Adventurousness

It is not excitement-seeking, which is about thrills and risk and belongs to extraversion. Adventurousness is about novelty: a new recipe, a different route, an unfamiliar country. The two go together often but not always.

A low score is not rigidity or fear. Low scorers have found what works and see no reason to change it, which is often the sensible position.

Four items make a short scale. A facet score moves more between attempts than the 24-item domain score, and it describes a tendency in ordinary life as the person reports it, not a diagnosis of anything.

High. People high on this facet say they prefer variety to routine and are not attached to conventional ways. In daily life that shows as ordering the dish they have never tried, moving house and job more often than others, restlessness with sameness, and a willingness to do things differently just to see what happens.

Low. People low on this facet say they prefer to stick with things they know and dislike changes. In daily life that shows as the same holiday every year, a favourite order at a favourite restaurant, loyalty to tried methods, and discomfort when a routine is disturbed. Low scorers are often the steadiest people in a changing organisation.

• Openness to experience: the broad trait this facet belongs to, with five sibling facets.

Sensation seeking relates to openness as well as to extraversion, and this facet is where the two traits meet. (Aluja, García and García, 2003)

Openness rises in young adulthood and falls a little in old age, on average. (Roberts, Walton and Viechtbauer, 2006)

Facets of the same domain can differ in how they change with age, so the domain average does not describe every facet; the openness facets are among the examples. (Mõttus and others, 2015)

• Imagination
• Artistic interests
• Emotionality
• Intellect
• Liberalism