6 ms·

What Openness to Experience Means

39 points by jger15 4y ago

cozos 4y ago
I feel like this is overcomplicating it. Openness to experience sounds pretty straightforward to me. Openness to Experience means... being willing to experience new things. Trying new hobbies, learning new skills, yes, but also going to parties and doing drugs that all the chads and stacys are doing. Assuming that the latter two things are somewhat new experiences - but somebody whos not as open would probably not have done those things in the first place. I reject that you need go to Escher exhibitions while listening to Mozart to be "open to experiences".
- mantas 4y ago
  Well, refusing to go to Escher exhibition or give Mozart a shot is sort of being close-minded…
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    Unless the cost is ridiculously high and the apparent value tenous, much like the parents', but sometimes you gotta go
    - mantas 4y ago
      Just like other types of „experiences“. A nice orchestra concert in a good hall does not cost an arm and a leg. Reasonable tickets to opera are about the same as top-tier rock show. Value of those experiences is always subjective. Just like rock'n'roll style partying. And, just like with any experience, you don't need to go high-end if you want a good bang for a buck. I would even argue that usually best memories and experiences come from lower end. Most memorable classic music show I visited was a play in a tiny Bavarian village in a 19th-century SPA, ticket was €5 IIRC. Music was fitting, sound was good (but I'm used to shitty rock shows so...), performers did a good job (for my dumb self) and overall it was a great accent on the whole trip. I don't like the „you gotta go“ notion though. Ultimately humans have limited resources, both time and money and it comes down to priorities. Skipping a section or two of experiences does not make one less „open minded“. But calling out people for skipping a section or two does make one not „open minded“ for sure.
      - brailsafe 4y ago
        I think your experiences sound pretty rad tbh. I've been to a few small shows of varying genres including metal, funk, acoustic folk stuff, comedy, and many many symphonies, pretty much as often as I can. Almost always worth it. Though our interests align, I have a hard time agreeing with your last statement. If you're intentionally closing off categories of experiences, then it depends on why you're skipping those specific experiences whether or not it's close-minded. If you're unwilling to determine what those are actually like, (excluding more serious things like distancing yourself from drug or alcohol culture) then yes I'd say that's somewhat close-minded. If you're just allocating your resources towards the things you definitely like, then that's just a matter of some level of risk avoidance. You might not have known those small shows in Bavaria would be any good, but they turned out to be, and the same could be true or not true of anything you've just avoided. I'm not much of a party guy, it varies from season to season and night to night. But sometimes I gotta go, and it's usually but not always worth it, much like the symphonies.
        mantas 4y ago
        I agree putting resources towards known things you like is quite narrowing your experiences. Well, defining „things you like“ as few top choices. But given next-to-infinite opportunities these days, it's easy to have rather wide range of experiences and don't have much resources left for even more opportunities. That brings one more issue, depth vs width. Given how many options we have, it's not possible to go for both depth and width at the same time. In many cases going into depth open up many experiences that you can't access floating on the surface. For example, I'm deep into outdoors endurance sports, cycling/hiking/etc. I did limit width a lot by not trying yoga or scuba diving or motorcycling. However, going into depth with outdoors endurance stuff opened up another layer of experiences like overnight skiing trip in -20c or doing solo 24h mtb race. On one hand, skiing is skiing and cycling is cycling and there's not much novelty beyond 10km. On the other hand, built up stamina, skills and technical knowledge allows to expand into 3rd experiences' dimension. As for the „gotta go“, that may depend on a person a lot. I'm not a people guy and I need a lot of solo time to recharge. I did skip many social events in exchange of a silent night of Civ or coding. I know it would have been great experiences. But I doubt I'd be able to enjoy them. Social time tolerance is one more limiting resource I guess...
pydry 4y ago
