Openness to experience
Openness to experience describes how much you are drawn to new ideas, feelings, art and ways of doing things. It is one of the five broad traits in the Big Five model of personality, the model most personality researchers use today. Like the other four traits, it is a continuum: most people sit somewhere in the middle, and neither end is better than the other.
What high and low scores look like
People who score high on openness tend to enjoy abstract ideas, notice beauty in art, music or nature, and like to try unfamiliar food, places and approaches. They often question conventions and get bored when everything stays the same.
People who score low on openness tend to prefer the familiar and the practical. They like knowing what to expect, trust methods that have worked before, and focus on concrete, useful matters rather than theory. That makes them steady and down to earth, and less likely to chase novelty for its own sake.
A middle score usually means you enjoy some new experiences in some areas while preferring routine in others.
The six facets
The longer version of the test (the IPIP-NEO, built from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool) splits openness into six narrower facets:
- Imagination: a rich inner world of fantasy and daydreams.
- Artistic interests: appreciation of art, music, literature and natural beauty.
- Emotionality: awareness of your own feelings and how deeply you feel them.
- Adventurousness: eagerness to try new activities, places and foods.
- Intellect: enjoyment of ideas, puzzles and abstract thinking.
- Liberalism: readiness to question authority, tradition and convention.
Two people with the same overall openness score can look quite different at the facet level, for example someone who loves philosophy but dislikes travel. Researchers have also found that each Big Five trait splits into two broader aspects between the trait and its facets; for openness these separate interest in ideas from interest in experience and beauty.[1]
How it is measured
Openness is measured with short statements such as "I have a vivid imagination" that you rate from "very inaccurate" to "very accurate" for yourself. Your answers are averaged and compared with a large reference group, which gives a percentile: a score at the 70th percentile means you scored higher than about 70 out of 100 people in that group. A score describes how you see yourself today. It is not a diagnosis and not a measure of intelligence.
What research says
People who are more open tend to be more creative. A review that pooled many studies of artists and scientists found that creative people scored higher on openness than less creative people, and that this was one of the larger personality differences found.[2] In an earlier study of adult men, divergent thinking (coming up with many different answers to an open question) was linked to openness but not to the other four traits.[3]
Openness also shows up at school and work. A large review of studies on personality and academic performance found that openness, along with conscientiousness and agreeableness, was related to grades.[4] In a review of job performance studies, openness predicted how well people did in job training across occupations.[5]
Openness is not fixed for life. Combining long-term studies, researchers found that openness tends to rise in adolescence and to decline in old age.[6] In one experiment, older adults who spent 16 weeks training their reasoning skills and doing puzzles became more open than a comparison group who waited.[7]
These are average patterns across many people. They describe tendencies, not destinies, and they cannot tell you what any one person will do.
Living with your openness score
If you score high, you may do well in roles with variety and room for ideas, and benefit from routines that help you finish what you start. If you score low, your preference for proven methods can be a real asset in roles that reward reliability, and trying small new experiences can keep life from feeling narrow. Either way, the score is a starting point for reflection, not a label.
The free test takes about three minutes and shows your personality archetype, based on all five traits. A full report with your scores on each trait is available after the test.