According to time-honored tradition, the cohosts of The Science of Personality podcast present the 2025 derailers of the year: 11 newsworthy people and events of the year corresponding to the 11 scales on the Hogan Development Survey (HDS). Also known as the dark-side assessment, the HDS measures personality characteristics that are counterproductive when left unmanaged.
Last year’s derailers included Australian Olympic break dancer Raygun, NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, and singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. So who or what made this year’s list?
To clarify, we’re associating current events and the broad themes of the HDS scales. We don’t necessarily endorse the topics we discuss. Now, on to the derailers!
Excitable: Labubus
The Excitable scale refers to seeming moody and hard to please. It is also marked by intense, but short-lived enthusiasm for people, projects, or things, such as 2025’s Labubu craze. These wide-eyed plush toys from Pop Mart gained popularity with the blind-box collecting trend.
Skeptical: TikTok Ban
The Skeptical scale is characterized by seeming cynical, distrustful, and doubting others’ true intentions. In the US, TikTok videos were banned on January 18, 2025, following the US Supreme Court ruling TikTok Inc. v. Garland. The case centered on concerns that social media companies owned by foreign entities could pose a national security threat because of their access to data.
Cautious: Flight Cancellations
The Cautious scale concerns seeming reluctant to take risks for fear of being negatively evaluated. During the 43-day US government shutdown beginning in October 2025, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a 10 percent reduction in flights due to staffing shortages. In the context of the year’s many previous flight issues, the cancellations seemed to arise from an abundance of caution.
Reserved: King Charles III
The Reserved scale has to do with seeming aloof, detached, and uncommunicative. The head of the British royal family, King Charles III, made relatively few public appearances in 2025. Whether this reserve stems from personality or circumstance, he would probably decline to say.
Leisurely: 67
The Leisurely scale relates to seeming independent, as well as ignoring people’s requests and becoming irritated or argumentative if they persist. This derailer is embodied in the undefinable phrase 67 (“six-seven”), which was Dictionary.com's word of the year in 2025. Younger generations seemed to enjoy overusing the expression to frustrate their elders.
Bold: Amazon Web Services
The Bold scale relates to seeming exceptionally self-confident, having feelings of grandiosity and entitlement, and overestimating one’s capabilities. In October 2025, a 15-hour global Amazon Web Services outage caused massive disruptions in nearly every industry. The overconfident perception that AWS is too big to fail was certainly shaken.
Mischievous: Louvre Heist
The Mischievous scale relates to taking risks, testing limits, and needing excitement. For this scale, the 2025 Louvre heist was the only possible choice.
Colorful: Northern Lights
The Colorful scale is characterized by seeming expressive, animated, and dramatic. This scale is about wanting to be noticed. Because of the phase of the solar cycle, the northern lights were visible more frequently and across a greater part of the Northern Hemisphere throughout the year. (Colorful . . . get it?)
Imaginative: Life on K2-18b
The Imaginative scale refers to acting and thinking in creative and sometimes odd or unusual ways. The notion that extraterrestrial life may exist on exoplanet K2-18b came about because of data from the James Webb telescope. The possible discovery of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere, a signature of life, fueled speculation about what may live on the exoplanet.
Diligent: Mayor Zohran Mamdani
The Diligent scale concerns seeming meticulous, precise, and perfectionistic. New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a classic underdog story of a politician who built a platform from word of mouth and convincingly won the election. Furthermore, the mayor’s vision for the city is driven by specific, detailed policies that seem designed with perfectionism in mind.
Dutiful: Pope Leo XIV
The Dutiful scale relates to seeming eager to please, reliant on others for support and guidance, and reluctant to take the center of attention. Serving twice as the prior general of the Order of St. Augustine, Pope Leo XIV is the first Augustinian pope. His commitment to continuing the traditions of the Catholic church show a dutiful mindset in which community takes the spotlight.
Learn more about the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) and listen to our past derailer episodes:
- 2020 Derailers of the Year
- 2021 Derailers of the Year
- 2022 Derailers of the Year
- 2023 Derailers of the Year
- 2024 Derailers of the Year
Listen to this conversation in full on episode 140 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!