>Unfortunately, a lot of people I talk to are confused about what Openness to Experience means. They assume it refers to whether you take drugs, have casual sex, go to wild parties, go hitchhiking, fly across the world on a whim, and so on. The whole article is about how his friends think that being open to experiences means automatically being into bungee jumping rather than just being willing to try it. This seems... rather obvious.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Yeah, a lot of this feels like a really elaborate "dunking on mainstream people", which, yeah of course they aren't that open to experience. The material conditions of consuming profit driven TV and living in the suburbs aren't very condusive towards broad horizons. But it's presented in a 'classification' fashion so that you can feel try to group those you meet and immediately feel superior to them, rather then be empathetic
  - mantas 4y ago
    What living in the suburbs have to do with it?
    - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
      Living in the suburbs seems pretty equivalent with this lack of experience phenomenon, just basically a lack of association with other people and experiences. He even explicitly mentions PTA meetings and "Live Laugh Love" signs, which are both pretty associated with white picket fence Americana. Maybe there's a lot of people living in Manhattan whose main concern is their 4th graders position on the football team, but I somewhat doubt it
      - mantas 4y ago
        For me it looks like the same issue of rock'n'roll partying vs Mozart. There're many city folks who don't have a wide range of concerns. Eating out in a different restaurant or going to yet another rock show or doing yet another drug after some time stops being a new experience. At the same time, tending your garden is an experience as well. Especially anything beyond a simple lawn. Ultimately spending every weekend in your backyard is as novel as visiting bars and parties every weekend.
dzink 4y ago
Nuance is awesome. Loneliness comes from people being pidgin-holed into general categories that don’t fit by prejudice or location. Nuance might help them find likeminded people around but the search would be slow, difficult, and time consuming without the web. Help people seen the nuance in you and you might end up a happier person.
runarberg 4y ago
idk. Could it be that the whole premise is simply wrong here? That in fact openness to experience is just not useful as a description of personality? When I talk about openness to experience it means exactly what the author is complaining about, openness to try out new food, to try to take the train instead of flying, and yes, try some drugs, etc. For me—and a bet to most people—it has no further implications or generalizations about people’s personalities. And the fact that psychometrisians have—after decades—still failed to demonstrate convincingly any such implications or generalizations, might indicated that the general public is right, and the scientists are wrong. This isn’t nuanced they way that the author thinks it is. Say this is how I understand the term, but I bet that when a boss talks about it, they think of the willingness to take on new tasks and responsibilities within a company (hopefully without asking for a pay raise in return), and to an upper class art elite it can mean visiting an Escher gallery or a Mozart concert (though for me, seeing a no-name punk band is a sign of more openness then established brands). The nuance isn’t in the personality of the person believed to hold this trait, it is in the user of that term. And I think the confusion stems from believing this is some scientifically useful term, used to describe a trait of personality that might not even exist.
- kragen 4y ago
  > in fact openness to experience is just not useful as a description of personality? No, construct validity for the Big Five has been replicated by many researchers. > When I talk about openness to experience it means When Paula down the street talks about "utilitarianism," it means disregard for aesthetics. That doesn't have any implications for the validity of Bentham's philosophy or whether Peter Singer is likely to decorate his house well or poorly. She just doesn't know what Bentham and Singer mean by the term. > psychometrisians [sic] have—after decades—still failed to demonstrate convincingly They have not failed. You just haven't read their papers. > I bet that when a boss talks about [openness to experience], they think If a person doesn't understand the concepts they're talking about, that's not the fault of the concepts, unless they're incoherent. It's the fault of the person who hasn't bothered to learn about the concepts. > the confusion stems from believing this is some scientifically useful term The Big Five are among the very few results in psychology that are usefully predictive; most of psychology is pseudoscience just below the Ancient Astronauts folks. The confusion does not stem from believing O2E is a scientifically useful term; it is. At best it stems from a poorly chosen "improper noun"; if they had called it "Hamiha" or "splofth-zeels", this confusion wouldn't arise.
kragen 4y ago
It's probably worth reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openness_to_experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openness_to_experience before commenting here.
aaron695 4y ago

