Latent Inhibition and Openness to Experience in a high-achieving student population

Latent Inhibition (LI) is an attentional phenomenon in which repeated pre-exposure to a stimulus that is not reinforced retards future associability to that stimulus. LI adaptively allows the individual to categorize stimuli as relevant or irrelevant to goal attainment at a level below that of conscious awareness. Previous research has linked reduced LI with psychopathological conditions, such as acute schizophrenia and elevated scores on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Psychoticism Scale. We tested the hypothesis that reduced LI would be related to Openness to Experience, a dimension of Costa and McCrae’s Five Factor Model of Personality, due to the association of Openness with flexible cognitive categorization. Results supported this hypothesis: the correlation between LI and Openness among high-achieving individuals was substantial and highly significant (r=−0.44, P=0.0001) even when other relevant aspects of personality were held steady. Reduced LI may impart cognitive advantages in certain personality configurations.