Openness to Experience Rather than Overexcitabilities

Abstract

In the theory of positive disintegration (TPD), Dabrowski (1967) describes manifestations of inner energy that serve a developmental purpose and might be more frequently found in gifted individuals, called overexcitabilities (OEs). Most studies present OEs outside of the context of the original theory (Mendaglio, 2012). Atheoretically conceptualized, OEs seem to define the personality trait of openness to experience as each OE can be matched with a specific facet of openness. Descriptions of each facet of openness and its matching OE are very alike. In this paper I argue that they are conceptually equivalent and that current research on openness and OE supports this. The study examined the similarity of OEs to corresponding openness to experience facets via competing models in multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, given their conceptual similarity. O2: Aesthetics and sensual OE, and O5: Ideas and intellectual OE were represented by a single underlying latent construct. High correlations emerged among O1: Fantasy and imaginational OE, O2: Aesthetics and sensual OE, O3: Feelings and emotional OE, and O5: Ideas and intellectual OE; O4: Actions and psychomotor OE had a small positive correlation; and O6: Values had a small negative correlation to emotional OE. Openness to experience seems to encompass OEs; thus, giftedness researchers and practitioners should align with well-researched psychological theories such as the five-factor model of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg. 1999) and begin to talk about openness rather than OEs.