The TV show I intend to utilize in my analysis of fictional characters is a mockumentary that documents modern American life as it occurs within a specific paper company. “The Office” follows a fly-on-the-wall filming style, effectively capturing the monotony of the average work environment, while simultaneously illustrating how the focus characters have the capacity to develop meaningful relationships with one another. In allowing the characters to break the fourth wall, and make commentaries on their real-life events, the writers of the series give their audience insight into thoughts we otherwise wouldn’t be able to hear — thus allowing me to provide stronger evidence in my claims about their personality types. By employing the HEXACO scale to measure the personality of characters in “The Office” — specifically Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute, Kelly Kapoor, and Pam Beasley — I am able to directly correlate organized personality descriptors to actions.
Dwight Schrute is a character that is extremely traditional, although some of the traditions he follows are unconventional by modern American standards. Dwight is low in the Agreeableness and Openness to Experience domains and high in the Conscientiousness domain all at the same time because of how self-assured he is, and how prideful he is in these aforementioned traditions. For the Openness to Experience domain specifically, Dwight is low for the Inquisitiveness domain specifically because he abides by the Schrute family traditions, and has no curiosity about experiencing mainstream culture. In the episode “The Farm,” we can see especially closed-minded Dwight is when he observing how he treats his sister, Fannie (S9E17). Fannie is the complete opposite of the Schrutes — fully embracing American culture and neglecting Schrute tradition. Because of this, Dwight ridicules Fannie and claims that her accepting this new lifestyle is the equivalent of her abandoning the family. In being so enamoured by his family traditions, Dwight has also developed a strong sense of self in that he believes his way — the Schrute way — is the only way. In looking at the Agreeableness domain, one would see that Dwight is low on the Flexibility scale. In an episode, Dwight brings a dead turkey into the office and leaves it on Pam’s desk. Despite the protests from his coworkers, he refuses to get the bird because he believes that it would make a wonderful meal for the office. Also playing to his sense of pride in himself, Dwight is extremely high for the Conscientiousness domain because this domain allows him to cater to his need to be responsible and respectable. In fact, he chooses to make charts and diagrams about every little thing he is involved in. His tendency to seek order is especially apparent in the episode “Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager,” when he forces his coworkers to start utilizing new systems of organization such as an outdated timesheet system for clocking in and out, and a paperwork processing system (S7E23).
Kelly Kapoor’s character is one that thrives on celebrity and office drama. With these interests, Kelly can also be described as someone that scores high in the Extraversion domain, and high in the Agreeableness domain because of her excitement and expectations that have been set for her by popular media. However, because of these expectations, she also scores low on the Honesty-Humility scale. Within the Extraversion domain, Kelly specifically ranks extremely high in the Sociability scale due her tendency to seek out conversation with anyone who would listen to her talk about clothes, boys, and celebrities. Interestingly enough, in the episode entitled “Counseling,” Kelly reveals that she is aware of how much she enjoys conversation and social interaction, as she states “I talk a lot, so I’ve learned to just tune myself out” (S7E02). This one-sided way of looking at relationships impacts her high ranking in the Agreeableness domain since she often makes up her mind about people’s characters based on superficial variables — based on surface level interactions. More specifically, she positively views her relationships with people, and is willing to trust and like people who have caused her harm (thus ranking high in the Forgiveness scale) because she relates surface level traits of people in her life to celebrities she adores, and readily trusts people based on words and not actions. For example, Kelly is incredibly infatuated with her coworker Ryan, and even though he has constantly manipulated her and abandoned her for other women, she never hesitates to welcome him back into her life, and even elopes with him (S9E27) because he is handsome like the men she adores on television. However, because Ryan is like the men she adores on television, Kelly is also willing to do whatever it takes to keep Ryan in her life. When Ryan left Scranton for his promotion in the episode “Dunder Mifflin Infinity,” Kelly lied about being pregnant in an attempt to get him to come back to her. As such, Kelly can be said to score low for Honesty-Humility, since she clearly ranks low on the Sincerity scale — since she’s clearly willing to manipulate others to maintain her fantasies.
Pam Beesly — at least for the first few seasons of the show — is passive, shy, and immerses herself in her art more often than mundane office life. As such, I would say that Pam’s ranking for the Openness to Experience Domain is hard to decipher because of how she ranks extremely high in the Aesthetic Appreciation scale, but extremely low in the Unconventionality scale. Pam is afraid of taking chances and speaking her mind. In an episode where she was speaking to a coworker about her toxic relationship, she mentions how she doesn’t like to bother people about her thoughts and feelings (S5E01). Moreover, she shows how she is willing to abandon her dreams of finishing art school (a feat that would take no longer than 3 months) so that she could stay closer to her boyfriend and conform to safe normalcy — so she could maintain the mundane life she is used to. That being said, art is big passion for Pam. She ranks high on the Aesthetic Appreciation scale because she enjoys the beauty of nature and her surroundings, and is always seen painting and sketching landscapes and buildings. Even though she neglects to pursue these passions, Pam has a strong appreciation for art forms.
