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 type 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.

What is openness to experience?

When we talk about openness to experience, we refer to certain personality characteristics that generate a propensity to make decisions related to going outside your comfort zone People with this trait are individuals who generally have no problems 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 with rigid personality characteristics, in which ingenuity does not predominate but rather structured thinking.

The characteristics that best define this element of personality have to do with the behavioral 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: one seeks to travel, meet people, try hobbies that one did not know until that moment, etc.

On the other hand, statistically, openness to experience is associated with having a level of intelligence somewhat higher 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 level of intelligence 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 true in each individual case.

What characteristics do these people possess?

Now we will review 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 in 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 occur with a greater frequency than expected.

1. Originality

In general, people with a lot of openness of experience tend to have a high level of creative thinking regarding the actions they perform. They are people who do not seek to copy something that has already been done, but rather 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 seek inspiration from sources that are new to them, thus seeing the need to leave their comfort zone to find the answer. to your inspiration.

2. Imagination

Imaginative people also tend to be those who leave their comfort zone often, since they are able to create new and original scenarios in their minds in which they feel comfortable and usually seeks to put these experiences into practice in one sense or another.

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

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 demonstrate openness towards changes, since these people They usually look for answers in various ways that lead them to test their perception of reality.

This characteristic is reflected in, for example, the ease of giving rise to fluid conversations by people with a tendency to openness to experience, given that they are interested in many topics, even several of which they have barely heard or read anything about. 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 usually have a greater tendency to experiment with new experiences, considering that the interests that a person presents lead them 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 rather they tend to have different thoughts in relation to those of most people. They resist social pressure more 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 related to openness to experience are those who also They better accept the differences of thought of others

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

7. Self-assessment

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

It is not about being insecure, but about not believing oneself 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

The internal locus of control refers to the subjects’ perception that the events that occur to them depend mainly on themselves, and not from its environment. People who have developed this characteristic tend to have greater possibilities of openness 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 emotions they 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 experiencing feelings that are significant and new to them, which represent the opportunity to break away from convention.