openness.md

copyright	lastupdated	subcollection
years 2015, 2019	2019-03-07	personality-insights

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Big Five openness

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Openness, or Open to Experience, is the extent to which a person is open to experiencing a variety of activities. The tables that follow qualify results for characteristics as high or low: {: shortdesc}

• Any score above the mean of 0.5 indicates a greater than average tendency for a characteristic. A score at or above 0.75 indicates readily discernible aspects of the characteristic; such scores are considered high.
• The opposite statements are true of scores below 0.50 and 0.25, which are considered low.

For more information, see Percentiles for personality characteristics.

Facets

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Brief descriptions of the dimension's facets and of individuals who score high in each facet.

Table 1. Facets (openness)

Facet	Individuals who score high...
Adventurousness / Willingness to experiment	Are eager to try new activities and experience different things. They find familiarity and routine boring.
Artistic interests	Love beauty, both in art and in nature. They become easily involved and absorbed in artistic and natural events. With intellect, this facet is one of the two most important, central aspects of this characteristic.
Emotionality / Emotionally aware / Depth of emotions	Have good access to and awareness of their own feelings.
Imagination	View the real world as often too plain and ordinary. They use fantasy not as an escape but as a way of creating for themselves a richer and more interesting inner-world.
Intellect / Intellectual curiosity	Are intellectually curious and tend to think in symbols and abstractions. With artistic interests, this facet is one of the two most important, central aspects of this characteristic.
Liberalism / Authority challenging / Tolerance for diversity	Have a readiness to challenge authority, convention, and traditional values.

Range of characteristics

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General descriptions that might apply to individuals whose scores evidence more or less of each facet of the dimension, as well as terms that might describe such individuals.

Table 2. Range of characteristics (openness)

Description of low value			Description of high value
Description	Term	Facet	Term	Description
You enjoy familiar routines and prefer not to deviate from them.	Consistent	Adventurousness	Adventurous	You are eager to experience new things.
You are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people.	Unconcerned with art	Artistic interests	Appreciative of art	You enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences.
You do not frequently think about or openly express your emotions.	Dispassionate	Emotionality	Emotionally aware	You are aware of your feelings and how to express them.
You prefer facts over fantasy.	Down-to-earth	Imagination	Imaginative	You have a wild imagination.
You prefer dealing with the world as it is, rarely considering abstract ideas.	Concrete	Intellect	Philosophical	You are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them.
You prefer following with tradition to maintain a sense of stability.	Respectful of authority	Liberalism	Authority-challenging	You prefer to challenge authority and traditional values to help bring about change.

Primary and secondary dimensions

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Information that relates the dimension to other dimensions, describing combinations of personality characteristics. Provides insight into how primary and secondary characteristics might interrelate to represent an individual's composite personality.

Table 3. Primary and secondary dimensions (openness)

Dimension		High openness	Low openness
Agreeableness	High	Idealistic, diplomatic, deep, tactful, genial	Simple, dependent
	Low	Shrewd, eccentric, individualistic	Coarse, tactless, curt, narrow-minded, callous
Conscientiousness	High	Analytical, perceptive, informative, articulate, dignified	Conventional, traditional
	Low	Unconventional, quirky	Shortsighted, foolhardy, illogical, immature, haphazard
Extraversion	High	Worldly, theatrical, eloquent, inquisitive, intense	Verbose, unscrupulous, pompous
	Low	Introspective, meditative, contemplating, self-examining, inner-directed	Predictable, unimaginative, somber, apathetic, unadventurous
Emotional range	High	Passionate, excitable, sensual	Easily rattled, easily irked, apprehensive
	Low	Creative, intellectual, insightful, versatile, inventive	Imperturbable, insensitive