The character Michael Scott is very childlike, and is interesting to analyze using the HEXACO scale because of how much he lets his emotions and desire to be liked dictate his actions. Consequently, I would say that Michael has an overall high score in the Emotionality domain. Michael’s actions in the episode “The Injury” is a great example of Michael exhibiting his high Dependence — a measurable scale in the Emotionality domain — because, in the episode, he acted like he could not do anything without being coddled by his employees (S2E12). He whined and expected one of his employees to help him use the restroom, even though he was fully capable of cleaning up and standing up himself. He in no way felt self-assured in his maneuvering through mundane tasks, and demanded the constant attention and comfort of his peers. This extreme value of Dependence has the potential to harm Michael’s fitness given that, if no-one chooses to help him, he is left unproductive and isolated. However, if he does receive the help that he desires from the people he is dependent on, Michael’s high-Dependence results in him having more time free to delegate towards reproductive efforts (such as earning more wealth by flattering his bosses).
Speaking to his need for constant emotional validation, Michael is also extremely high for the sentimentality scale. In the episode “Goodbye, Michael,” we can clearly point to how he feels strong emotional bonds with the people he worked with over the years. When it was coming down to his last days at Dunder Mifflin, Michael wrote down a list of names of every single employee so that he could keep track of the people he properly said goodbye to, and so that he could make sure that he was able to show his love to those people one last time before he, quite possibly, never saw them again. Michael’s high-Sentimentality could benefit his fitness in that it strengthens his bonds with people that are willing to do favors for him, but it could be a disadvantage for him because, in being incredibly attached to people who will no longer live near him, he does not allow himself the opportunity to network with new people. He does not give himself the opportunity to make new connections with people who are more easily-accessible location-wise.
Surprisingly enough, Michael’s consideration of other people’s opinions of him does not directly translate to him being a good person. In fact, Michael Scott is extremely low overall in the Honesty-Humility domain. I would describe him as having very low Sincerity since he never displays genuine sympathy or empathy — given that his consideration is almost always tied to satisfying his personal delusions, or to showboating for others. In fact, Michael is incredibly delusional with relation to his personal identity and demeanor, and what the appropriate behavior is to display in society, because of how his primary goal is to flatter others in order to be liked. To point to a specific example, in the episode “The Fight,” Michael praises Dwight and promotes him from “Assistant to the Regional Manager” to “Assistant Regional Manager” because he knows that this is Dwight’s dream position (S2E06). However, it is clear that this promotion is only a title change — and a temporary change at that. Michael only showered Dwight with warm affirmations because he wanted to make sure Dwight would stay loyal to him. He wanted to make sure that Dwight would still be around to do his menial labor. Subsequently, I cannot recall a single time Michael performed an action that did not benefit himself in some way. Within the scope of Nettle’s Fluctuating Selection Model, I would conclude that Michael being low-Honesty-Humility would benefit him when it comes to climbing the corporate ladder. Michael is able to maintain his position as manager at Dunder Mifflin because of how he is willing and ready to say whatever is needed to flatter his bosses. Consequently, Michael is able to maintain a steady source of wealth because his use of cajolery. In fact, Michael often receives stipend bonuses from corporate because of the empty words he tells them. However, when it comes to his relationships with his employees, Michael’s low-Honesty-Humility is not too beneficial. Instead, because his employees are around him every single day, and stay long enough to see that there is little truth behind his words, they do not trust him. So, Michael’s fitness is harmed because less of his coworkers would feel obligated to perform altruistic acts towards him — because they see that it might not be reciprocated, or because they see that they’re being used.
As with Sincerity, Michael Scott would score low for Fairness, thus contributing to his low score for Honesty-Humility. Like a child, Michael sees his relationships with people as very black and white. Either he entirely hates a person, or he completely loves a person. With regards to his coworker Toby, it doesn’t matter what Toby actually does — Michael will forcefully exclude Toby from things, or torture Toby because of who Michael views him to be. For example, in the “A Benihana Christmas” episode, when Michael finds that there aren’t enough robes to gift every single staff member, Michael is unhesitant in his decision to take Toby’s robe away from him — even if Toby really wanted it. He did so because he values the opinions of his other employees more, and saw nothing wrong with neglecting Toby to benefit the image his other coworkers have of him. This example speaks to how low Michael ranks in the Fairness scale because of how he doesn’t avoid treating some people better (or in this case, worse) than others. This could serve as beneficial to Michael’s fitness because of how this allows him to consistently maintain specific relationships, and strengthen bonds with specific people. Since those specific people feel incredibly close to Michael, they are willing to forgive him easily for his social blunders, and help him in his times of need. That being said, being unfair to specific people in his poor treatment of them completely removes chances of those people helping him when he is in need. For example, Toby is the HR representative, and has the potential to relay to Michael ways in which Michael could improve his management of the office. Because Michael refuses to see anything Toby says as valuable, he misses out on this opportunity to improve.