The category of “openness to experience” in psychological counseling and psychodiagnostics

Abstract

The current article is aimed to compare the constructs of openness to the experience within academic psychology and practical psychology. Specifically, similarities and differences between the two constructs, as well as the areas of their intersection are described. Within practical psychology the openness to experience is defined as the ability to recognize and acknowledge diverse and even contradictory experience; the ability to integrate ideas in situations of contradiction; and the basis for healthy mental functioning. Within academic psychology the openness to experience is associated with the ability to withstand a situation of uncertainty and / or duality; the ability to integrate new and conflicting information; the ability to reduce the effect of biases and stereotypes; the creative process and cognitive flexibility. In academic psychology, openness to experience represents one of the Big Five personality traits. There are similarities identified between the constructs, whereas the differences between them relate to the way of obtaining knowledge. Comparative analysis of openness to experience constructs in academic and practical psychology aims to contribute to the interactive complementarity of the two. This will perhaps allow for more extensive investigation of the phenomena as well as for higher measures of psychological practice validity and effectiveness.