How Our Personality Traits Influence Our Psychedelic Experiences

Our personalities affect almost every interaction we have with the world. How we react to things, how and who we make friends with, what we like, what we dislike, even what we dream about. Some of our personality traits are determined by our genes, others we form based on our life experiences. By the time we reach adulthood, our personalities are usually pretty settled, with just some minor, slow changes as we age. 

However, researchers have found that psychedelics can notably alter our personalities, well into adulthood, after they would usually be stable. And, they have also established that our original personalities can affect the trip we have in the first place. So our personalities influence our trip, which in turn goes on to influence our personalities! Sounds like a pretty trippy cycle if you ask us! But before we get too dizzy, let’s delve into the research…

The ‘Big Five’ Personality Traits

Before we get into what psychedelics do to our personalities and vice versa, let’s hammer out the 5 main personality traits. These are known as the Big Five Model and are the generally agreed upon personality theory in psychology. Each trait symbolizes a spectrum with the extremes on either end. Depending on their personality, most people fall somewhere around the middle. 

Agreeableness 

Agreeableness reflects how you interact with other people. People who have high levels of agreeableness are nice basically. They are warm, and tend to make others feel seen and at ease. When people have low agreeableness they tend to be harder for most people to be around, as they can often lack empathy. This means they either ignore or do not notice the feelings and needs of others. 

Extraversion

As you probably know, extraversion refers to someone’s urge to seek out social situations, and the enjoyment they get from them. 

Someone with high levels of extraversion — or an extrovert — tend to be outgoing, expressive, talkative, and generally keen to get amongst it. Those with low extraversion — introverts — are more reserved, taking a backseat in social situations. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they hate socializing, rather it may be that it does not come as naturally, or tires them out. 

Conscientiousness 

Conscientiousness indicates your ability to set goals and follow goals for yourself — getting things done without being sidetracked by more fun, but unproductive, things. Someone with high levels of conscientiousness is driven, focused, and determined and is only satisfied when their task is complete. Someone with low conscientiousness may give up more easily when faced with a challenge, overcome with the impulse to abandon the task when it becomes frustrating.  

Openness to Experience

Openness to experience dictates how willing (or not) a person is to try new things and step outside their comfort zone. If you are a highly open person, you have a deep curiosity about the world — you may also be artistic, creative and imaginative. If you have a lower openness rating you may err to a more practical vibe. You prefer routine and may struggle with spontaneous creativity. 

Neuroticism

Neuroticism reflects your emotional stability and your likelihood of experiencing negative emotions. It is also measured by how you tackle the challenges of life, and on top of that, your attitude towards them. People with high levels of neuroticism are usually anxious and tend to doubt themselves — causing low self-esteem and negative emotions. Those who have low neuroticism tend to be more self-assured and calm. They trust their own judgment, and therefore have higher self-esteem. 

Psychedelics are Disruptors

One of the most confounding things about psychedelics is that they seem to have the power to disrupt our previously stable personality traits — yes, even the Big 5. And these changes can be both profound and long-lasting, opening up our minds, altering our perspectives, providing insight that may have previously been unreachable. 

This remarkable ability can be attributed to psychedelics’ capacity to open our minds. Working to integrate these changes can make them much more long-lasting as well as healing. This is why mental health practitioners are keen for more research to be done in this area — stat. You see, being able to positively alter negative personality traits would be of great benefit to the wellbeing of their patients.  But first of all, it is key to know how already existing individual personality traits could affect a psychedelic experience.

Can Personality Traits Affect a Psychedelic Trip?

They sure can! Turns out the data on that question marks highly on the Agreeableness scale. Researchers have found that how you experience and respond to a psychedelic trip (specifically psilocybin from magic mushrooms) can depend on your personality. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs found a correlation between the Big Five personality traits and how a person reacted to a psilocybin experience. 

