How a Sixth Personality Factor Relates to the Five Factions: Plus, how Tris is more like Hermione than Katniss. No spoilers for The Sixth Faction!

 

Of all the YA blogging I did in the mid-2010's, I am probably proudest of my work with the Five Factions of the Divergent series and personality theory.  In a series of posts, I argued that the Five Factions of dystopian Chicago were based on the Five Factor personality model (aka OCEAN) with Erudite corresponding to Openness to Experience (once called Intellect), Abnegation to Conscientiousness, Candor to Extraversion, and Amity to Agreeableness. Dauntless, Tris's chosen Faction is a bit of a special case, with Four's old Dauntless representing the Mental Stability end of the Neuroticism spectrum, and Eric's new Dauntless the Mental Instability end.  Dauntless's slide from one pole to the other is nicely visualized in their ziplining hobby, in which Four refuses to participate. This idea worked so well that I convinced my university colleague who taught personality to hold a department-sponsored trip to the Divergent movie premiere. 

Since I published those posts, I learned a lot more about other personality models, including some bits that cleared up a few inconsistencies in my original idea.  For instance, while the "Erudite" and "Amity" names are virtually synonymous with the personality factors of Intellect and Agreeableness, both Candor and Abnegation use words that mean something very different from Conscientiousness and Extraversion.  The personality factors clearly fit the factions: the Abnegation are quite tidy and organized, even keeping their haircuts on a strict schedule. And, can you imagine how terrible the publics, truth-serum-fueled Candor initiation would be for anyone with any sort of introvert tendencies?  Whereas Erudite clearly values intellect and Amity values agreeableness, Abnegation's and Candor's declared virtues, selflessness and honestly, do not necessarily match their personality factor. After all, we all know tidy and orderly people that are extraordinarily self-centered and uncharitable:  Dolores Umbridge comes to mind. And you only have to look as far as Gilderoy Lockhart (and certain real-life political figures) to find people who are outgoing and attention-seeking but very dishonest. 

Fortunately, in 2000, Lee and Ashton expanded the Five Factors to six, adding the H-factor they called Honesty-Humility to create the HEXACO model.  I can only assume that Roth, who described herself as once "obsessed" with personality testing, was familiar with this expansion, along with the Five Factor, Myers-Briggs and other personality models that would have been popular when she studied psychology. Since Candor values honesty and Abnegation humility, my best guess is that she split the H-factor and grouped the honesty components with Candor and the humility traits with Abnegation. 

Not only is that a pretty neat grouping, it saved her from having six factions in the original series. Otherwise, we might be reading "The Seventh Faction" now. 

Another tidbit that came out of my Harry Potter studies was how similar Tris and Hermione Granger are in their core personality traits. Both exist in a society that groups adolescents by personality traits through tests of some sort: the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts and the Aptitude test and Choosing Ceremony of Divergent.  Hermione, as a near-hatstall, would be well-suited for both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Tris, of course, has equal aptitude for Abnegation, Erudite and Dauntless, which means, if bravery and selflessness are really the same thing, she is also split between the brave and the smart groups. Both wind up grouped with the brave. 

Another bit of trivia:  just as Openness to Experience was called "Intellect" in earlier models, Extraversion was sometimes called "Surgency."  Despite the Abnegation/Erudite hostilities, the Faction Tris seems least suited for is Candor. As she is reviewing her options at her Choosing ceremony, she thinks, "I have never liked Candor." Though "Surgency" and "Insurgency" are not antonyms, they sound like they could be. It therefore seems fitting that Tris, the "Insurgent" of the second book, has a particular aversion to Candor, the "Surgency" faction. 

A lot of this post is based on a talk I gave at the Harry Potter Academic Conference in 2019.  That talk is available here:

A reminder that there should be no spoilers for The Sixth Faction in the comments, please. 

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