Openness to experience: what is this personality trait like?

A personality trait linked to Cattell's Big Five model.

People who have a personality that is open to experience are more exposed to change and novelty, and tend to take more risks than the average person.

In this article we will review the concept of openness to experience as a personality trait, and we will look at a list of the characteristics of openness to experience as a personality trait.and we will look at a list of the characteristics of this type of person. This way you will be able to recognize what your level of openness to experience is, according to the number of characteristics you identify with.

What is openness to experience?

When we speak of openness to experience, we are referring to certain personality characteristics that generate a propensity to make decisions related to going out of your comfort zone.. People with this trait are subjects who generally have no objection to trying new ways of doing things, or exposing themselves to sensations that are new to them.

In turn, the concept of openness to experience as a psychological construct comes from the Big Five model.

Creative, imaginative people with a penchant for innovation tend to have a higher level of openness to experience than those with rigid personality characteristics, in whom ingenuity does not predominate but structured thinking does.

The characteristics that best define this element of personality have to do with behavior patterns associated with the search for new experiences.The desire not to always be exposed to the same type of places and social interactions: one seeks to travel, meet people, try out hobbies that one did not know before, etc.

On the other hand, statistically, openness to experience is associated with having a somewhat higher level of intelligence than the population average; however, it is perfectly possible to be very intelligent and score low on this personality trait, or to have a low level of intelligence and score high on this trait. This is more of a tendency among people who are open to experience in general, but does not necessarily hold true in each individual case.

What characteristics do these people possess?

We will now take a look at the most characteristic traits possessed by people who stand out for the trait of openness to experience. Of course, not all individuals who score high on this personality trait meet all of these characteristics, but statistically it has been seen that those who are open to experiences tend to overlap and present themselves with a higher frequency than expected.

1. Originality

Generally, people with high openness to experience tend to have a high level of creative thinking in terms of the actions they take. They are people who do not seek to copy something that has already been done, but prefer to carry out their own projects, starting from an innovative idea.

Creative people also have a high level of openness to new experiences, as they usually tend to seek inspiration from sources that are new to them, thus seeing the need to get out of their comfort zone to find the answer to their inspiration.

2. Imagination

Imaginative people also tend to be those who get out of their comfort zone often, as they are able to create new and original scenarios in their mind in which they feel comfortable and usually and usually seek to put these experiences into practice in one way or another. in one way or another.

Thus, openness to experience is associated with the tendency to connect ideas that seem distant from each other, and the interest in translating these occurrences into action.

3. Intellectual curiosity

Curiosity for empirical knowledge, for obtaining new answers to questions that we usually ask ourselves, is also a characteristic of people who show openness to change, since these people tend to seek the answers in different ways. people tend to seek answers in a variety of ways that lead them to that lead them to test their perception of reality.

This characteristic is embodied in, for example, the ease with which people with a tendency to openness to experience are able to engage in fluid conversations, since they are interested in many subjects, including many that they have hardly heard or read about. Curiosity also means that they can initiate projects based on very different ideas (drawing, programming, extreme sports, etc.).

4. Varied interests

People who have a Wide range of interests tend to have a greater tendency to experiment with new experiences, considering that the interests that a person presents lead him/her to acquire a series of knowledge related to these interests.

5. Unconventional beliefs

An essential characteristic of people who are open to new experiences is that they do not always go with the flow, but tend to think differently than most people. They are more resistant to social pressureThey are more resistant to social pressure, in the sense that they do not indefinitely embrace a way of thinking inherited from the cultural context in which they live.

6. Tolerance

Subjects who score high on the characteristics related to openness to experience are those who are also more accepting of differences in the thinking of others. are more accepting of others' differences in thinking..

The more tolerant a person is in relation to the diverse opinions of others, the higher his or her level of openness to new experiences tends to be. In other words, the greater the tolerance, the greater the level of openness to change.

7. Self-evaluation

Those who are able to make an exercise of self-evaluation, and question their own beliefs, manage to open themselves to new ways of thinking that allow them to experience new things.

It is not a matter of being insecure, but of not believing oneself to be the owner of absolute reason and of being willing to to reconsider some things in our life that may be limiting us that may be limiting us from reaching our full potential.

8. Internal locus of control

Internal locus of control refers to subjects' perception that the events that happen to them depend primarily on themselves and not on their environment.and not on their environment. People who have developed this characteristic tend to be more open to change.

When we think that the things that happen to us respond to the decisions we have made, then we are capable of making new decisions to promote significant changes in our lives.

9. Emotionality

Finally, people who are easily open to change have a high level of emotionality. That is to say, they are people who are not afraid of strong emotionsThey do not protect themselves from the possibility of being moved by an emotion.

Instead of avoiding strong emotions, they go in search of new activities, where there is the possibility of experiencing significant and novel feelings for them, which represent the opportunity to leave the conventional.