Sex differences in HEXACO personality characteristics across countries and ethnicities

We examined sex differences in the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised (HEXACO-PI-R) factor- and facet-level scales and the associations of national sex differences in those scales with national characteristics such as wealth and gender equality.

HEXACO-PI-R self-reports were collected online from persons in 48 countries (N = 347,192).

(1) Women averaged substantially higher than men in Emotionality and in Honesty-Humility, with (sample-unweighted) mean differences across countries of d = 0.84 and d = 0.37, respectively; (2) the HEXACO-PI-R factor scales showed a rather large multivariate sex difference (D > 1 in most countries), about 19% larger than found in similar samples with the Big Five personality factors, (3) some facet scales belonging to the same factor showed widely varying sex differences, (4) national-level sex differences in Emotionality were larger in wealthy and gender-egalitarian countries, replicating previous counterintuitive findings, but such a tendency was not clearly observed for Honesty-Humility, and (5) within several English-speaking countries, sex differences in Emotionality showed comparatively little ethnic variation, suggesting that societal characteristics may influence the size of sex differences in Emotionality.

The HEXACO model of personality structure provides some new insights in understanding sex differences in personality at the individual and national levels.