Degree of Openness to Experience and Self-image Among Artistically-Talented Adolescents

Abstract

The paper is based on reports from a study on the degree of openness to experience and self-concept of artistically-talented adolescents. Openness to experience is, according to Rogers, the principal condition for the formation of a mature personality, which carries into effect its potentialities, creatively solves inner conflicts, and accomplishes goals.

Two methods were used in the study: P.T. Costa’s and R.R. McCrae’s NEO Personality Inventory, a test which allowed to select a group of adolescents with a low and high openness to experience, and Gough’s and Heilbrun’s Adjective List ACL. The latter was used to describe a real and ideal self-concept. The NEO Personality Inventory applied in the study makes up a measuring tool. It was used to assess the main dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

The scores point to co-variability between openness to experience and self-concept, both real and ideal, of the adolescent group under study. The subjects of a high openness to experience are characterized by activity and spontaneity, they tend to independence, have broad interests, search after what is new and unknown, and approach reality in a creative manner. The subjects of a low openness to experience control their action, avoiding spontaneity, seek safety and that which is well-known, tried and certain. They eagerly submit to others’ leadership.

The scores from the ideal self-concept are especially interested, the concept being most often in accord with a socially-accepted pattern. The results show that adolescents with a high openness to experience wish to raise above the fixed patterns and want to decide who they would like to be and what they want to achieve in life. Openness to experience is an essential element of self-concept formation in its emotional, intellectual and social aspect.