Abstract: Objective To study the prevalence and characteristics of histrionic personality propensity(HPP) among recruits.Methods Using random cluster sampling and Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire(PDQ-4+), we surveyed 2000 male recruits form Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region(Guangxi) in October 2013 and 8000 male recruits from Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, and Hainan province in November 2014.Chi-square test and Chi-square test for trend were adopted in data analyses with SPSS 16.0.Results Among the recruits(1726 and 6566 for the two waves of the survey) with eligible response, the overall detection rate of simplex HPP was 2.7% and the detection rate of complex HPP with other personality propensity was 19.3% for the survey in 2013 and 16.2% in 2014.The detection rate of simplex HPP did not significantly differ by age, nationality, and whether being an only child.No significant difference in the detection rate of simplex HPP was observed among the recruits of various education level and with hometowns in urban and rural areas in the survey of 2013, but the recruits with higher education and hometowns in urban area showed higher simplex HPP detection rate compared to those with lower education(χ² trend=5.564, P<0.05) and hometowns in urral area(3.1% vs.2.2%, χ²=4.688; P<0.05) for the survey in 2014.The complex HPP with the top three detection rates were the HPP combined with obsessive-compulsive(236 recruits in 2013 survey and 816 in 2014), narcissistic(161 and 481), and antisocial personality propensity(154 and 470).Conclusion The prevalent characteristics of HPP among recruits is different from that among general populations and specific and effective instrument for HPP screening needs to be explored for the identification and control of the personality disorder.