Openness to experience
Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe
Openness tends to be normally distributed with a small number of people scoring extremely high or low on the trait, and most people scoring moderately.[2] People who score low on openness are considered to be closed to experience. They tend to be conventional and traditional in their outlook and behavior. They prefer familiar routines to new experiences, and generally have a narrower range of interests.
Openness has moderate positive relationships with creativity, intelligence, and knowledge.[4] Openness is related to the psychological trait of absorption, and like absorption has a modest relationship[specify] to individual differences in hypnotic susceptibility. Openness has more modest relationships with aspects of subjective well-being than other Five Factor Model personality traits.[5]
On the whole, openness appears to be largely unrelated to symptoms of mental disorders.[6]
Measurement
Openness to experience is usually assessed with self-report measures, although peer-reports and third-party observation are also used. Self-report measures are either lexical[7] or based on statements.[8] Which measure of either type is used is determined by an assessment of psychometric properties and the time and space constraints of the research being undertaken.[citation needed]
- Lexical measures use individual adjectives that reflect openness to experience traits, such as creative, intellectual, artistic, philosophical, deep. L. R. Goldberg developed a 20-word measure as part of his 100-word Big Five markers.[9] G. Saucier developed a briefer 8-word measure as part of his 40-word mini-markers.[10] However, the psychometric properties of Saucier's original mini-markers have been found suboptimal for samples outside of North America.[7] As a result, a systematically revised measure, the International English Mini-Markers, was developed and has proven to have good psychometric validity for assessing openness to experience and other five-factor personality model dimensions, both within and, especially, without American populations. Internal consistency reliability of the openness to experience measure is 0.84 for both native and non-native English-speakers.[7]
- Statement measures tend to comprise more words, and hence take up more research instrument space, than lexical measures. For example, the openness (intellect) scale of Goldberg's International Personality Item Pool is 45 words, compared to Saucier or Thompson's (2008) 8-word lexical scale for Openness.HEXACO model of personality, are "Love to think up new ways of doing things" and "Have difficulty understanding abstract ideas".[8]In these tests, openness to experience is one of the five/six measured personality dimensions. In both tests openness to experience has a number of facets. The NEO PI-R assesses six facets called openness to ideas, feelings, values, fantasy, aesthetics, and actions respectively. The HEXACO-PI-R assesses four facets called inquisitiveness, creativity, aesthetic appreciation, and unconventionality.
A number of studies have found that openness to experience has two major subcomponents, one related to intellectual dispositions, the other related to the experiential aspects of openness, such as aesthetic appreciation and openness to sensory experiences. These subcomponents have been referred to as intellect and experiencing openness respectively, and have a strong positive correlation (r = .55) with each other.[11]
According to research by Sam Gosling, it is possible to assess openness by examining people's homes and work spaces. People who are highly open to experience tend to have distinctive and unconventional decorations. They are also likely to have books on a wide variety of topics, a diverse music collection, and works of art on display.[12]
Psychological aspects
Openness to experience has both motivational and structural components.[13] People high in openness are motivated to seek new experiences and to engage in self-examination. Structurally, they have a fluid style of consciousness that allows them to make novel associations between remotely connected ideas. Closed people by contrast are more comfortable with familiar and traditional experiences.
Creativity
Openness to experience correlates with creativity, as measured by tests of divergent thinking.[14] Openness has been linked to both artistic and scientific creativity as professional artists, musicians, and scientists have been found to score higher in openness compared to members of the general population.[15]
Intelligence and knowledge
Openness to experience correlates with
Absorption and hypnotisability
Openness to experience is strongly related to[clarification needed] the psychological construct of absorption,[24] defined as "a disposition for having episodes of 'total' attention that fully engage one's representational (i.e. perceptual, enactive, imaginative, and ideational) resources.”[25]
The construct of absorption was developed in order to relate individual differences in
Factor analysis shows that the fantasy, aesthetics, and feelings facets of openness are closely related to absorption and predict hypnotisability, whereas the remaining three facets of ideas, actions, and values are largely unrelated to these constructs.[24][26] This finding suggests that openness to experience may have two distinct yet related subdimensions: one related to aspects of attention and consciousness assessed by the facets of fantasy, aesthetics, and feelings; the other related to intellectual curiosity and social/political liberalism as assessed by the remaining three facets. However, all of these have a common theme of ‘openness’ in some sense. This two-dimensional view of openness to experience is particularly pertinent to hypnotisability. However, when considering external criteria other than hypnotisability, it is possible that a different dimensional structure may be apparent, e.g. intellectual curiosity may be unrelated to social/political liberalism in certain contexts.[26]
Relationship to other personality traits
Although the factors in the Big Five model are assumed[
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) measures the preference of "intuition," which is related to openness to experience.[30] Robert McCrae pointed out that the MBTI sensation versus intuition scale "contrasts a preference for the factual, simple, and conventional with a preference for the possible, complex, and original," and is therefore similar to measures of openness.[31]
Social and political attitudes
