The psychedelic personality: personality structure and associations in a sample of psychedelics users.
Abstract
Research on the relationship between personality and psychedelics use has found evidence of a two-way influence where the personality structure predicts individual responses to psychedelics, and psychedelics use results in lasting changes to the individual’s personality structure. This study used brief personality measures in the form of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) and a simplified version of the Risk Taking Index (RTI) in order to measure personality traits in a sample of psychedelics users (N = 319). The participants in the study scored consistently higher than norms on each of the Big Five traits except Extraversion, and on every dimension of risk taking in the RTI. In multivariate logistic regression analyses, personality structure was associated with characteristics of the psychedelic experience that included the feelings of fear, love, and peace as well as states of perceived contact with non-ordinary beings and transcendent forces.
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Ingestion of a psychedelic drug can induce rapid and persisting changes in personality traits, particularly reductions in neuroticism, in both healthy and clinical populations.
“It has been repeatedly found that ingestion of a psychedelic drug can induce rapid and persisting changes in personality traits, and particularly reductions in neuroticism, in both healthy and clinical populations (24, 35–41).”
From Decreases in State and Trait Anxiety Post-psilocybin: A Naturalistic, Observational Study Among Retreat Attendees (2022) · cites this paper as [38]
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- Authors
- Johnstad, P. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Bergen (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Johnstad, Petter Grahl
- Venue
- Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-11-29
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 97-103
- ISSN
- 0279-1072 (ISSN-L)
- 2159-9777
- OpenAlex
- W3109765150
- Cited by
- 29
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 1.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- public, commercial, or not-for-profit
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychedelics and Drug Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Keywords
- psychedelics, personality structure, Big Five personality traits, risk-taking, Ten-Item Personality Inventory, psychedelic experience, mystical experience, fear, love, peace, transcendent experience
- MeSH terms
- Emotions, Hallucinogens, Humans, Personality, Personality Inventory
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