Theoretical underpinnings of the FFM and HEXACO personality profiles: A systematic and critical review

Systematic review protocol (PRISMA-P; Shamseer et al., 2015) September 3, 2025 1. Title: a. Identification: Theoretical underpinnings of the FFM and HEXACO personality profiles: A systematic and critical review b. Update: Version 1.0 (Initial protocol) 2. Registration: https://osf.io/25f7d/ 3. Authors: a. Contact: Blinded for review b. Contributions: Blinded for review 4. Amendments: If any amendments are necessary, each one will be explicitly documented in a revised version of the protocol and registered with a new DOI under the same OSF project. 5. Support: a. Sources: This systematic review is funded by Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ; funding reference number B2Z-372176; Towards an Understanding of the HEXACO Personality Profiles: Theoretical and Empirical Validation in occupational context) and by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC; Funding reference number RNH-02209; Understanding the Theoretical Origins and Relational Network of the HEXACO Personality Profiles). b. Sponsor: No additional sponsor is available. c. Role of sponsor or funder: The funders will have no role in this review. 6. Rationale: Since Block’s seminal work, Lives Through Time (1971), which is one of the earliest applications of the person-centered approach to personality research (Donnellan & Robins, 2010), numerous personality and developmental psychologists have attempted to identify personality profiles and explore their theoretical and practical implications. Accumulated evidence supports the existence of meaningful personality profiles, suggesting that variability in personality dimensions clusters into a limited number of distinct subgroups that capture a substantial portion of personality differences between individuals (Yin et al., 2021). Nonetheless, three major issues remain unresolved or only partially addressed. First, despite strong evidence supporting the existence of subgroups within personality models, the precise number and characteristics of these profiles remain unclear (Kerber et al., 2021). Consequently, recent studies continue to uncover new personality profiles within their own datasets (e.g., Favini et al., 2023), thereby posing a substantial challenge to the cumulative research which can only progress based on a common set of variables. The second issue, closely related to the first, is the lack of an agreed-upon theoretical framework for interpreting and labeling profiles. Although many studies using FFM profiles have relied on Block’s self-regulation theory (ego-control and ego-resilience; Block, 1971) to understand and label their profiles (e.g., overcontrollers, undercontrollers, resilients), researchers have assigned the same names to profiles that are, in fact, quantitatively and qualitatively different (Kerber et al., 2021; Yin et al., 2021). The third issue is the lack of empirical research on the nomological network of personality profiles. Once profiles are identified, they should be linked to other variables or used to predict outcomes in relevant contexts. Such investigations are necessary to evaluate the validity of the theories used to interpret profiles and to enhance the practical value of personality profiles in those contexts (Skinner, 1981). However, relatively few studies have conducted predictor or outcome analyses with profiles to assess their construct validity as well as the validity of the theoretical explanations used to describe them (e.g., Conte et al., 2017; Harmata, 2020; Robins et al., 1996). Recently, a systematic review was carried out on FFM personality profiles derived through latent profile analysis (LPA) or latent class analysis (LCA; Yin et al., 2021). This review is the only extant review to have examined FFM profiles and systematically analyzed the characteristics of the profile solutions including the number of profiles, trait configuration, and profile labeling (profile interpretation) and found inconsistency in all the three regards. Moreover, the lack of profile consistency and consensus regarding their theoretical explanations has led some studies to label different profiles with the same concepts or to use different concepts for similar profiles (Yin et al., 2021). Such inconsistencies in labeling indicate a considerable degree of misinterpretation across studies. An important limitation of Yin et al.'s review is the lack of comprehensive and critical synthesis regarding the underlying theoretical explanation of the identified profiles. Although they quantitatively demonstrated that Block’s self-regulation theory is the most widely utilized framework in studies on personality profiles, their recommendation of five specific labels—undercontrollers, overcontrollers, resilients, ordinary, and anti-resilients—is mostly based on the frequency of usage in prior research. However, this reliance on frequency metrics does not provide convincing evidence for the validity of these labels, especially considering the variability in the profile characteristics across studies that these same labels describe and the reluctance of some researchers using FFM or HEXACO profiles to adopt this labeling scheme (e.g., Daljeet et al., 2017; Espinoza et al., 2020; Fisher & Robie, 2019). Thus, there is a need for a critical evaluation of the validity of theories (including Block’s) that have been applied to interpret and label personality profiles. Such an evaluation should assess the intrinsic validity of these theories as well as determine whether they are appropriately chosen and adequately suited to capturing the phenomena they aim to describe, namely personality profiles. 