Personality and evolutionary strategies: The relationships between HEXACO traits, mate value, life history strategy, and sociosexuality

Evolutionary approaches to understanding personality variation have proposed how general personality factors might be reframed in terms of adaptive tradeoffs, but many of these explanations remain speculative. The present research evaluates the relationships between the HEXACO general personality traits and evolutionarily-relevant variables tied to individual differences in mating characteristics and strategies. Participants (n=209) completed measures of the HEXACO traits, mate value, life history strategy, and sociosexual orientation (short-term mating orientation and long-term mating orientation). There was good support for a number of hypothesized relationships between mating-relevant personality constructs and HEXACO traits. Additionally, the constructs of mate value, life history strategy, and sociosexuality were significantly intercorrelated, indicating that they are not independent. Further work is needed to clarify those relationships, and differential relationships with HEXACO traits can aid in this work. •Evolutionary approaches suggest some specific patterns to personality variations.•This research evaluates relationships between HEXACO traits and mating traits.•HEXACO traits show many significant associations with mating traits.•Mate value, life history strategy, and sociosexuality show intercorrelations.•Several HEXACO traits show potential for differentiating mating trait constructs.