I recently read a very interesting article in Scientific American Mind called “How to Pick a Great Worker”. Previously, the honesty and humility [the moral part of personality was not taken into account, and these traits are of course important in a business setting.
I think this might be even more important in a couple’s context. You need to know if your partner or potential partner is honest, has morals that align with yours, and has humility (in the right situations).

The article is about further development of personality traits and measurements that companies often use to select employees. The new model surpasses what’s known as The Big 5: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

The new model has been developed over the last 15 years, taking into account personality models from around the globe and includes the moral code of a person. It’s called the Hexaco . It consists of:

1. Honesty-Humility
2. Emotionality
3. Extraversion
4. Agreeableness (versus Anger)
5. Conscientiousness
6. Openness to Experience

When you are in the early stages of a relationship, the brain chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine trigger the reward areas in your brain. These cause you to see everything wonderful about your beloved, and to ignore the red flags that you would see in a person you were not enamored with (or in a year or two after those reward areas of the brain are not lit up by your new association with your partner).

So to help your brain chemicals with a dose of reality (I know, I know, that stage of a new love is sooo amazing and wonderful), you and your partner can take an online Hexaco personality test – one for yourself, and another with your partner in mind (Hexaco gives that option).

For those of you who have been in a relationship for a long time, or married for many years, I recommend taking this test. It can open a new level of discussion between you and give you an opportunity to talk about things that may have fallen by the wayside as you’ve been busy working, raising a family, and so on.

The results will also show you where you are on each scale, and you can decide if you want to make any changes. For example, I am a strong introvert, so my sociable rating on the scale was on the lower side. If I want to change that, I have to get out with people more.

The authors of Hexaco are Kibeom Lee, Ph.D., & Michael C. Ashton, Ph.D. You can read the history on their website.

Let me know what you find out.