HEXACO Personality Test
Explore six personality traits with 36 original questions informed by the HEXACO model. Each trait gets its own interpretation, including Honesty-Humility, with an optional PDF summary; this is not the official HEXACO-PI-R.
HEXACO Personality Test is a free, confidential 36-question self-assessment, original items informed by the HEXACO model. It takes about 5 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language profile of your strongest style plus an optional in-depth report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
Six traits, including how you handle personal advantage
A person can be outgoing, organized, sensitive, and modest in different combinations. This profile keeps those tendencies separate and explains why HEXACO is more than a Big Five score with one extra bar.
Six independently scored domains
Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness each receive six original items. Every trait has its own score and interpretation. There is no overall personality grade, best combination, or dominant trait that is supposed to explain the rest of you.
A distinct look at personal advantage
Honesty-Humility concerns sincerity, fairness, modesty, and attitudes toward status or gain. It helps separate being pleasant in a disagreement from being willing to exploit an opportunity at someone else’s expense. Six self-report items cannot certify trustworthiness, but they can prompt a more precise reflection.
Items in both directions
Three items per trait point toward higher scores and three are reverse scored. This makes agreement alone insufficient to create an all-high profile, although it does not eliminate response bias. Interpretations distinguish lower, middle, and higher endorsement without presenting those ranges as population averages or clinical cutoffs.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Trait model | May blur different personality models | Six domains explicitly informed by HEXACO |
| Honesty-Humility | May fold fairness and patience together | Personal advantage discussed separately from anger and compromise |
| Item source | May imply an official inventory | 36 original items; no HEXACO-PI-R reproduction |
| Item balance | May use only agreeable descriptions | Three direct and three reversed items per domain |
| Result meaning | May call percentages percentile ranks | Percentages of item maxima, with educational ranges |
| Use of results | May imply suitability for a job or partner | Adult self-reflection, with no certification or selection use |
The 6 results this test can give
- Honesty-Humility
- Emotionality
- eXtraversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Openness to Experience
Methodology & sources
This independent questionnaire is informed by Ashton and Lee’s HEXACO model, not reproduced or adapted from HEXACO-PI-R item wording. The licensed inventory is a different instrument. Our 36 original statements form six educational groupings of six items each, with three direct and three reversed items per trait. Agreement responses score 0 to 4; a reversed item contributes 4 minus the response. Every trait sum is 0 to 24. The engine rounds its percentage of that maximum, then displays lower below 40%, middle from 40% through 60%, and higher above 60%. For these six-item groups, that means raw scores 0 to 9, 10 to 14, and 15 to 24. These are educational display bands, not clinical cutoffs or norms.
HEXACO emerged from personality-description research across languages. Its Honesty-Humility domain focuses explicitly on exploitation and personal advantage. Emotionality and Agreeableness also differ from similarly named Big Five domains: sentimentality is included in Emotionality, while anger and forgiveness are central to Agreeableness. Adding one Honesty-Humility score to a Big Five profile would not recreate this structure. Our short, unvalidated educational screening cannot inherit the research instrument’s reliability, predict an individual’s conduct, or establish any diagnosis. The groupings and ranges are our own, not validated subscales. Read results alongside examples from daily life and feedback you freely choose to seek. Items can be affected by mood, circumstances, interpretation, and the wish to see oneself favorably; no score is a certificate of honesty or a reason to deny someone an opportunity.
References
- Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 150–166. doi.org/10.1177/1088868306294907
- Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (n.d.). The HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised: Scale descriptions. hexaco.org/scaledescriptions
- Lee, K., & Ashton, M. C. (n.d.). HEXACO-PI-R materials for researchers and conditions of use. hexaco.org/hexaco-inventory
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, September 13). HEXACO Personality Test. Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tests/hexaco
HEXACO Personality Test FAQ
What does HEXACO stand for?
The letters refer to Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Each is a continuous trait rather than a personality type. This page uses six original educational item groups to help adults reflect on those domains; it is not the official research inventory.
What does Honesty-Humility add to the Big Five?
It brings sincerity, fairness, modesty, and attitudes toward personal gain into a distinct domain. HEXACO also rearranges some content found in Big Five Agreeableness and Neuroticism, so it is not simply the same five traits plus honesty. Compare the <a href="/tests/big-five">Big Five test</a> or fuller <a href="/tests/personality-test">Personality Test</a> as separate perspectives, not interchangeable scores.
Does low Honesty-Humility mean someone is dishonest?
No individual’s conduct can be established by this score. Lower endorsement invites reflection about advantage, entitlement, and how choices affect others; higher endorsement does not prove that a person is trustworthy. Use examples of behavior and accountability. Do not use the questionnaire to test another person secretly or settle an accusation.
Is Emotionality the same as anxiety?
No. In the HEXACO model it includes fear, worry, a wish for emotional support, and sentimental attachment. That is broader than an anxiety symptom measure and not identical to Big Five Neuroticism. If worry is affecting daily life, the <a href="/tests/anxiety">Anxiety Test</a> addresses a different question and can support a conversation with a professional.
Is this the official HEXACO-PI-R?
No. The HEXACO-PI-R is copyrighted, and the authors specify conditions for its use. Our statements, scoring bands, and interpretations are independently written and unvalidated. A shared model name does not make this questionnaire equivalent to the 60-, 100-, or 200-item research instruments.
Is this free, and what happens to my answers?
The on-page result is free and does not require an account. Scoring happens in your browser, and answers are retained in this tab’s session storage to restore a result after checkout. Usage events do not contain answers or scores. Requesting the PDF summary submits your name, email, and summary scores; purchasing an optional report submits summary scores. These optional actions are separate from completing the test.
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