The dishonest gambler: Low HEXACO honesty-humility and gambling severity in a community sample of gamblers.

Abstract

Personality dimensions have been found to be important in understanding the aetiology of disordered gambling. While the majority of research has focused on the Five-Factor Model of personality, recent empirical evidence also indicated that the honesty-humility factor of the HEXACO personality model may be a key personality correlate of gambling behaviour. In the present research, we extend the understanding between personality and gambling severity by further assessing whether HEXACO dimensions are associated with both current gambling status and gambling severity in a community-recruited sample of gamblers (N=427). In addition, we examined whether motivations to engage in gambling (enhancement, coping, social and financial) mediated the relationship between personality and gambling severity on the Problem Gambling Severity Index. Demographic covariates were controlled for in our analyses. The results indicate that honesty-humility was the only personality dimension that significantly predicted gambling status (non-gamblers vs. current gamblers). In addition, lower scores on honesty-humility, conscientiousness and openness were significantly associated with gambling severity. Lastly, coping motives were the only significant mediator in the relationship between honesty-humility and increased gambling severity. The results offer further support to the notion that honesty-humility may be an especially pertinent personality dimension in understanding the aetiology of disordered gambling. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.