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

Latent Inhibition (LI) is an attentional phenomenon in which repeated pre-e xposure to a stimulus that is not reinforced retards future associability t o that stimulus. LI adaptively allows the individual to categorize stimuli as relevant or irrelevant to goal attainment at a level below that of consc ious awareness. Previous research has linked reduced LI with psychopatholog ical conditions, such as acute schizophrenia and elevated scores on the Eys enck 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 associatio n of Openness with flexible cognitive categorization. Results supported thi s 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 L I may impart cognitive advantages in certain personality configurations. (C ) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.