Some of the key findings were:

• People who had high levels of Openness were more likely to experience “love, inner visions, and contact with non-ordinary beings and transcendent forces” during their psychedelic journey.
• Extroverts reported experiencing deeper connections to other people. Interestingly, they were the least likely to encounter “non-ordinary beings”. The researchers suggest this is because those who score high on the extraversion scale are more likely to look outwards than inwards. 
• Those who had high levels of Neuroticism were more likely to have a ‘bad’ or challenging trip. 
• Those who are emotionally stable are less likely to experience fear during a psilocybin journey.
• Those who are adventurous ‘risk-takers’ are more likely to experience ego death as they tend to seek out the extremes of any experience.   

Can Psychedelics Affect Your Personality Traits?

On the flip side, can psychedelics affect your personality traits? Why, yes, yes they can. According to recent studies psychedelics are able to:

• Decrease neuroticism
• Increase openness
• Increase extroversion
• Increase conscientiousness 

These findings are based on a 2018 study called ‘Effects of psilocybin therapy on personality structure’ published in  Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. This study was investigating the effects of psilocybin in a therapeutic and supportive setting on personality traits. The 20 patients all had treatment resistant depression. 

The study utilized the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) to measure the personality traits of each patient. The results showed a general decrease in neuroticism scores, and an increase in openness and extraversion scores. Conscientiousness scores increased a very small amount, while interestingly, agreeableness scores remained the same. 

 Some may argue that similar results can be reached via conventional antidepressant treatment. However, psilocybin therapy seems able to increase openness and extraversion in a way that other treatments cannot manage. It was found that the more ‘open’ the patients were the more likely they were to have a musical and transformative experience. Those with high levels of neuroticism had only minor improvements to their depressive symptoms. 

After a 3 month follow-up it was found that the patients had maintained results. This implies that just one large dose of psychedelics (coupled with psychological support) is enough to induce long-lasting changes to an individual’s personality. 

What About Microdosing?

So sure, large doses of psilocybin can affect our personality traits. But what about when we microdose psilocybin instead? Well, ding, ding, ding! Turns out microdoses, though small in size, can have a significant effect on our personalities too. New studies have shown that microdosing can alter your personality, introducing positive changes in your behavior, while helping you curb bad habits. 

A 2021 study titled Exploring the relationship between microdosing, personality and emotional insight: A prospective study published in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies set out to explore if microdosing leads to changes in personality traits (when self-reported by the user.)

The study had 76 participants, who needed both prior and current microdosing experience. They also needed to have no previous or current mental-health related diagnoses. After logging their answers to an online survey they were asked to continue their microdosing routine for another month. After this time, when surveyed again, the participants reported decreased Neuroticism and an increase in conscientiousness. Openness, Extraversion and Agreeableness remained the same, however. Another significant change participants noted was a general feeling of being more organized, ‘together’, and driven ,which helped them to carry out daily, quotidian tasks. 

Does Personality Influence Microdosing Effectiveness?

Again, we must look at the other side of the coin. Will my personality affect how I respond to microdosing? Again the answer is yes. The same study discovered that people with high levels of Neuroticism don’t get on as well with microdosing. However, those with high levels of Extraversion were more likely to sustain their routine long-term. 

How Our Personality Traits Influence Our Psychedelic Experience: The Takeaway

• New research has found that our personalities can affect how we experience a psilocybin trip.
• On the flipside, studies have also found that psychedelics can alter our already existing personality traits.
• The ‘Big Five’ personality traits are Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism.
• Those with higher levels of ‘Openness’ tend to have more spiritual and fulfilling trips than those with high levels of Neuroticism.
• Individuals administered a large dose of psilocybin reported increased Openness and Extroversion, alongside a decrease in Neuroticism. 
• When microdosing, those with higher levels of Extraversion were more likely to keep at it, while those with high Neuroticism were more likely to stop. 
• Microdosing psilocybin was found by users to increase Conscientiousness, while decreasing Neuroticism. 

These findings are incredible because they suggest that things we thought were pretty much solidified (our personalities) can actually be molded and changed for the better by psychedelics. This is great news for those who suffer from mental health conditions, who perhaps previously could not imagine the possibility of change and healing.