Openness to experience: what is this personality trait like?

Subjects who have a personality open to experiences 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 see a list with the characteristics of this class of people. This way you will be able to recognize your level of openness to the experience, according to the number of characteristics with which you identify.

• Related article: "The Big 5 Personality Traits: Sociability, Conscientiousness, Openness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism"

What is openness to experience?

When speaking of openness to experience, reference is made to certain personality characteristics that generate a propensity to make decisions related to going outside your comfort zone. People with this trait are subjects who generally have no problem trying new methods 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 experiences than those subjects with rigid personality characteristics, in which ingenuity does not predominate but thought structured.

The characteristics that best define this element of personality have to do with behavior patterns associated with the search for new experiences., and the desire not to always be exposed to the same type of places and social interactions: looking to travel, meet people, try hobbies that were unknown until then, etc.

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

What characteristics do these people possess?

Now we will review the most characteristic features of 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 of the expected.

1. Originality

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

Creative people also have a high level of openness to new experiences, since they generally tend to look for inspiration in sources that are new to them, thus seeing the need to get out of their comfort zone to find the answer to their inspiration.

• You may be interested: "The psychology of creativity and creative thinking"

2. Imagination

Imaginative people are also usually those who go out of their comfort zone often, since they are capable of creating new and original scenarios in their minds in which they feel comfortable and therefore general seeks to put these experiences into practice in one way or another.

Thus, openness to experience is associated with the tendency to connect apparently distant ideas from one another, and the interest in translating these occurrences into actions.

3. intellectual curiosity

The curiosity for empirical knowledge, for obtaining new answers to questions that we usually make us, is also a characteristic of people who show openness towards changes, since those persons they tend to seek answers through various means that lead them to test their perception of reality.

This feature is reflected in, for example, the ease of giving rise to fluid conversations by people with tendency to be open to experience, since they are interested in many topics, even some of which they have barely heard or read any. Curiosity also means that they can start projects based on ideas that are very different from each other (drawing, programming, extreme sports, etc.).

4. varied interests

People who have a wide range of interests tend to have a greater tendency to experience new experiences, considering that the interests that a person presents lead him 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 are not always going to with the current, but they tend to have different thoughts in relation to those of the majority of the persons. 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

The subjects who score high in terms of the characteristics referring to openness to experience are those who also better accept the differences of thought of others.

The more tolerant a person is in relation to the diverse opinions of others, the greater their level of openness towards new experiences will tend to be. In other words; the higher the tolerance, the higher the level of openness to change.

7. Self appraisal

Those who are able to carry out a self-assessment exercise, and question their own beliefs, manage to open up to new ways of thinking that allow them to experience things new.

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

8. internal locus of control

Internal locus of control refers to the subjects' perception that the events that happen to him depend mainly on himself, and not your 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 able to make new decisions to promote significant changes in our lives.

9. emotionality

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

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