39 points by jger15 4y ago

I feel like this is overcomplicating it. Openness to experience sounds pretty straightforward to me. Openness to Experience means... being willing to experience new things. Trying new hobbies, learning new skills, yes, but also going to parties and doing drugs that all the chads and stacys are doing. Assuming that the latter two things are somewhat new experiences - but somebody whos not as open would probably not have done those things in the first place. I reject that you need go to Escher exhibitions while listening to Mozart to be "open to experiences".

mantas 4y ago
Well, refusing to go to Escher exhibition or give Mozart a shot is sort of being close-minded…
- brailsafe 4y ago
  Unless the cost is ridiculously high and the apparent value tenous, much like the parents', but sometimes you gotta go
  - mantas 4y ago
    Just like other types of „experiences“. A nice orchestra concert in a good hall does not cost an arm and a leg. Reasonable tickets to opera are about the same as top-tier rock show. Value of those experiences is always subjective. Just like rock'n'roll style partying. And, just like with any experience, you don't need to go high-end if you want a good bang for a buck. I would even argue that usually best memories and experiences come from lower end. Most memorable classic music show I visited was a play in a tiny Bavarian village in a 19th-century SPA, ticket was €5 IIRC. Music was fitting, sound was good (but I'm used to shitty rock shows so...), performers did a good job (for my dumb self) and overall it was a great accent on the whole trip. I don't like the „you gotta go“ notion though. Ultimately humans have limited resources, both time and money and it comes down to priorities. Skipping a section or two of experiences does not make one less „open minded“. But calling out people for skipping a section or two does make one not „open minded“ for sure.
    - brailsafe 4y ago
      I think your experiences sound pretty rad tbh. I've been to a few small shows of varying genres including metal, funk, acoustic folk stuff, comedy, and many many symphonies, pretty much as often as I can. Almost always worth it. Though our interests align, I have a hard time agreeing with your last statement. If you're intentionally closing off categories of experiences, then it depends on why you're skipping those specific experiences whether or not it's close-minded. If you're unwilling to determine what those are actually like, (excluding more serious things like distancing yourself from drug or alcohol culture) then yes I'd say that's somewhat close-minded. If you're just allocating your resources towards the things you definitely like, then that's just a matter of some level of risk avoidance. You might not have known those small shows in Bavaria would be any good, but they turned out to be, and the same could be true or not true of anything you've just avoided. I'm not much of a party guy, it varies from season to season and night to night. But sometimes I gotta go, and it's usually but not always worth it, much like the symphonies.
      - mantas 4y ago
        I agree putting resources towards known things you like is quite narrowing your experiences. Well, defining „things you like“ as few top choices. But given next-to-infinite opportunities these days, it's easy to have rather wide range of experiences and don't have much resources left for even more opportunities. That brings one more issue, depth vs width. Given how many options we have, it's not possible to go for both depth and width at the same time. In many cases going into depth open up many experiences that you can't access floating on the surface. For example, I'm deep into outdoors endurance sports, cycling/hiking/etc. I did limit width a lot by not trying yoga or scuba diving or motorcycling. However, going into depth with outdoors endurance stuff opened up another layer of experiences like overnight skiing trip in -20c or doing solo 24h mtb race. On one hand, skiing is skiing and cycling is cycling and there's not much novelty beyond 10km. On the other hand, built up stamina, skills and technical knowledge allows to expand into 3rd experiences' dimension. As for the „gotta go“, that may depend on a person a lot. I'm not a people guy and I need a lot of solo time to recharge. I did skip many social events in exchange of a silent night of Civ or coding. I know it would have been great experiences. But I doubt I'd be able to enjoy them. Social time tolerance is one more limiting resource I guess...

pydry 4y ago

>Unfortunately, a lot of people I talk to are confused about what Openness to Experience means. They assume it refers to whether you take drugs, have casual sex, go to wild parties, go hitchhiking, fly across the world on a whim, and so on. The whole article is about how his friends think that being open to experiences means automatically being into bungee jumping rather than just being willing to try it. This seems... rather obvious.

