways to group words

    Researchers looked at the words languages use when people describe one another and found six broad groupings. Five-trait and six-trait readings group many of the same descriptions. Each is useful for different questions.

  • Twenty-four facets

    Each trait is the average of four facets, where a broad score starts to become specific. Ten statements measure each facet, making 240 statements in all. More detail doesn’t make a result a verdict.

  • Keep the limits in view

    The assessment describes how somebody describes themselves. It isn’t a verdict on honesty or trust, advice about whom to hire, date, or believe, a diagnosis, or a prediction.

What the sixth trait adds

Five traits

Six traits

This map lines up the six traits with the five traits they most closely share, leaving honesty and humility without a match. The five names on the left link to the trait pages. This pairing is our reading of the relationship.

A five-trait reading can fold fairness, sincerity, modesty, and a person’s relationship with status into Agreeableness. A quick temper can also count as lower Emotional stability. Two people can look alike in that description when one is mainly patient and forgiving, while the other is mainly careful not to take advantage of anyone.

The six-trait view separates these questions. Agreeableness here describes how somebody reacts when people annoy or wrong them, while honesty and humility describes whether they would take advantage of somebody when they could. Emotionality covers worry, fear of physical danger, wanting support, and feeling for other people. It leaves anger out, so it isn’t the mirror of Emotional stability.

This distinction is our reading of what the research adds, not a finding that settles how every person should be understood.

Explore all six traits

Each card opens a fuller explanation of one trait and its four facets. Everybody lands somewhere on all six, instead of having one trait and lacking the others.

Get all six scores

240 statements take some time. The result gives back six trait scores and a closer look at all 24 facets.

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Questions

Does this replace a five-trait assessment?

Neither is a replacement for the other. They are two ways of grouping many of the same descriptions, and the six-trait version separates some things the five-trait version keeps together. Both are available on this site, so a person can take either one.

Why are there 240 statements?

There are 240 statements. Ten statements per facet is what the published scales use. No shorter validated version of these six exists, and the 2007 paper says so. A shorter version would be our own selection and couldn’t be called validated.

Does a low score mean someone is dishonest?

No. The statements ask how somebody describes themselves, which isn’t a record of what they do. There is no cut-off and no verdict on anybody’s character. Nothing here should decide whether to trust, hire, or believe a person.

Where does this come from?

The statements are public domain and come from the International Personality Item Pool[1]. The 24 facet scales were published in 2007[2]. A result is compared with 460 adults of the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample who answered all 240 statements by mail between 1994 and 2003. The group’s own answers give the average, the typical range and the percentile.

  • 1 Goldberg, L. R., Johnson, J. A., Eber, H. W., Hogan, R., Ashton, M. C., Cloninger, C. R., et al. (2006). The international personality item pool and the future of public-domain personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 84–96.
  • 2 Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., & Goldberg, L. R. (2007). The IPIP–HEXACO scales: An alternative, public-domain measure of the personality constructs in the HEXACO model. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 1515–1526. Link