There are social and political implications to this personality trait. People who are highly open to experience tend to be liberal and tolerant of diversity.[32] As a consequence, they are generally more open to different cultures and lifestyles. They are lower in ethnocentrism, right-wing authoritarianism,[33] social dominance orientation, and prejudice.[34] Openness has a stronger (negative) relationship with right-wing authoritarianism than the other five-factor model traits (conscientiousness has a modest positive association, and the other traits have negligible associations).[34] Openness has a somewhat smaller (negative) association with social dominance orientation than (low) agreeableness (the other traits have negligible associations). Openness has a stronger (negative) relationship with prejudice than the other five-factor model traits (agreeableness has a more modest negative association, and the other traits have negligible associations). However, right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation are each more strongly (positively) associated with prejudice than openness or any of the other five-factor model traits.[34]
The relationship between openness and prejudice may be more complex, as the prejudice examined was prejudice against conventional minority groups (for example sexual and ethnic minorities) and that people who are high in openness can still be intolerant of those with conflicting worldviews.[35]
Regarding
Subjective well-being and mental health
Openness to experience has modest yet significant correlations with
.Openness to experience correlates with life satisfaction in older adults after controlling for confounding factors.[38]
Openness appears to be unrelated to the presence of mental disorders.[clarification needed] A meta-analysis of the relationships between five-factor model traits and symptoms of psychological disorders found that none of the diagnostic groups examined differed from healthy controls on openness to experience.[6]
Openness to experience may contribute to graceful aging, facilitating healthy memory and verbal abilities as well as a number of other significant cognitive features in older adults.[39]
Personality disorders
At least three aspects of openness are relevant to understanding personality disorders:
High openness is characteristic to schizotypal personality disorder (odd and fragmented thinking), narcissistic personality disorder (excessive self-valuation), and paranoid personality disorder (sensitivity to external hostility). Lack of insight (shows low openness) is characteristic to all personality disorders and could explain the persistence of maladaptive behavioral patterns.[41]
Problems associated with low openness are difficulties adapting to change, low tolerance for different worldview or lifestyles,
Religiosity and spirituality
Openness to experience has mixed relationships with different types of religiosity and spirituality.[42] General religiosity has a weak association with low openness. Religious fundamentalism has a somewhat more substantial relationship with low openness. Mystical experiences occasioned by the use of psilocybin were found to increase openness significantly (see 'Drug Use,' below).
Gender
A study examining gender differences in big-five personality traits in 55 nations found that across nations there were negligible average differences between men and women in openness to experience.[43] By contrast, across nations women were found to be significantly higher than men in average neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. In eight cultures, men were significantly higher than women in openness, but in four cultures women were significantly higher than men. Previous research found that women tend to be higher on the feelings facet of openness, whereas men tend to be higher on the ideas facet, although the 55-nation study did not assess individual facets.[43]
Dream recall
A study on individual differences in the frequency of dream recall found that openness to experience was the only big-five personality trait related to dream recall. Dream recall frequency has also been related to similar personality traits, such as absorption and dissociation. The relationship between dream recall and these traits has been considered as evidence of the continuity theory of consciousness[clarification needed]. People who have vivid and unusual experiences during the day, such as those who are high in these traits, tend to have more memorable dream content and hence better dream recall.[44]
Sexuality
Openness is related to many aspects of sexuality. Men and women high in openness are more well-informed about sex and have wider sexual experience, stronger sex drives, and more liberal sexual attitudes.[31] In married couples, wives' but not husbands' level of openness is related to sexual satisfaction. This might be because open wives are more willing to explore a variety of new sexual experiences, leading to greater satisfaction for both spouses.[36] Compared to heterosexuals, people who are homosexual, asexual, or bisexual—particularly bisexuals—average higher in openness.[45]
Genes and physiology
Openness to experience, like the other traits in the five-factor model, is believed to have a genetic component. Identical twins (who have the same DNA) show similar scores on openness to experience, even when they have been adopted into different families and raised in very different environments.[46] A meta-analysis by Bouchard and McGue, of four twin studies, found openness to be the most heritable (mean = 57%) of the Big Five traits.[47]
Higher levels of openness have been linked to activity[
Geography
An Italian study found that people who lived on Tyrrhenian islands tended to be less open to experience than those living on the nearby mainland, and that people whose ancestors had inhabited the islands for twenty generations tended to be less open to experience than more recent arrivals. Additionally, people who emigrated from the islands to the mainland tended to be more open to experience than people who stayed on the islands, and than those who immigrated to the islands.[49]
People living in the eastern and western parts of the United States tend to score higher on openness to experience than those living in the Midwestern United States and the Southern United States. The highest average scores on openness are found in the states of New York, Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, and California. Lowest average scores come from North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, Alabama, and Wisconsin.[50]
Drug use
Psychologists in the early 1960s used the concept of openness to experience to describe people who are more likely to use
Cross-cultural studies found that cultures high in Openness to experience have higher rates of use of the drug MDMA, although a study at the individual level in the Netherlands found no differences in openness levels between users and non-users.[36] MDMA users tended to be higher in extroversion and lower in conscientiousness than non-users.
A 2011 study found Openness (and not other traits) increased after the use of
See also
- Trait theory – Approach to the study of human personality
- Boundaries of the mind – Personality trait concerning separateness between mental functions and processes
Notes
References
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