Do magicians have different personality traits than laypeople? That’s the question posed by Marion Botella and Cyril Thomas in their research paper published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. In it, they reported their findings from analyzing filled-out personality questionnaires from 60 male magicians and 60 laymen.
Magicians, according to their work, have higher scores in openness, extraversion, agreeableness, creative self, and narcissism. The study also compared more experienced magicians to less experienced ones, with an experienced magician defined as having 20 or more years of practice (YOP).
It turns out that how open you are—how willing you are to try new things and seek out novelty—might depend on how much YOP you’ve got. Experienced magicians, or those with lots of YOP, scored higher for openness. And if you’re thinking that the reason experienced magicians might be more open is simply because they’re older, the authors note there is no significant correlation between openness and age in the general population, meaning the longer someone practices magic, the more open they become.
The study is one more stepping stone delving into the psychology and cognitive workings of magicians. But given it solely analyzes male magicians—not enough female magicians responded to their request to take part, and none with more than 20 YOP—it’s also an incomplete look at the community, something that the study points out.
Despite its narrow scope, something that all research efforts face in some form or another, it’s an interesting paper on many levels, no matter how much YOP you’ve got.
Magicians on stage by Shutterstock