Openness and other personality traits (link to personality test in thread)

Leander

Leander

Member
Something I am always wondering about is whether polyamorous folk I know have qualities that stand out as common among them compared to monogamous folk. Openness is the obvious personality trait that comes to mind. It does seem that polyamorous people have greater openness than most. That could be because being in a minority that are doing things that are socially quite different to the majority engenders greater openness, or people with greater openness are more likely to have polyamorous ideals and attachment styles, or both or more!

I found an article that speaks about this: Are Some Personality Traits More Common in Polyamorous People? Its short but interesting.

Link to a short personality test: https://www.truity.com/test/big-five-personality-test

I suspect openness may be one of the things that makes polyamory easier because dealing with the ups and downs of maintaining multiple intimate relationships benefits from the capacity to take in other people's perspectives and ideas.
 
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Hi Leander,

I consider myself to be an open person, in terms of new ideas, and extreme possibilities. Although, I am pretty much set in stone as an atheist.

The article you cited is good, and covers a lot of what probably are common for most polyamorists.

I took the Big Five Personality Test, it wasn't hard to do, it took about 15 minutes. My results were as follows:
  • Openness ... 81%
  • Conscientiousness ... 48%
  • Extraversion ... 33%
  • Agreeableness ... 67%
  • Neuroticism ... 81%
Of course, these results were based on my own self-assessment.

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
O-81%
C-44%
E-44%
A-75%
N-15%

I really don’t think I’m that agreeable, but the rest is likely accurate. Edit- I just read the definition for agreeable and it’s pretty accurate. Lol

Keep in my mind this is my second post and I’m not in any kind of poly relationship.
 
So, there *is* a trend of higher than normal openness so far.

Results from me and my partners:-

O: 94%
C: 42%
E: 73%
A: 85%
N: 37.5%

O: 94%
C: 31%
E: 71%
A: 54%
N: 77%

O: 96%
C: 46%
E: 56%
A: 94%
N: 68%

I consider myself to be an open person, in terms of new ideas, and extreme possibilities. Although, I am pretty much set in stone as an atheist.
Click to expand...

Open-mindedness and being firmly atheist are not necessarily contradictory. You may have seen this or something like it:

I would fit the definition of an agnostic atheist, I have what many would deem "mystical" experiences quite often, was raised as a Christian and believed in god when I was young. However, I have no belief or even slight suspicion that there is a god. I'm very open to ideas and possibilities in general but not god-concept ideas and possibilities. To believe or have a glimmer of belief, given my experiences and knowledge, would be the opposite of open-minded.
 
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Open 100%
Conscientious 73%
Extroverted 83%
Agreeable 73%
Neurotic 4%

OCEAN. Cute.
 
Re (from Leander):
"Open-mindedness and being firmly atheist are not necessarily contradictory. You may have seen this or something like it:"
Click to expand...

Heh, that's a pretty cool video. I've bookmarked it in my favorites.
 
Oh this is fun!
O 85%
C 67%
E 52%
A 69%
N 60%

I am also autistic, so many of the questions in the questionnaire I struggle to know how to answer really accurately. I hold fo the same quiz three or four different ways and they would all be accurate for me, however this is the result for today.
I’m curious about my partner now!
 
Interesting... I can't say I'm surprised by any of these numbers, though like @Aejay I imagine it's something like +/-10% taking the test multiple times.
O 87.5%
C 35%
E 48%
A 48%
N 35%
 
O 98%
C 62,5 %
E 40%
A 70%
N 33%

What are those other 2% of me not being open? Weird. Great test though!
 
O 100% (lol)
C 27% (yikes)
E 58%
A 81%
N 60%
 
O 100%
C 71%
E 33%
A 92%
N 48%

Wish I could say this wasn't accurate, that's a lot more neuroticism than I would like. lol.
 
