Sometimes, anything new seems like an imposition to me. Substack has introduced features to enhance Onward? I don’t want to know about it! I can upgrade my computer to a new operating system? Give me a break! I just upgraded what feels like a couple of months ago. My health insurance has a new app that is really fancy, I am sure, if only I could bring myself to learn how to use it.
It is not only technical stuff that can challenge my dealing-with-novelty-muscle. What is the DASH diet that might be good for my brain? Who is this Nigerian novelist everybody is talking about? And why do bond prices go down right now when, according to my old economist professors, they are supposed to go up during interest hikes? I don’t care.
You probably know these days when you are allergic to any update or innovation, and learning sounds like a dirty word. For me, it’s often the days when the workload is heavy, the previous night has been short, or my head is aching.
At other times, however, new things feel like magic to me, and I can’t get enough of them. Within a couple of hours, I might order a stack of books that all sound compelling, devise various learning projects for the upcoming months, and make a long list of foreign places I want to travel to before I turn 60 in 2026.
How we humans deal with newness and transformation is an endlessly fascinating topic to me. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can create a life that incorporates meaningful change without hopping frantically from one new endeavor to the next. I suppose this tension has always existed, but nowadays, due to the range of available options and the number of offers we are bombarded with, it seems more prevailing than ever.
In psychology, several concepts deal with the human stance toward newness and how individuals differ. Let me describe three of them that I find particularly helpful. While they have some overlap, they each put a slightly different spin on the topic.
Openness to experience
Openness to experience, or simply openness, might be the most well-known concept. It is one of the five personality dimensions that comprise the widely used five-factor model of personality, or the Big 5. (These five traits are thought to be the core dimensions that drive human behavior; apart from openness, they include extroversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.)
According to the Big 5 model, openness is a basic personality trait denoting receptivity to new ideas and new experiences; as Psychology Today explains: “People with high levels of openness are more likely to seek out a variety of experiences, be comfortable with the unfamiliar, and pay attention to their inner feelings more than those who are less open to novelty. They tend to exhibit high levels of curiosity and often enjoy being surprised. People with low levels of openness prefer familiar routines, people, and ideas; they can be perceived as closed-minded.”
Novelty seeking
A second interesting concept is novelty seeking. It was popularized by the psychiatrist Robert Cloninger (Washington University, St. Louis), who developed personality tests for measuring this trait and conducted large-scale studies in several countries, as John Tierney in the NYT explains. Novelty seeking includes four dimensions, and you can have a higher or lower score on each of them. In her Psychology Today blog, Susan Krauss Whitbourne from the University of Massachusetts gives a helpful introduction to the four facets and how you can assess where you land on the spectrum. Here is a brief summary:
Exploratory excitability: High scorers are always ready to explore new situations and find it highly rewarding. Low scorers prefer to stick to the tried and true, even if it means they miss out on some opportunities.
Impulsiveness: High scorers: Make quick decisions without necessarily considering all the consequences. Low scorers: Reflect on the pros and cons before making a decision.
Extravagance: High scorers: Spend money to obtain the rewards they desire. Low scorers: Are reserved and tend to hold out on spending money.
Disorderliness: High scorers: Spontaneous; don't like to be hemmed in by rules and regulations. Low scorers: Regimented; tend to stick to a specific routine.)
Neophilia
Yet another term is neophilia which might be the broadest and most flexible of the three. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines neophilia as “love of or enthusiasm for what is new or novel,” and, correspondingly, neophobia as "dread of or aversion to novelty.”
In her book “New. Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change”, author Winifred Gallagher describes it as an “affinity for novelty”. In her take, neophilia includes “the transient emotions of curiosity and interest, enduring traits such as boldness, shyness, and so-called novelty-seeking, and both the adventurous temperament and the creative personality.”
As with openness and novelty seeking, neophilia occurs on a spectrum, meaning your affinity for novelty can range from very strong to average to weak/non-existent. According to Gallagher, people can be roughly divided into three groups:
Neophiliacs are masters of change. They are brilliant at adapting to new circumstances, hate tradition, and get bored with routine and any repetition. They are attracted to novelty, even addicted to the new, because it gives them the external stimulation they need to feel good. These people like exploring, experimenting, and pushing the envelope but are also easily distracted.
At the other end of the spectrum are neophobes. They react to new and unexpected things with caution or even fear, prefer to stick to habits and routines and find it challenging to respond flexibly to changes. These people love to go to the same vacation spot every year and are reluctant to delve into unfamiliar situations.
In between are the neophiles who have a moderate attitude towards the new. They “want to be neither scared stiff by too much novelty nor bored stiff by too little.” They tend to explore their need for novelty in intellectual, creative, and recreational areas while valuing continuity and familiarity in relationships and work.
Gallagher estimates that the more extreme groups of neophobes and neophiliacs each comprise about 10 to 15 percent of people. The remaining 70 to 80 percent are neophiles who inhabit the middle range of the spectrum.
Psychologists use scientifically based tests to assess a person’s score for openness and novelty seeking (I am not aware of any such test for neophilia). But by reading through the descriptions, one can get at least a hunch of where one comes down on the spectrum.
In my opinion, more interesting than an overall score is one’s unique mixture of newness-related traits and attitudes. So for my part, I am clearly on the orderly side (sometimes to the chagrin of my husband, who feels putting the milk carton in the exact same spot in the fridge - and asking others to do so, too - is excessive), don’t regard myself as terribly extravagant, and stick to various kinds of routines (from doing Yoga at 7:00 am and eating the same breakfast every morning to watching the same news show every evening). On the other hand, I am endlessly curious about new books, podcasts, and art exhibitions, love my travel adventures to foreign places and can get quite excited about new work projects or ideas for new hobbies (Urban sketching? Fantastic! Learning Portuguese? Absolutely! A workshop on campervan-repair? I’m in!).
How do you approach novelty and change? Do you jump on every new exciting-looking train and are always game for changing course? Or do you prefer stability, routines, and the tried and true? In which areas do you behave inconsistently or maybe even peculiarly? I leave you to explore your own unique way.
Next week, Onward takes a break as its best - and only - writer is going on a camping trip to discover exciting new places in Northern California. In two weeks then, we will explore how being very open/ not so open to novelty can influence one’s life and what we can do to ease adverse effects.
See you then!
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