The Liberalism Facet (Openness).
Liberalism is the most easily misread facet name in the Big Five, because "liberal" carries heavy political baggage. In personality terms it has nothing to do with which party you support. It means openness to values: a readiness to question received wisdom, challenge authority, and re-examine traditions rather than accept them as given. People high and low on this facet exist across every political affiliation.
Liberalism (a facet of Openness to Experience)
Liberalism is one of the six facets of Openness to Experience in the Big Five. It captures readiness to question tradition, authority, and established convention, and willingness to reconsider values rather than take them as fixed. Despite the name, it is not a measure of party politics or left-right ideology - it describes a psychological stance toward convention and re-examination, which can show up across the whole political spectrum.
This page explains what the Liberalism facet measures, why it is not partisan politics, what high and low scores look like, how it sits apart from the other Openness facets, and the trade-offs at each end.
What Liberalism measures
Liberalism is your willingness to question the established and reconsider values: treating tradition, authority, and conventional rules as open to examination rather than as settled, and being comfortable revising your views in light of new arguments. High scorers readily challenge "the way things are done" and reassess inherited assumptions; low scorers respect tradition and established authority and prefer the stability of long-standing arrangements.
The crucial clarification is that this is a stance, not a platform. It measures readiness to re-examine convention, not a set of policy positions. Someone can score high on Liberalism - constitutionally inclined to question authority and rethink norms - while holding views that look conventional, and someone politically progressive can score low because they hold their own values as settled and beyond question.
High and low
High Liberalism shows up as a questioning posture toward convention: norms get examined rather than assumed, authority is asked to justify itself, and inherited traditions are weighed on their merits. It supports reform, fresh thinking about old problems, and the willingness to say that an accepted practice no longer makes sense.
Low Liberalism is not the same as rigid or unthinking. Low scorers value tradition, continuity, and established authority, finding stability and wisdom in arrangements that have stood the test of time. They can be slow to revisit settled questions, but they provide ballast, respect hard-won institutional knowledge, and guard against discarding things that work simply because they are old.
How it differs from the other Openness facets (and from politics)
First, the key distinction: Liberalism the facet is a psychological readiness to question convention and re-examine values, not a political label. It correlates loosely with self-described political orientation but is not the same thing, and framing it as a party preference misreads it. People at both ends of this facet are found across the whole political spectrum.
Within Openness, Liberalism is only the openness-to-values facet. It is distinct from Imagination (a vivid inner fantasy life), Artistic Interests (sensitivity to art and beauty), Emotionality (openness to your own feelings), Adventurousness (appetite for new experiences and variety), and Intellect (curiosity about ideas and abstract problems). These can diverge: someone high on Liberalism but low on Intellect readily challenges conventions without much taste for abstract theory, while someone high on Intellect but low on Liberalism loves ideas yet holds traditional values firmly in place.
Trade-offs
At the high end, a strong readiness to question convention can mean challenging rules that exist for good reasons, unsettling arrangements that were working, or treating every norm as up for renegotiation when some stability is needed. At the very high end it can shade into reflexive contrarianism. At the low end, the cost is slower adaptation when conventions genuinely have outlived their use, and a tendency to defend the established simply because it is established. Neither pole is better - they balance reform against continuity, and the useful move is to know which one you are and weigh the other side before deciding when to keep a tradition and when to retire it.
Also relevant: All 30 facets explained
Frequently asked questions
What does it mean to score high on Liberalism (the Openness facet)?
You readily question tradition, authority, and convention, and you are willing to reconsider values rather than treat them as fixed. It is the "openness to values" component of Openness, and it describes a questioning stance toward the established - not a political party or ideology.
Does the Liberalism facet mean I am politically liberal or left-wing?
No. Despite the name, this facet is not a measure of party politics or left-right ideology. It captures readiness to question convention and re-examine values, which exists across the whole political spectrum. It correlates only loosely with self-described political orientation, so a high or low score says nothing definite about how you vote.
Is low Liberalism the same as being rigid or closed-minded?
No. Low Liberalism means valuing tradition, continuity, and established authority - finding stability and accumulated wisdom in long-standing arrangements. It is independent of the other Openness facets and is a legitimate stance, not a deficit, providing ballast and guarding against discarding things that work simply because they are old.
How do I find my Liberalism score?
Our 300-item Big Five test scores all 30 facets, including Liberalism, against population norms; the 120-item form also resolves the facets. The shorter 50-item and 10-item forms give your Openness trait score but do not break it into facets.
References
- Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1995). Domains and facets: Hierarchical personality assessment using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 64(1), 21-50.
- Carney, D. R., Jost, J. T., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2008). The secret lives of liberals and conservatives: Personality profiles, interaction styles, and the things they leave behind. Political Psychology, 29(6), 807-840.
- Johnson, J. A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the Five Factor Model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIP-NEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78-89.
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