Who is healthier? A meta-analysis of the relations between the HEXACO personality domains and health outcomes

Researchers and practitioners have long been interested in the relations of basic personality domains with health. Whereas previous meta-analyses have focused on the Big Five traits, we provide the first meta-analysis of the relations between the HEXACO domains, as assessed by HEXACO Personality Inventories, and various health outcomes (k = 276, N = 92,319). In general, relations of the HEXACO domains were strongest with mental health, followed by health behavior, whereas relations with physical health outcomes were weak and largely non-significant. All HEXACO domains were significantly linked to mental health and health behavior outcomes. Extraversion exhibited the strongest correlation with mental health (ρ = .48), whereas Honesty-Humility (ρ = .31), Agreeableness versus Anger (ρ = .25), and Conscientiousness (ρ = .31) were most predictive of health behavior. Physical health was only significantly associated with Emotionality (ρ = −.14) and Conscientiousness (ρ = .10). Honesty-Humility explained incremental variance over the Big Five in several health behavior outcomes, whereas it had little incremental validity for mental and physical health outcomes. Finally, comparing the variance that the HEXACO and the Big Five domains explained in specific health outcomes demonstrated that each personality model occasionally exhibited superior criterion-related validity. Hence, the choice of the more useful personality model could be outcome-dependent

Who is healthier? A meta-analysis of the relations between the HEXACO personality domains and health outcomes

Researchers and practitioners have long been interested in the relations of basic personality domains with health. Whereas previous meta-analyses have focused on the Big Five traits, we provide the first meta-analysis of the relations between the HEXACO domains, as assessed by HEXACO Personality Inventories, and various health outcomes (k = 276, N = 92,319). In general, relations of the HEXACO domains were strongest with mental health, followed by health behavior, whereas relations with physical health outcomes were weak and largely non-significant. All HEXACO domains were significantly linked to mental health and health behavior outcomes. Extraversion exhibited the strongest correlation with mental health (ρ = .48), whereas Honesty-Humility (ρ = .31), Agreeableness versus Anger (ρ = .25), and Conscientiousness (ρ = .31) were most predictive of health behavior. Physical health was only significantly associated with Emotionality (ρ = −.14) and Conscientiousness (ρ = .10). Honesty-Humility explained incremental variance over the Big Five in several health behavior outcomes, whereas it had little incremental validity for mental and physical health outcomes. Finally, comparing the variance that the HEXACO and the Big Five domains explained in specific health outcomes demonstrated that each personality model occasionally exhibited superior criterion-related validity. Hence, the choice of the more useful personality model could be outcome-dependent

Measure of Node Similarity in Multilayer Networks

The weight of links in a network is often related to the similarity of the nodes. Here, we introduce a simple tunable measure for analysing the similarity of nodes across different link weights. In particular, we use the measure to analyze homophily in a group of 659 freshman students at a large university. Our analysis is based on data obtained using smartphones equipped with custom data collection software, complemented by questionnaire-based data. The network of social contacts is represented as a weighted multilayer network constructed from different channels of telecommunication as well as data on face-to-face contacts. We find that even strongly connected individuals are not more similar with respect to basic personality traits than randomly chosen pairs of individuals. In contrast, several socio-demographics variables have a significant degree of similarity. We further observe that similarity might be present in one layer of the multilayer network and simultaneously be absent in the other layers. For a variable such as gender, our measure reveals a transition from similarity between nodes connected with links of relatively low weight to dis-similarity for the nodes connected by the strongest links. We finally analyze the overlap between layers in the network for different levels of acquaintanceships.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Political Skill Moderates the Success of Psychopaths at the Workplace

On one hand, psychopaths tend to be callous, emotionally deficient, aggressive, self promoting, impulsive, and pursuant of unmitigated agency regardless of the extent to which it comes at the expense of others. On the other hand, by all accounts, psychopaths tend to be charming, seductive, self-confident, composed, risk-seeking, and adept at impression management (Babiak & Hare, 2006; Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to reconcile these contrasting positions by examining whether (non-violent) psychopaths truly can be “successful” in the workplace. Drawing on socioanalytic theory (Hogan, 1983), we hypothesized that psychopaths in possession of political skill would be better able to package, conceal, and/or restrain their desires to get ahead in such a way as to be perceived as less counterproductive and more adaptive. Results provided support for these hypotheses. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are provided in light of a number of notable strengths and limitations