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
Yeah, a lot of this feels like a really elaborate "dunking on mainstream people", which, yeah of course they aren't that open to experience. The material conditions of consuming profit driven TV and living in the suburbs aren't very condusive towards broad horizons. But it's presented in a 'classification' fashion so that you can feel try to group those you meet and immediately feel superior to them, rather then be empathetic
- mantas 4y ago
  What living in the suburbs have to do with it?
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    Living in the suburbs seems pretty equivalent with this lack of experience phenomenon, just basically a lack of association with other people and experiences. He even explicitly mentions PTA meetings and "Live Laugh Love" signs, which are both pretty associated with white picket fence Americana. Maybe there's a lot of people living in Manhattan whose main concern is their 4th graders position on the football team, but I somewhat doubt it
    - mantas 4y ago
      For me it looks like the same issue of rock'n'roll partying vs Mozart. There're many city folks who don't have a wide range of concerns. Eating out in a different restaurant or going to yet another rock show or doing yet another drug after some time stops being a new experience. At the same time, tending your garden is an experience as well. Especially anything beyond a simple lawn. Ultimately spending every weekend in your backyard is as novel as visiting bars and parties every weekend.

dzink 4y ago

Nuance is awesome. Loneliness comes from people being pidgin-holed into general categories that don’t fit by prejudice or location. Nuance might help them find likeminded people around but the search would be slow, difficult, and time consuming without the web. Help people seen the nuance in you and you might end up a happier person.

runarberg 4y ago

idk. Could it be that the whole premise is simply wrong here? That in fact openness to experience is just not useful as a description of personality? When I talk about openness to experience it means exactly what the author is complaining about, openness to try out new food, to try to take the train instead of flying, and yes, try some drugs, etc. For me—and a bet to most people—it has no further implications or generalizations about people’s personalities. And the fact that psychometrisians have—after decades—still failed to demonstrate convincingly any such implications or generalizations, might indicated that the general public is right, and the scientists are wrong. This isn’t nuanced they way that the author thinks it is. Say this is how I understand the term, but I bet that when a boss talks about it, they think of the willingness to take on new tasks and responsibilities within a company (hopefully without asking for a pay raise in return), and to an upper class art elite it can mean visiting an Escher gallery or a Mozart concert (though for me, seeing a no-name punk band is a sign of more openness then established brands). The nuance isn’t in the personality of the person believed to hold this trait, it is in the user of that term. And I think the confusion stems from believing this is some scientifically useful term, used to describe a trait of personality that might not even exist.

kragen 4y ago
> in fact openness to experience is just not useful as a description of personality? No, construct validity for the Big Five has been replicated by many researchers. > When I talk about openness to experience it means When Paula down the street talks about "utilitarianism," it means disregard for aesthetics. That doesn't have any implications for the validity of Bentham's philosophy or whether Peter Singer is likely to decorate his house well or poorly. She just doesn't know what Bentham and Singer mean by the term. > psychometrisians [sic] have—after decades—still failed to demonstrate convincingly They have not failed. You just haven't read their papers. > I bet that when a boss talks about [openness to experience], they think If a person doesn't understand the concepts they're talking about, that's not the fault of the concepts, unless they're incoherent. It's the fault of the person who hasn't bothered to learn about the concepts. > the confusion stems from believing this is some scientifically useful term The Big Five are among the very few results in psychology that are usefully predictive; most of psychology is pseudoscience just below the Ancient Astronauts folks. The confusion does not stem from believing O2E is a scientifically useful term; it is. At best it stems from a poorly chosen "improper noun"; if they had called it "Hamiha" or "splofth-zeels", this confusion wouldn't arise.

kragen 4y ago

It's probably worth reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openness_to_experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openness_to_experience before commenting here.

aaron695 4y ago