The third instalment of my little excursion into my own psyche via the BIG FIVE personality trait test. I’m tackling one of the individual traits in each of this five part series.
I took this online version of the test because it's free and being a Dime Store Philosopher and unemployed musician doesn’t pay too well. There are better versions of these tests on more established outlets but they are behind paywalls so this one will have to do.
The Big Five character traits are Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. All five were scored on scores out of 20 in 6 subcategories (0-120 points scale total) and the data is collected by asking the test taker to answer how accurately a series of statements describe their personality by their own judgement. You answer on a 5 point scale between ‘Very Inaccurate’ and ‘Very Accurate’.
Here are my results in a broad view. I’ll expand on them each in turn.
‘OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE’ is defined as ‘a dimension of cognitive style that distinguishes imaginative, creative people from down-to-earth, conventional people’.
‘Your score on Openness to Experience is high, indicating you enjoy novelty, variety, and change. You are curious, imaginative, and creative’.
Yeah. I’m an artist so that makes sense. I definitely prefer variety and novelty, but normally in the art I consume and make, rather than in the experiential activities I seek out and undertake. I watch all kinds of movies, read all kinds of books and listen to all genres of music. But I'm perfectly fine spending all my time doing just these things and most of my hobbies involve sitting on my fat ass while shoving Doritos down my throat.
Imagination: 12 (neutral)
‘To imaginative individuals, the real world is often too plain and ordinary. High scorers on this scale use fantasy as a way of creating a richer, more interesting world. Low scorers on this scale are more oriented to facts than fantasy’.
This makes sense for a strange reason. I am an artist and a creative, so one might expect me to score high in this one. But my imagination has always been tempered and muted because I have a neurological condition called congenital Aphantasia. I have no ‘Mind’s Eye’ space in my imagination and thus can’t imagine images and sound in my head; so my creativity is limited in that sense. I can’t build worlds in my mind when reading a book. I can’t visualise what a piece of art I am creating will look or sound like until I have made it. I feel the urge to create but lack a tool that many believe to be a fundamental aspect of creativity; mental imagery.
‘Aphantasics’ are normally drawn to STEM fields rather than artistic ones as we typically think purely in data. Because we can’t picture what we read in a book, (characters, locales, scenery, etc) so we don’t experience the ‘It was better in my head’ thing that book readers often say about film adaptations of novels. We had no imagery in our heads when we read it; it was just a story.
Because mental imagery is the norm (common to at least 98% of people), fictional books are written with this skill in mind and subsequently contain pages and pages of visually descriptive prose designed to aid the reader in building up their mental representation of the world in the story. None of this stuff is useful to us Aphantasics, in fact it makes reading these books a slog. Thus, we often prefer non-fiction or don’t read much at all. If you want to know more about Aphantasia, I wrote my dissertation on it which you can read here and I recently wrote a super weird essay about Aphantasia and psychedelic narcotics which you can read here.
If I was a normal, visualising person, I imagine my score on this one would be a lot higher.
Artistic Interests: 18 (high)
‘High scorers on this scale love beauty, both in art and in nature. They become easily involved and absorbed in artistic and natural events. They are not necessarily artistically trained nor talented, although many will be. The defining features of this scale are interest in, and appreciation of natural and artificial beauty. Low scorers lack aesthetic sensitivity and interest in the arts’.
Yep. Artist! Nuff said! I love beauty for sure but equally appreciate the ugly. I love how aggressive music can express anger and how sad music can help the listener connect with the depth of those emotional waters. I wrote a whole piece on this phenomenon called ‘Music Should Make You Feel Happy’ which explains this in more depth and you can read it here.
Emotionality: 13 (high)
‘People high on Emotionality have good access to and awareness of their own feelings. Low scorers are less aware of their feelings and tend not to express their emotions openly’.
13?!!! Barely high, I reckon. (See Anxiety in Part I: Neuroticism). But any person who is naturally creative and/or artistic will be high on this one I’d wager. I define art as ‘Creative Expression of Emotion’ so it would be the case by definition if you accept mine.
Adventurousness: 15 (high)
‘High scorers on adventurousness are eager to try new activities, travel to foreign lands, and experience different things. They find familiarity and routine boring, and will take a new route home just because it is different. Low scorers tend to feel uncomfortable with change and prefer familiar routines’.
Didn’t we do this already? See Excitement Seeking in Part II: Extraversion. I scored low on that but high here. Strange discrepancy? Almost like this free test that I found on some random website is less than academically rigorous and may in fact be unprofessional in its execution.
Intellect: 20 (high)
‘Intellect and artistic interests are the two most important, central aspects of openness to experience. High scorers on Intellect love to play with ideas. They are open-minded to new and unusual ideas, and like to debate intellectual issues. They enjoy riddles, puzzles, and brain teasers. Low scorers on Intellect prefer dealing with either people or things rather than ideas. They regard intellectual exercises as a waste of time. Intellect should not be equated with intelligence. Intellect is an intellectual style, not an intellectual ability, although high scorers on Intellect score slightly higher than low-Intellect individuals on standardised intelligence tests’.
Much to my chagrin, this is not intelligence in the quotient sense, but Intellect. ‘Intellect is an intellectual style, not an intellectual ability’, whatever that means. Regardless of the distinction, I didn’t expect to score 20. I do love playing with ideas (artist, remember) and I absolutely LOVE to debate intellectual issues. Riddles, puzzles and brain teasers; definitely. I always crushed tests too; even if I barely studied. I must resist the urge to have this particular test result printed on a T-shirt.
Liberalism: 10 (low)
‘Psychological liberalism refers to a readiness to challenge authority, convention, and traditional values. In its most extreme form, psychological liberalism can even represent outright hostility toward rules, sympathy for law-breakers, and love of ambiguity, chaos, and disorder. Psychological conservatives prefer the security and stability brought by conformity to tradition. Psychological liberalism and conservatism are not identical to political affiliation, but certainly incline individuals toward certain political parties’.
Bang in the middle is what one would expect from a centrist I imagine. I probably would have scored a lot higher on this point in my younger days; but then again most would as people often get more conservative as they get older. I was never ‘woke’ and certainly was never a socialist, but I was very adversarial towards authority as a youth and the rules they imposed.
I have also always pushed against traditions, taboos and norms that I felt were slightly antiquated, such as religion, marriage, prudishness, etc. I supposed my heart is liberal and my head is conservative, leaving my ‘soul’ to be of a centrist disposition on the whole.
I continue this shameless and narcissistic exercise in introspection tomorrow in ‘Who the fuck am I? Part IV: Agreeableness'…
Until then, thanks for reading
The Common Centrist
C.C. - I think you come out very well on your graph. I love reading about this and applying it to the world at large. I htink about which traits lead to successful interactions with others. What trait do you value most highly?