Openness to Experience: Its Lower Level Structure,Measurement, and Cross-Cultural Equivalence

Openness to Experience is an important but relatively poorly understood personality construct. Advances in openness research require further construct clarification as well as establishment of a common framework for conceptualizing and measuring the lower level structure of the construct. In this article, we present data from 3 studies to address this research need. In Study 1, we identify 6 facets of Openness to Experience—intellectual efficiency, ingenuity, curiosity, aesthetics, tolerance, and depth—based on a factor analysis of 36 existing Openness-related scales. In Study 2, we present further validity evidence for the 6-facet structure based on a newly developed measure of Openness. Data from this study also suggest the presence of 2 intermediate-level factors (i.e., aspects) of Openness: intellect and culture. In Study 3, we present a short form of the newly developed measure, retaining items that showed the highest internal consistency and measurement invariance across 3 samples: U.S. undergraduates, Chinese MBA students, and Chinese undergraduates. Together these 3 studies offer a more nuanced understanding of the multifaceted nature of the Openness construct.     

Validity of Six Openness Facets in Predicting Work Behaviors: A Meta-Analysis

To illustrate the importance of facet-level investigations in predicting organizational outcomes and the need for more primary studies on this topic, we conducted a meta-analysis that took an exploratory look at differential relationships among 7 organizational criteria and Openness traits varying in breadth. Nine Openness predictors—the global dimension, 2 aspects (intellect and culture), and 6 facets (intellectual efficiency, ingenuity, curiosity, aesthetics, tolerance, and depth)—were examined in relations with various organizational criteria such as traditional performance outcomes (task performance, contextual performance, counterproductive work behavior), turnover, leadership effectiveness, training performance, and adaptive performance. Our results support the idea that Openness facets could exhibit differential validity for many organizational outcomes.     

Attitudes and Practices Among Internists Concerning Genetic Testing

Many questions remain concerning whether, when, and how physicians order genetic tests, and what factors are involved in their decisions. We surveyed 220 internists from two academic medical centers about their utilization of genetic testing. Rates of genetic utilizations varied widely by disease. Respondents were most likely to have ordered tests for Factor V Leiden (16.8 %), followed by Breast/Ovarian Cancer (15.0 %). In the past 6 months, 65 % had counseled patients on genetic issues, 44 % had ordered genetic tests, 38.5 % had referred patients to a genetic counselor or geneticist, and 27.5 % had received ads from commercial labs for genetic testing. Only 4.5 % had tried to hide or disguise genetic information, and <2 % have had patients report genetic discrimination. Only 53.4 % knew of a geneticist/genetic counselor to whom to refer patients. Most rated their knowledge as very/somewhat poor concerning genetics (73.7 %) and guidelines for genetic testing (87.1 %). Most felt needs for more training on when to order tests (79 %), and how to counsel patients (82 %), interpret results (77.3 %), and maintain privacy (80.6 %). Physicians were more likely to have ordered a genetic test if patients inquired about genetic testing (p?<?.001), and if physicians had a geneticist/genetic counselor to whom to refer patients (p?<?.002), had referred patients to a geneticist/genetic counselor in the past 6 months, had more comfort counseling patients about testing (p?<?.019), counseled patients about genetics, larger practices (p?<?.032), fewer African-American patients (p?<?.027), and patients who had reported genetic discrimination (p?<?.044). In a multiple logistic regression, ordering a genetic test was associated with patients inquiring about testing, having referred patients to a geneticist/genetic counselor and knowing how to order tests. These data suggest that physicians recognize their knowledge deficits, and are interested in training. These findings have important implications for future medical practice, research, and education.     

Simulation Studies of Descending and Reflex Control of Fast Movements

Several neurological control strategies for fast head movements are considered using computer simulations of a stretch reflex model. Each control strategy incorporates a different amount of proprioceptive feedback contributing to braking and/or clamping the movement. The model behavior for each control strategy is qualitatively compared to experimental data that includes the agonist and antagonist EMGs, and the head position, velocity, and acceleration. Significance of the study is discussed with respect to the characteristic tri-phasic EMG pattern for fast voluntary movements and the possible roles that the stretch reflex may have in contributing to this pattern of activation.     

When elaboration leads to appropriation: Unconscious plagiarism in a creative task

Brown and Murphy's (1989) three-stage paradigm (generation, recall-own, generate-new) was used to assess the effects of participant elaboration on rates of unconscious plagiarism in two experiments using a creative task. Following the generation phase, participants imagined and rated a quarter of the ideas (imagery elaboration), generated improvements to another quarter (generative elaboration), and listened to a quarter of the ideas again without elaboration, with the remaining ideas acting as control. A week later, participants attempted to recall their own ideas, and generate new solutions to the same cues. In Experiment 1 both forms of elaboration equally increased correct recall, and decreased plagiarism in the generate-new task. However, generative elaboration led to significantly greater plagiarism in the recall-own task, but imagery elaboration did not. Participants in Experiment 2 were encouraged not to plagiarise by means of a financial incentive. However, they showed the same pattern as seen in Experiment 1. Therefore, contrary to a simple strength account, the probability of a person plagiarising another's ideas is linked to the particular nature of the elaboration carried out on that idea, rather than its familiarity.     

Examining assumptions about item responding in personality assessment: should ideal point methods be considered for scale development and scoring?

The present study investigated whether the assumptions of an ideal point response process, similar in spirit to Thurstone's work in the context of attitude measurement, can provide viable alternatives to the traditionally used dominance assumptions for personality item calibration and scoring. Item response theory methods were used to compare the fit of 2 ideal point and 2 dominance models with data from the 5th edition of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (S. Conn & M. L. Rieke, 1994). The authors' results indicate that ideal point models can provide as good or better fit to personality items than do dominance models because they can fit monotonically increasing item response functions but do not require this property. Several implications of these findings for personality measurement and personnel selection are described.     

Impaired auditory recognition memory in amnesic patients with medial temporal lobe lesions

Two tests of auditory recognition memory were given to four patients with bilateral hippocampal damage (H+) and three patients with large medial temporal lobe lesions and additional variable damage to lateral temporal cortex (MTL+). When single stimuli were presented, performance was normal across delays as long as 30 sec, presumably because information could be maintained in working memory through rehearsal. When lists of 10 stimuli were presented, performance was impaired after a 5-min delay. Patients with MTL+ lesions performed marginally worse than patients with H+ lesions, consistent with findings for recognition memory in other modalities. The findings show that auditory recognition, like recognition memory in other sensory modalities, is dependent on the medial temporal lobe.     

Neural processing associated with true and false memory retrieval

We investigated the neural bases for false memory with fMRI by examining neural activity during retrieval processes that yielded true or false memories. We used a reality monitoring paradigm in which participants saw or imagined pictures of concrete objects. (A subsequent misinformation task was also used to increase false memory rates.) At test, fMRI data were collected as the participants determined whether they had seen or had only imagined the object at study. True memories were of seen pictures accurately endorsed as seen, and for false memories were of imagined pictures falsely endorsed as seen. Three distinct patterns of activity were observed: Left frontal and parietal activity was not different for true and for false memories, whereas activity was greater for true than for false memories in occipital visual regions and posterior portions of the parahippocampal gyrus, and activity was greater for false than for true memories in right anterior cingulate gyrus. Possible interpretations are discussed.