O 87.5%
C 50%
E 50%
A 77%
N 29%

reading the article, I can say that when I was going on lots of dates in my early 30s (2004-2008) I had a tendency of talking very openly about my life on the first date. I was not aware of poly back then. people gave me advice that i should not talk so much about my life so I did cut back on it and began asking more questions to the other person about their life. when i was a child and teenager, I had a grandma that was very open minded. she never talked about poly, but if she was alive today I think she would be very supportive of my poly awareness.
 
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Leander said:
Something I am always wondering about is whether polyamorous folk I know have qualities that stand out as common among them compared to monogamous folk. Openness is the obvious personality trait that comes to mind. It does seem that polyamorous people have greater openness than most. That could be because being in a minority that are doing things that are socially quite different to the majority engenders greater openness, or people with greater openness are more likely to have polyamorous ideals and attachment styles, or both or more!

I found an article that speaks about this: Are Some Personality Traits More Common in Polyamorous People? Its short but interesting.

Link to a short personality test: https://www.truity.com/test/big-five-personality-test

I suspect openness may be one of the things that makes polyamory easier because dealing with the ups and downs of maintaining multiple intimate relationships benefits from the capacity to take in other people's perspectives and ideas.
Click to expand...
Took it and my strongest trait is openness.
 
Openness-94%
Conscientiousness-35%
Extraversion-74%
Agreeableness-87.5%
Neuroticism-44%

This was so interesting and it pretty much hit the nail on the head about me. Thanks for sharing this!
 
From the small sample in this thread it does seem like openness is especially high among users here, but agreeableness also averages around 75, a lot higher than the other three. As someone who scored below average in A, I notice myself worrying slightly. I wonder if higher agreeableness is something that benefits poly-relationships in general (and thus an area I should work on), or if low A might be indicative of preferring or being better suited to solo poly.

Edit:
Taking the test again, today I got:
O 96%
C 31%
E 60%
A 58%
N 37.5%
Similar pattern as before overall, and it goes to show that day-to-day mood changes can make quite a difference.
 
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O 90%
C 29%
E 23%
A 73%
N 90%
 
O- 87.5%
C- 65%
E- 44%
A- 90%
N- 44%

These results feel fairly accurate for me. I would have thought I was a little higher in my openness, but who knows.

Agreeableness is spot on though- I am forgiving and trusting (to a point; sometimes people just feel off and I have a gut instinct type of reaction of throwing up a wall - with no chance given.) And I don't like to compete (I'll step away if everything feels like a competition).
 
The linked article states
  • You have to be an engineer. Just kidding. But according to this article there are significantly more engineers among people that self-identified as poly. I’ve also seen “geekiness” and creativity mentioned in a couple of threads on Reddit, so there’s got to be something to it… It definitely takes some creativity to figure out how to dedicate enough quality time to all the partners and meet at least some of their needs!
Click to expand...
This misses the point slightly. My theory is, people with an analytical thinking mind are compelled to think about their relationship - possibly also drawn to the almost axiomatic structure on which the movement, or it's early writings, are founded - hence attracted to the label and the meetups and discussions.
More artistically inclined people may live a very similar arrangement and never feel the need to articulate it's "rules" of appear at a meetup.
So the quality would be one of a thinking/judging attitude to life. Not sure where that falls on the big-five scale.
 
I have high openness, agreeableness and neuriticism (unfortunatelly).
 
I always struggle with these quizes - are they asking how I feel vs. how I act vs. how people view me? Me now vs. me throughout my life?

For instance: question about avoiding responsibility - I grew up being hyper-responsible, oldest child and my parents trusted me and I wanted to live up to that trust. I tended to take on any responsibility that I knew I could handle, especially if I knew it would be harder for someone else to do "right" (self-confidence has never been an issue ;)) ... and then find myself stressed and exhausted (because, of course, every one of these tasks had to be done "perfectly").

Now? I have learned to say "no" to responsibilities that others can handle just fine, that I don't find important or interesting, etc. So I can focus on the things that I feel are important and meaningful - but that is a conscious decision to simplify and de-clutter my life. So, do I "avoid taking on responsibilities" - yes, but, not because I fear responsibility, but because I value my well-being

Jane(feeling-philosophical-today)Q
 
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