Openness to Experience as a Basic Dimension of Personality

In this article I trace some of the historic roots of the concept of Openness to Experience and provide data on the convergent and discriminant validity of measures of Openness in the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Factor analyses demonstrate that facet scales measuring Openness to Fantasy, Aesthetics, Feelings, Actions, Ideas, and Values covary to define a broad dimension of personality; these scales are weakly and inconsistently related to psychometric measures of intelligence and to self-report measures of Intellectance that emphasize academic ability. I illustrate the construct of Openness with a case study and conclude with suggestions for exploring the role of Openness in understanding cognitive traits, consciousness and mental processes, and the interface between cognition and emotion.