Synonyms
Definition
Openness to Experience is a multifaceted personality dimension that is generally associated with a willingness to engage with complex and novel environmental stimuli including ideas, individuals, cultures, sensations, as well as other experiences.
Introduction
Openness to Experience, one of the Big Five personality traits, is a dimension characterized by a desire to broaden one’s sensory and intellectual experiences by seeking out novelty and challenging information to more deeply examine the human condition. Renowned personality researchers, McCrae and Costa (1997), explain how, “openness is seen in the breadth, depth, and permeability of consciousness, and in the recurrent need to enlarge and examine experience” (p. 826). In recent years, efforts have been made to define openness more stringently, as it can be represented both by an inclination to experience culture and art and the ability to be receptive to...
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Boyd, P. (2020). Openness. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1258
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