The Structure, Power, and Limitations of (Psychological) Personality Dimensions

In Personality Psychology, individual differences in terms of stable personality traits are summarized parsimoniously, yet comprehensively, in basic, broad trait dimensions. In this talk, I will give an introduction into how such personality dimensions can be derived. In particular, I will describe the empirical, conceptual, and theoretical background of the HEXACO Model of Personality, which comprises six broad trait dimensions: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness vs Anger, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Further, I will show how these and other dimensions are linked to important outcomes across domains, in line with evolutionary ideas about the emergence of personality traits. Concerning the validity of basic trait dimensions, I will especially focus on examples from the area of Behavioral Economics, and I will illustrate how personality dimensions affect such outcomes not only directly, but also in interaction with situational characteristics.