Of the Big Five personality traits, at least one is a moral imperative

Openness to new experiences, a.k.a. curiosity, is imperative given the accelerating rate of social change

The Big Five personality traits model is the gift that keeps on giving. The more connections I find between the Big Five and other subjects, the more I’m convinced of its validity. As a refresher, the acronym for the Big Five is OCEAN: Openness to new experiences, Concientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Also, if you’re searching for a decent self-assessment, one that doesn’t require signing up or other hoops, I recommend this one.

The first connection I saw with the Big Five was to Jung’s typologies. Carl Jung, writing in Psychology Types (1921) was right about at least one personality dimension: introversion vs. extraversion. And even though we’ve debunked the Meyers-Briggs test (1944), which was inspired by Jung, the test’s staying power comes from its emphasis on introversion and extraversion. Think of all the introverts on dating sites, proudly displaying INFJ or another four-letter type on their profiles. Jung, and by extension, Meyers and Briggs, were on to something.

The other connection I saw was to the psychology of politics. Even though “left vs. right” oversimplifies…