7. Objectives: The goal of the present study is to conduct a systematic and critical review that extends the previous synthesis (Yin et al., 2021) by: a) identifying all theories that have been used to label and interpret FFM or HEXACO personality profiles derived from LPA or LCA, b) qualitatively evaluating the justification provided by each article for their theoretical choices, c) reviewing the correlates or outcomes that empirically validate the proposed meanings of the profiles. 8. Eligibility criteria: a. Study designs: All types of study designs will be considered as long as profiles are the main analysis. b. Participants: There will be no restriction with regards to participants and samples. c. Phenomenon of Interest: Personality profiles, the labeling scheme of the personality profiles as well as their justification, the correlates or outcomes of the personality profiles. d. Personality measures: Validated measures of Five Factor Model, Big Five and HEXACO. Studies using other personality models will be excluded. e. Analyses: Latent profile analysis and latent class analysis. Previous analyses such as Q-sort technique, inverse factor analysis or cluster analysis will be excluded. f. Report characteristics: All years, peer reviewed or in peer-review pipeline (pre-print, in press etc.), academic documents (doctoral or master’s thesis), written in English, full text accessible. 9. Information sources: PsycINFO, Medline, Eric, Dissertations & Theses Global, Web of Science and Business Source Premier. 10. Search strategy: The following search queries will be used in each of the databases. a. PsycINFO (Ovid) ("personality profile*" or "personality type*" or "HEXACO profile*" or "Big Five profile*" or "Five factor model profile*" or "FFM profile*" or "HEXACO type*" or "Big Five type*" or "Five factor model type*" or "FFM type*").mp. [mp=title, abstract, heading word, table of contents, key concepts, original title, tests & measures, mesh word] AND ("latent profile analys*" or "latent class analys*" or "LPA" or "LCA").mp. [mp=title, abstract, heading word, table of contents, key concepts, original title, tests & measures, mesh word] b. Medline (Ovid) ("personality profile*" or "personality type*" or "HEXACO profile*" or "Big Five profile*" or "Five factor model profile*" or "FFM profile*" or "HEXACO type*" or "Big Five type*" or "Five factor model type*" or "FFM type*").mp. [mp=title, book title, abstract, original title, name of substance word, subject heading word, floating sub-heading word, keyword heading word, organism supplementary concept word, protocol supplementary concept word, rare disease supplementary concept word, unique identifier, synonyms, population supplementary concept word, anatomy supplementary concept word] AND ("latent profile analys*" or "latent class analys*" or "LPA" or "LCA").mp. [mp=title, book title, abstract, original title, name of substance word, subject heading word, floating sub-heading word, keyword heading word, organism supplementary concept word, protocol supplementary concept word, rare disease supplementary concept word, unique identifier, synonyms, population supplementary concept word, anatomy supplementary concept word] c. Eric (ProQuest) noft("personality profile*" OR "personality type*" OR "HEXACO profile*" OR "Big Five profile*" OR "Five factor model profile*" OR "FFM profile*" OR "HEXACO type*" OR "Big Five type*" OR "Five factor model type*" OR "FFM type*") AND noft("latent profile analys*" OR "latent class analys*" OR "LPA" OR "LCA") d. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global Closed Collection (ProQuest) noft("personality profile*" OR "personality type*" OR "HEXACO profile*" OR "Big Five profile*" OR "Five factor model profile*" OR "FFM profile*" OR "HEXACO type*" OR "Big Five type*" OR "Five factor model type*" OR "FFM type*" ) AND noft("latent profile analys*" OR "latent class analys*" OR "LPA" OR "LCA") e. Web of Science ts=("personality profile" OR "personality profiles" OR "personality type" OR "personality types" OR "HEXACO profile*" OR "Big Five profile*" OR "Five factor model profile*" OR "FFM profile*" OR "HEXACO type*" OR "Big Five type*" OR "Five factor model type*" OR "FFM type*" ) AND ts=("latent profile analys*" OR "latent class analys*" OR "LPA" OR "LCA") f. Business Source Pr

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