The HEXACO Adjective Scale: A Cross-Cultural Validity Study

Abstract

The HEXACO model defines personality across six dimensions: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness (vs. Anger), Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. One of its key strengths is that it is based on linguistic research that has been consistently replicated across various cultures. The HEXACO Adjective Scale (HAS), developed in Italian, consists of 60 adjectives designed to evaluate the dimensions of personality according to the HEXACO model. The present paper presents a cross-cultural study assessing the validity of the HAS across French, Dutch, and English. We translated the HAS into each language and administered the translated scales to 319 Dutch-speaking (Belgium) participants, 317 French-speaking (France) participants, and 436 English-speaking (US) participants. CFAs confirm that each language replicates the original structure. Moreover, we obtained evidence of strong invariance across languages, providing important support in favor of measurement invariance. The internal consistency of the scales is satisfactory and in line with the Italian version. Similarly, the prediction of behavioral criteria supports the validity of the translated HAS in different languages. Overall, the HAS shows very good psychometric properties and has all the necessary characteristics to be used in future studies. The strong invariance between languages supports the replicability of the HEXACO model across cultures.