‘Openness‐to‐Experience’ as a Descriptor of the Student Actress Personality

Abstract This comparative investigation examines some of the tensions, commonalities and research opportunities which arise when a school of acting is incorporated in a university faculty of social sciences. The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) and a ‘Big Five’ personality questionnaire, the NEO‐PI‐R, were administered to a sample of 85 students (32 males and 53 females) at the East 15 School of Acting. The 16PF profiles were compared to those for British undergraduate norms for arts and social sciences students. Forty‐three of the female East 15 students were sample matched on age and sex with 43 undergraduate students reading educational psychology in the Department of Education and Community Studies at the University of East London. The potential actresses were found to be significantly more assertive, happy‐go‐lucky, imaginative, experimenting, forthright and tense and much less conscientious and controlled, i.e. more careless of protocol, than the potential teachers. When the 16PF seco...