What makes people open minded

Cast your judgments aside, love people no matter how diverse they are from you, and open your mind so you can know more about the world and people around you before you ignorantly pass judgment on them. Open-mindedness is something everyone should add to their moral compasses because it opens our eyes to what truly makes people and ideas special. Learn more about them, see their viewpoints, and talk things out so you can both learn just a bit more about how beautifully different people can be.

These are the true characteristics of an open-minded person. Just open your mind and learn as much as you can about things you are uneasy about, and it will shine a warm light over your mind and make the stress of not knowing just fade away. If you strive to understand and accept ideas and people different than you, so many doors will be opened for you, and you will learn so much about different cultures and mindsets.

Learning and experiencing new realms of understanding is so freeing, and it is enjoyable to expand your horizons. Just think of the peace and friendship that acceptance and open-mindedness can bring you. When you are not barred by the walls in your mind, you will be so much happier.

If you stay stuck in your little narrow-minded box, think of all of the worldly things you will miss out on. Burst out of that box and flourish in the world around you! To enjoy the benefits of being open-minded, work on building this ability.

There are a few different aspects to open-mindedness:. The opposite of open-minded is closed-minded or dogmatic. People who are more closed-minded are usually only willing to consider their own viewpoints and are not receptive to other ideas. Even if you consider yourself a fairly open-minded person, there are probably certain topics on which you take a much harder stance: Experiences that you are passionate about or social issues, for example.

Having convictions can be great, but strong belief does not negate an open mind. Being open-minded means having the ability to consider other perspectives and trying to be empathetic to other people, even when you disagree with them. Of course, open-mindedness has its limits. It does not imply that you must sympathize with every ideology.

But making an effort to understand the factors that might have led to those ideas can be helpful in finding ways to persuade people to change their minds. Being more open-minded means enjoying some useful and powerful benefits. Open-mindedness helps you:. There are a number of things that can affect how open- or closed-minded a person is. While some of the factors that go into determining how open-minded you are might be inborn characteristics, others can be cultivated to help develop a more open mindset.

In the five-factor model of human personality , openness to experience is one of the five broad dimensions that make up human personality.

This personality trait shares many of the same qualities with open-mindedness, such as being willing to consider new experiences and ideas and engaging in self-examination. Research suggests that people expect experts to be more dogmatic about their area of expertise.

When people feel that they are more knowledgeable or skilled in an area than other people, they are less likely to be open-minded.

Researchers have found that giving participants false positive or false negative feedback about their performance on a task influenced how closed-minded they were about considering an alternative political opinion.

People have varying levels of comfort when dealing with uncertainty. Too much ambiguity leaves people feeling uncomfortable and even distressed.

Dogmatism is sometimes an attempt to keep things simpler and easier to understand. By rejecting alternative ideas that might challenge the status quo, people are able to minimize uncertainty and risk —or at least their perception of risk.

Older research does support this idea, suggesting that people who are closed-minded are less able to tolerate cognitive inconsistencies. Learning how to be more open-minded is possible, but it can be a bit of a challenge. In many ways, our minds are designed to view concepts as wholes. We develop an idea or a category of knowledge, which the psychologist Jean Piaget referred to as a schema. As we come across new information, we tend to want to sort it into one of our existing schemas in a mental process known as assimilation.

In this instance, we have to adjust our understanding of the world in a process known as accommodation. Essentially, we have to change how we think in order to deal with this new information. New York: Oxford University Press. Stanovich, K. Who is rational? Studies of individual differences in reasoning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Skip to main content. Authentic Happiness. Create new account Request new password.

Benefits of Open-Mindedness Research suggests the following benefits of open-mindedness: Open-minded, cognitively complex individuals are less swayed by singular events and are more resistant to suggestion and manipulation. Open-minded individuals are better able to predict how others will behave and are less prone to projection. Open-minded individuals tend to score better on tests of general cognitive ability like the SAT or an IQ test.

In addition to the myside bias described above, here are three other cognitive tendencies that work against open-minded thinking: 1 Selective Exposure We maintain our beliefs by selectively exposing ourselves to information that we already know is likely to support those beliefs. What Encourages Open-Mindedness? Exercises to Build Open-Mindedness In my readings, I did not uncover any open-mindedness interventions. The other group digs their heels in at the first sign of disagreement and would rather die than be wrong.

Before you smugly slap an open-minded sticker on your chest, consider this: closed-minded people would never consider that they could actually be closed-minded. Are you the real deal, or have you simply learned to talk the talk, to look the part?

These are tough questions to answer. But the advantages of having that courage are massive. The ability to change your mind is a superpower. In his book Principles , Ray Dalio, self-made billionaire and founder of the largest hedge fund in the world, lays out seven powerful ways you can tell the difference.

Closed-minded people are more interested in proving themselves right than in getting the best outcome. They get angry when you ask them to explain something.

They think people who ask questions are slowing them down. Open-minded people are more curious about why there is disagreement.