Social comparison orientation mediates the association between HEXACO and self-presentation

Various researchers have investigated the personality correlates of defensive and assertive self-presentation. Yet, only a few studies go beyond the direct relationships and examine the underlying mechanism. The current study examines whether the social comparison orientation (SCO) mediates the relationship between personality and self-presentation. We also tested whether our proposed model is invariant across genders. We collected data from 496 individuals using the HEXACO personality inventory, the self-presentation tactic scale, and Iowa-Netherlands SCO scale to test these hypotheses. The path analysis indicated that the partial mediation model provides the best fit to the data (root-mean-square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.08, comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.97, standardized root mean squared residual [SRMR] = 0.026). While honesty-humility (β = -0.43) had the strongest total effect on assertive self-presentation, emotionality (β = 0.34) had the strongest total effect on defensive self-presentation among other HEXACO dimensions. Additionally, we conducted a multigroup path analysis to test the structural invariance, and the findings indicate that the relationships are invariant across women and men (Δχ² [14] = 11.83, p = 0.61). These findings suggest that the association between personality and self-presentation might not be straightforward. The findings are discussed in relation to facet and factor level associations among the variables, self-presentation strategies, and gender roles.