Perceptions of psychedelic personality change, determinants of use, setting and drug moderation: Toward a holistic model
Analysing free-text reports from psychedelic users and survey data from users and non‑users, the study identified 52 distinct perceived personality‑change themes that aggregated into eight higher‑order factors and showed that openness, extraversion and neuroticism predict interest in and outcomes of psychedelic use. These results support a tentative holistic model in which baseline personality, drug type and setting interact to produce diverse, clinically relevant personality changes, and they point to directions for prospective research and psychedelic‑assisted therapies.
Authors
- David Erritzoe
- Brandon Weiss
- William Keith Campbell
Published
Abstract
Background
Studies have shown evidence for long-term effects of psychedelics on personality, but comprehensive models of psychedelic-mediated personality changes have yet to be explored.
Aims
The present study aims to investigate (1) perceptions of personality change in the general population, (2) moderators of perceived personality change including setting and drug type, and (3) whether personality predisposes individuals to use psychedelics.
Method
Paid participants with experience using psychedelic (N = 218), non-users with interest in using psychedelics (N = 104), and non-users without interest in using psychedelic (N = 104) completed an online survey following recruitment from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Psychedelic users were asked to complete written open-ended accounts of perceived personality changes that they attribute to their most intense psychedelic experience. Thematic and factor analyses were undertaken to identify themes of perceived psychedelic change and their organizational structure.Results/OutcomesThematic analyses resulted in 52 unique personality change themes, and exploratory factor analyses yielded eight thematic factors (Unitive Spiritual, Gratitude Absorption, Purpose Freedom, Compassion Understanding, Emotional Stability, Openness Perspective, Connection to Self, and Neuroticism Caution). Interest in psychedelic use among non-users was associated with higher openness and neuroticism. Psychedelic users tended to be more open and extraverted, and less neurotic than non-users, and interested non-users tended to be higher in openness than uninterested non-users.Conclusion/InterpretationThe present results inform a tentative model of how personality leads to psychedelic use, how psychedelic use leads to changes in personality, and how setting and drug moderate different types of changes in personality. Research and clinical implications are discussed, including (1) hypotheses for future prospective and experimental research, (2) the value of creating multi-faceted, holistic measures that reflect the diversity and organizational structure of possible psychedelic changes, and (3) the value of allowing such evidence to guide novel psychedelic-assisted therapeutics.
Research Summary of 'Perceptions of psychedelic personality change, determinants of use, setting and drug moderation: Toward a holistic model'
Introduction
Over the past two decades, research has suggested that psychedelic compounds can produce lasting changes in mental health, personality and philosophical beliefs, but findings have been mixed and fragmented across different measurement approaches. Previous studies have often relied on pre-selected quantitative scales or small qualitative samples focused on specific clinical outcomes, leaving no unified model that captures the diverse ways people report changes in the self following psychedelic experiences. The authors propose that an important preliminary step toward a holistic model is to collect unconstrained, open-ended accounts of perceived personality change from a broad sample, thereby mapping the variety of trait-level changes people attribute to psychedelics without imposing a priori categories. This study therefore set out to (1) document the range of perceived dispositional changes people report after their most intense psychedelic experience, (2) characterise the latent structure among these change themes and examine whether setting and drug type moderate different kinds of perceived change, and (3) assess whether baseline personality traits predispose people to seek or use psychedelics. The investigators treated the project as hypothesis-generating: they sought to produce a bottom-up taxonomy that could inform future prospective and experimental tests of actual personality change and guide measurement and therapeutic applications.
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Study Details
- Study Typeindividual
- Journal
- Topics
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- APA Citation
Weiss, B., Sleep, C. E., Beller, N. M., Erritzoe, D., & Campbell, W. K. (2023). Perceptions of psychedelic personality change, determinants of use, setting and drug moderation: Toward a holistic model. Journal of Psychedelic Studies, 7(3), 200-226. https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2023.00291
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